Author Archives: Stephanie

The Cat in the Hat: I Can Do That! game

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game_icdt_prod.jpggame_icdt_prod.jpgWe’re always on the look out for active games for preschool and early school age kids. It’s not always easy to design games that are right on target for these age groups. If the games are too complicated, you can quickly lose your audience and even at this age if the game seems too babyish – that can also draw a chorus of “We’re too big for this!”

A new company, I Can Do That Games www.icandothatgames.com, seems to completely understand their young audience and has created a wonderful new active game that our testers really enjoyed playing. The Cat In the Hat: I Can Do That! Game ($19.99) is an active game where the Cat in the Hat wants to see what players can do including doing the limbo under the included Trick-a-ma-stick. Game comes with 33 acitivty cards and props right out of the book including a fish, a boat, and a cake.

Parents will love the book connection and kids will enjoy watching their parents joining in the silliness of the game. Ideal for kids 4-8. For other award winning games, visit www.toyportfolio.com.

Best Digital Camera for Kids: Vtech's Kidizoom Camera

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If you’re not thrilled about handing over your expensive camera to your five year old, we highly recommend the new Kidizoom Camera from VTech. Priced at $59.99 this is a much more affordable (and safe) way to introduce your kids to photography. Features include dual eye viewing (a plus for young photographers), a 1.8 LCD screen, 16 MB of memory and an auto flash. Our testers also liked the added features of the zany faces and hats you can add to your work on the camera screen or when you put your picture on the computer. Marked 3 & up, but we’d really say more like 5 & up. We also liked that the chunky orange/yellow camera will be enjoyed by both boys and girls!For more information, visit www.toyportfolio.com.

Besides taking their own photos at family events, you can make a book together. Of course you can make a book about anything but here are some topics to get started:
1.my favorite pet
2.an alphabet book with objects found around the house
3.a book about shapes (share a Tana Hoban book for inspiration)
4.my day

Better than the Big Box of Crayola Crayons

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I didn’t think it was possible to make a better crayon dispenser than the big box of Crayola crayons we all used to look forward to at the beginning of the school year. That new crayon smell, the built-in crayon sharpener–brings you back, right? This year Crayola came up with the Crayola Telescoping Crayon Tower–pull on the center of the plastic tray and you now have three levels of crayons (150 in all), plus a sharpener. It’s one of those products that make you wish you could have one of your own for your desk. A really great gift, and at $14.95–you really could buy two!

Elmo vs. Arnold the Snoring Pig

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Elmo is back this season with new tricks in hopes of maintaining his dominance in the novelty doll category. The original Tickle Me Elmo was an Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award winner. In fact Joanne’s appearance on the Today Show helped fan the Elmo craze when Bryant Gumbel was so taken by Elmo that he played with it during several segments of the show.

More recent variations of Elmo have lost the appeal of the original Tickle Me Elmo for one very simple reason. The original was also very huggable–true it had that extra novelty–but at the end of the day you were left with a soft doll. The new versions have a hard body (to make the new tricks possible)– but gone is the huggability factor.

My favorite novelty doll is Arnold the Snoring Pig from Gund. Squeeze him and he really does snore–complete with one ear shaking — it’s hard not to hug him and, you guessed it, he’s extremely huggable. Visit www.toyportfolio.com for more info on Arnold.

Candy Land: How many times have you played it?

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If you have kids under six, the answer is probably more times than you would like to remember. For many of us we start out with fond memories from our own childhood (the game was introduced in 1949). “How cool is this?” you may say to yourself when you share the game with your kids for the first 20 times. But slowly it comes over you, “did my parents have that same sense of dread when I would run with the box and ask to play it again and again?”

Unlike so many other games for young children, Candy Land has stood the test of time because it is so straightforward and reinforces concepts that young children are working on mastering (counting, color concepts).

Don’t despair! Hasbro’s new Candy Land Castle game is a great alternative for weary parents. The new version has a clever castle form that has a lever (we love levers) –that dispenses a game piece. The goal is to fill up your game board with all of the colors in Candy Land — borrowing on another classic favorite, bingo. While we often complain about ugly plastic design, there’s something pleasing about the castle and playing pieces with this set. For other board games that tested well this season, visit www.toyportfolio.com.

Black Friday- What will it bring in toyland?

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The number one question business reporters are asking me this week–will people shop differently this holiday season? I don’t think it’s reasonable to imagine that we’re going to stop buying toys for our kids–but what will people buy? More European toys? More books and videos? On the one hand, fewer toy purchases would send a clear signal to toy retailers and toy makers that we’re serious about toy safety. But do you really want to be the parent that says to your child “we’re making a political statement darling”?

Marketing On-Line Safety: Fisher-Price, Hasbro, LeapFrog

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Responding to the concerns of worried parents over the lurking dangers to kids on the internet, toy makers are trying to make computer experiences safer.  Fisher-Price and Hasbro have created “gated environments” where parents pay for the platform or key to safe sites that also block your child from surfing the web. Taking it a step further, LeapFrog has created a platform that stimulates a computer experience on your television (not a bad idea if you’re worried about your child’s sippy cup near your expensive equipment!). Of course it should be noted that screen time is not as important for your preschooler as active physical play and creative activities that develop fine motor skills as well as imaginative play of their own making. Interacting with a screen is no substitute for interacting with real objects and real people.

Trends Other than Safety/WEBKINZ and its spawn

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For the time being–or until there’s another recall, I’m pretty talked out on the safety issue as the overriding trend in toyland.  So I thought it would be a welcomed changed of pace to discuss the more light-hearted trends we had intended on publishing in our book before we were forced to cancel the publication. The first is WEBKINZ-Connection and Collecting.

If you know a school-aged child well, you’ve probably heard about this on-line gaming phenomenon that has the whole toy industry playing catch up. Webkinz live in both the real world (stuffed animals) and in cyberspace (the stuffed animal gives you a code enabling on-line player). Players take care of their Webkinz and play arcade games. From our testers’ point of view, there is always something new to buy on the site for their pet or their room. The experience is the high-tech blend of Beanie Babies, Tamagotchis, NeoPets, and on-line shopping. Everyone wants to be the next Webkinz; even Barbie now is focusing on her on-line persona. More sites will follow. And why not? For the toymakers this is a new way of generation sales. Like toy-driven cartoons on TV, these toy-driven internet sites play on connecting, collecting, and consuming. In truth, they are long-playing commercials.  While some of the games are free without a buy in toy, players will often discover that in order to access certain rooms, or in the case of Barbie certain hair styles, you do need to pay.

Sign Up for CPSC Safety Recall Alerts

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One of the best steps you can take this holiday season is to sign up for recall email alerts which you can do at http://www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.aspx. This is the fastest way to get the information you need to determine if you have a recalled product and how to return the product for a refund. Unfortunately the companies all seem to have different policies for getting your money back or obtaining a replacement product.

Top Ten Myths About Toy Safety

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We’ve noticed that during the past two weeks there are a number of folks suggesting that all is fine in the toy industry. Some recommending that parents stick with big stores and well known manufacturers as a way to assure safety. Others recommending buying products that are Made in the USA or buying from small mom and pop stores since they know what’s best and what’s not.

All of this advice may be intended to make you feel better this holiday season, but it really doesn’t work. While we’ve answered many of the common myths on our website, www.toyportfolio.com, it does seem that most of this spin seems to ignore the facts of the toy industry.

Both big and small retailers and manufacturers have been involved in the recent recalls. There really isn’t one safe place or one safe company to buy from–that’s not comforting but until the government really steps up their regulations and enforcement of the industry there will continue to be recalls.

Made in the USA sounds great–but take note that they may be made with imported component parts. Plush toys also sound like a safe choice, but again there have been plush and fabric toys recalled because they had painted features that contained excessive levels of lead in the paint.

After talking to a reporter this morning about these issues, she kept asking the same question…so what are you recommending? Honestly, this is the question we’ve been working on for months. We’re happy to have a Lead-Free* Toy List that’s full of good choices (they’re on our website)–but as always I’m always stuck saying that we only tested one sample of these these toys and that we can’t guarantee that other samples or other production runs will have the same result. Not very satisifying the reporter pointed out. True….but then again that’s where we are for this holiday season.