The toyportfolio.com results are in: The Best Toys of 2015

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We’re always excited to share the news of the toyportfolio.com Best Toys of 2015! If you’re new to toyportfolio.com, here’s how we work. Joanne and I begin in February at the International Toy Fair in NYC where all of the toys for this holiday season are previewed. There are thousands of new toys that fill the Javits Center. From there we make our requests to see toys that look promising. The toys then start arriving to our office – slowly at first. By July it looks like we are in Santa’s Workshop – wall to wall toys. We put the toys to the first round of review – does the toy work, do the directions make any sense, is it fun? The sad truth, many toys never get beyond this stage. The number of toys that don’t do what they say they’ll do is always shocking to us.

The next stage of our testing is to send the toys to families all over the country from all walks of life to give us feedback. We found early on that this was the best way to get feedback from the ultimate testers, kids. Bringing kids into a large “play” setting almost always favors toys that are heavily promoted and big on novelty. But that’s not how kids play with their toys.  So we always ask parents to give us their feedback about how the toy is played with in their own playrooms. This year we had families from all 50 states. Their feedback is always great!

Based on all of the feedback and our reviews, the awards emerge. The Platinum Awards are reserved for the truly outstanding toys of the year; the Gold Seal Awards are also highly rated products that engaged our kids; the Blue Chip Award is bestowed on toys that have been in the marketplace for at least five years and have stood the test of time (a rarity in toyland); and finally the SNAP (Special Needs Adaptable Product) Award is given to toys that are easily adaptable for children with special needs.

Click here to see the complete list.

We hope you find the reviews helpful. Our mission remains the same…to find toys that are both fun and engaging – and not a waste of your toy dollar!

Happy Playing!

Stephanie and Joanne

Toy Fair 2015: Poop Trending

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Toys that have to do with poop seem to be a trend for 2015. In addition to the new Baby Alive Snackin’ Sara that recycles her poop as new food, we found two games that also have a bathroom theme.

WhoTooted? by Goliath Games – the game play is to figure out which of the players “tooted” – complete with a variety of tooting/farting sounds. whotootedThankfully the tooting is strictly electronic. We thought this was the first (and only) game with a whoopeecushion, but we were wrong. Poopyhead (Find It Games) comes with a larger whoopeecushion AND piles of poop. Yuck.

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Baby Alive Snackin’ Sara eats her own poop

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You probably know the best-selling Baby Alive doll from Hasbro. The play scenario is that you feed Baby Alive food and then she poops into diapers just like a real baby. This version has been around for years…what’s new this year, recycled food/poop.

Baby-Alive-HasbroNow you feed Snackin’ Sara food that looks like gummy worms. She eats them and they come out in her little diaper. We were then told and shown that the poop could then be recycled as new food. I’m all for recycling but this is just wrong. It sends a very confusing message to young children and the fact the “food” “poop” is candy also might make a preschooler wonder. The yuck factor here is huge.

Watch the video demo here.

 

Toy Fair 2015: Star Wars Toys from Hasbro

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The Force continues to be strong at Hasbro with their Star Wars line. The toy that will receive the most amount of buzz will certainly be FurBacca. This mashup of a toy brings back Furby (remember him?) to a whole new generation of kids that won’t think the technology is all that cutting-edge but will enjoy the Star Wars theme of this fun novelty furball.

Watch the video here toyportfolio-star-wars-furbacca-hasbro

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Now what always gets my attention in the Star Wars section at the Hasbro Toy Fair showroom are the lightsabers. I never think they can out do the version from the year before, but I was really wrong.  Imagine the biggest, baddest lightsaber you can think of– and that’s what’s coming for 2015. I need one.

Specifically, I want to play with the Bladebuilder Lightsaber where you can add several sabers to build your own super lightsaber. (I think they would have gone with Build a Blade if it wasn’t so close to Build a Bear). Anyway…it has all the great authentic lightsaber sound and it looks super cool. toyportfolio-star-wars-lightsaber

New for the even younger Star Wars fans….there’s also Star Wars Mr. Potato Head (he’s been around before) and the new Star Wars Play Doh. Now I wouldn’t share the movies with a three year old, but Hasbro is counting on the trickle down from the cartoon series STAR WARS REBELS that older brothers and sisters are watching as well as sentimental buying from Star Wars fans that can’t wait to share the series with their kids.

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Toy Fair 2015: Elmo is back ready to laugh

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We had the first day of previews today at Hasbro. I left feeling happiest about the new Play All Day Elmo – over-sized and with a soft belly, he’s much more fun to hug than recent models that had hard bodies underneath the signature red fur. This Elmo promises to play eight different games with your preschooler. We saw a demo of the classic game Red Light, Green Light— Elmo prompts your child to move and then says Red Light! If your child stops, Elmo knows AND he also knows when your child is still moving. Magic! We hope the final product works as well as the demo!

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Today Show/toyportfolio.com Toy Review Starts Tomorrow!

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What an amazing two months we’ve had working with over 200 families in 24 states (with seven sets of twins) in order to conduct the first TODAY Show/toyportfolio.com Toy Review. Tomorrow I’ll be on to share the results for babies, toddlers and preschoolers. A special thank you to all the families that participated and gave us their feedback on the toys they reviewed!  I hope you’ll tune! To read all the results, please visit www.toyportfolio.com.

Peaceable Kingdom’s new Sunny Day Pond just right for Spring

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IMG_5070There’s something especially cheerful about this latest cooperative game from Peaceable Kingdom! Sunny Day Pond was a hit with our preschooler testers. They loved that they were working together to make three puzzles that feature an orange duck, a purple fish and a green frog. Players use the spinner to determine which color puzzle piece they’ll be using. But beware, there are raindrops!   If six raindrops are collected, the round is over! Very sweet. Designed for 2-4 players, ages 3 and up.

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Wonderful Landmark Puzzles from Duo Press

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We’re always on the look out for new puzzle makers. Duo Press has joined our short list of favorites! Their new 20 piece My San Francisco Puzzle and My New York Puzzle are both visually very pleasing, made on sturdy stock and are just right for the 3 & up crowd. Each puzzle comes in a well-designed box that will make storage easy and long-lasting. Read our reviews at www.toyportfolio.comIMG_3906.

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Weapons are weapons – even if they’re Pink

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imagesThe most troubling quote in today’s NYT’s article, “Today’s Girls Love Pink Bows as Playthings, but These Shoot” is “toys that stimulate aggression are healthy for children.” To suggest that literal props like weapons are something to be valued (regardless of what color they are) puts the conversation about the value of play experiences back a few decades.  Yes, kids have aggression and need outlets for expressing it, but making it part of their play diet with plastic weapons is not beneficial.  Most child development experts would suggest art supplies and puppets as appropriate outlets for expressing emotions.

We have nothing against archery – but here the game play (inspired by mega hit The Hunger Games) is targeting other children, not a bullseye. There is a disconnect between the teen/adult audience of the books and movies and the 7-year-olds  that are the intended consumers of these toys. While we happily support “girl power” when it comes to STEM toys that encourage girls to be all that they can be, this kind of role play perverts the concept of empowerment. Even in the universe from which these toys have come from, we doubt very much that Katniss would approve arming children her sister’s age with weapons.