Anamalz Panda

If you haven’t come across them already, Anamalz are the fantastic eco friendly toys which are just bursting with character. The adorable wooden wildlife characters were created in Australia but have since escaped and are speading all over the world, now inhabiting more than 30 countries!

Handcrafted from wood and textile components, each Anamalz creation is an individual.  They all have bendable limbs and can be posed in almost any position. This, combined with their very tastefully designed fabric features, results in a range of funky animals who always look like they have some sort of mischief in mind! There are four different ranges of these multiple award winning toys. The farm range, wild range, pre-historic range and the Australian range.

Anamalz Donkey

Eco Friendly Anamalz Friends

Anamalz are made from Maple wood which is obtained from sustainable managed forests. This means, whenever a tree is harvested for its wood, a new tree comes to maturity. But their contribution towards sustainability doesn’t end there - the waste wood from the manufacturing process is used to grow mushrooms! All Anamalz packaging is made from recycled paper.

Hand Made Quality Companions

Each Anamalz limb, horn or trunk is hand assembled and hand painted to ensure superb quality creatures.

Anamalz Misbehaving

Child Friendly Creatures

The Anamalz range of quirky characters are all natural. Why add nasty chemicals when the best is available straight from nature? Only water based paints are used and all fabric components are formaldehyde free.

Anamalz Saving Animals

Anamalz have established the Animalz Saving Animals (ASA) trust fund. The proceeds of Anamalz sales will be used to contribute to wildlife and children’s organisations around the world.

The Anamalz range of funky animal toys are all available at Wooden Toys Ireland (www.woodentoys.ie)

Anamalz - The Original Crew

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Jody Eco Issues, Product Announcements anamalz, animals, eco friendly, toys, wildlife, wooden toys

 

 

The Automoblox C9 R

Automblox have been around since 2004 but only first appeared in Ireland in 2008. The concept is simple and great but what really makes this toy special, in my opinion, is the style aspect to it. The vehicles really look fabulous. That’s because the deisgners developed their designs using the same engineering software that the world’s leading automotive producers use. 

 

 

Simple Concept

The concept is elegant and simple. Stylish cars composed of multiple interchangeable connecting parts. There are currently 12 cars in the main Automoblox range whose parts can all be interchanged allowing all sorts of combinations to be constructed.  The novel and clever connection system accomplishes a number of things. Firstly, the connectors are plastic. As a material, wood doesn’t work very well when used to connect things over and over again. Plastic is more durable. Secondly, the connectors are bright and colourful and help young children develop their colour recognition skills. Finally, they use a clever system of coloured shapes which only allows the parts to be connected the correct way around - this develops shape recognition and motor skills. Much more fun than a boring old shape sorter.

Innovative Connection System - Interchangeable Parts

No Shortcuts!

The Automoblox S9-R. Attitude Included.

This reminds me of the time we gave our younger daughter a shape sorting box for the first time. Her fine motor skills weren’t very fine at this stage. She got a shape and clumsily tried forcing it into a couple of the shaped holes without success. Then she stopped sat back a little and paused. After a couple of seconds she took the lid off, dumped the pieces in the box and went and did something else. Problem solved! Automoblox don’t suffer from this fundamental shortcoming - the shape recognition requirement can’t be worked around!

Wide Age Range of Appeal

Wide Range of Appeal

So - Automblox aren’t just great looking and fun, they have an educational and developmental dimension to them too. Another aspect of this toy is the wide age range of appeal. Younger kids, from 3 upwards, will love to play with them. They are big, chunky and durable - perfect for small energetic hands.

Slightly older children, from 5 onwards will love building them and taking them apart. When they have a few, they’ll love combining the parts into their own unique creations.

Finally, older children, from 8 upwards, will love to collect them. They are modern and sylish looking, appealing to the increasingly sophistacted tastes of older kids.

The Mini Range

The Automoblox Mini Range

The Automblox mini range is basically a shrunk down version of the main range. This allows the shopper on a tighter budget to buy into the Automoblox concept. The mini range have a slightly simpler connection system while still allowing parts to be interchanged to produce new combination vehicles. 

That’s all very well, but where can I get one?

The full Automoblox range is available at ToysOnline.ie.

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Jody Uncategorized Automoblox, developmental toys, toys

Irish Creative Stamping Kaleidoscope in Packaging

Irish Creative Stamping has recalled Toy Kaleidoscopes as a precautionary measure. The issue came to light on foot of a notification from the German authorities.

Due to the excessive length of loop of cord, there is a possible risk of asphyxiation for children, particularly those under the age of three.

The product has been on sale in Ireland since 2001.

Irish Creative Stamping Kaleidoscope

What to do

Immediately ensure that children no longer have access to this product. Irish Creative Stamping has advised consumers to return the item to the store where purchased. A full refund will be made.

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Jody Product Recalls, Toys and Parenting recalls, toys

Why pay for what you can make at home?

The perfect solution for a rainy day at home. Combine some home baking fun with a great versatile toy as the end result.

If you’re like us, you’ve tried doing this before, but your dough went green and mouldy after a relatively short amount of time. Using a little salt can cure this problem. Also, a little cream of tartar will prevent your dough from crystalising and going hard. Finally, you can add some natural food colouring to brighten up your dough.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon vegtable oil
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon cream of tartar

All these items are available in Tescos - I checked their online store.

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a pot. Cook and stir over low/medium heat until dough is formed and no longer sticking (too much) to the side of the pan. Allow to cool and when it’s not too hot for you to touch, knead it until you have a smooth dough. This is the time to add colouring if you’re going to use it. Knead until colour is distributed throughout. Store in an airtight container.

How long will it last?

Your virtually free toy should last approximiately 6 months. In our experience with the store bought version, we will have managed to forget to put a lid back on at some stage way before 6 months - so this shouldn’t be a limiting factor.

Optional:

To make your dough more pleasant smelling and to give it a smoother consistency, you can consider replacing the vegtable oil with baby oil.

Imagine - Create - Play

Now that you have your playdough, it’s time to get creative. When you’ve finished making ever animal you can think of, you could get the digital camera out and try making your very own animated production featuring your play dough creations!

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Jody DIY Toys DIY Toys, play dough, recession busting, toys

The DC3

These times of recession are great for rediscovering your childhood. We’ve just discovered paper aeroplanes in our house. Children are great. The plain and obvious to you is the new and undiscovered to them.

The Classic Dart

I came in the door one evening last week and my 6 year old girl was running around with a fairly primitive under performing model that my wife had rustled up. Apparently, the art of the paper aeroplane is rather under-developed in France. This wouldn’t do at all. When I placed that A4 piece of paper on the table, my hands started folding the paper all by themselves, just like it was 25 years ago! Shortly after its pretty successful maiden flight, which saw it soar through the gap in the conservatory doors, my “Classic Dart” went into mass production. Every eye in the house was at risk with paper aeroplanes flying everywhere. Brilliant stuff. They provided a full evening’s entertainment and I’m still being asked to make them days later. Fun, free and wholesome entertainment! After a little Googling, we can do a whole lot better than the rudimentary Classic Dart.

This page claims to have the best paper aeroplane in the world. After a quick glance at its main features, it’s hard to disagree.

The Best Paper Aeroplane in the World!

This page has instructions for no less than 27 different types of paper aeroplane, all ranked by difficulty level.

But that’s not all the fun you can have. I remember as a child, I had a book about space which came with a cut out and fold space shuttle which could “fly”. It also came with a cut out landing strip. Your objective was to glide your space shuttle onto the landing strip, just like the real thing (of course you know that the real space shuttle has to perform a glide landing too). So, with a little imagination, some A4 pages, a marker and some sellotape, you can create your very own runway and try to land your creations on it.

So there you have it - some simple, creative and inexpensive ways to spend quality time with your children.

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Jody Retro Toys, Toys and Parenting paper aeroplane, recession, toys