As an educator and mom I am always looking on sites like umkytoys for the right toys.
The mama in me looks for safe toys that are attractive and versatile. Toys need to do more than one thing and spark imaginative play. I want my kids to want to play with their toys, and I want them to play for a while.
Mama needs her coffee time!
As an educator, I look for toys that strengthen my child’s skills and development. I want them to contribute to my kids growth and challenge them to do, think, or feel.
My husband wants high quality products and our money’s worth. He does not want toys breaking…aka hearts breaking, not to mention they need to last through the years of being hand me downed to the next kid.
If it was up to him, our kids would be playing in cardboard boxes, because lets be honest, most kids love the packaging the most.
With the holiday and birthday season approaching I started researching gifts for our kids that would meet our high standards.
That is when I came across Discovery Toys and began reading about their perfect blend of fun, educational, and quality.
Who is Discovery Toys?
Discovery Toys has been in business for over 35 years and has gained a trusted reputation of providing premium quality toys. They are dedicated to designing toys that promote kid-power learning through play. Discovery Toys cover ages birth to 8 years and each toy is designed to teach, play, and inspire. Their mission is to provide engaging toys that assist parents and teachers with educating through play. The goal is to inspire a love for learning in children and adults.
Levels of Learning
These toys are unique as they combine multiple levels of learning in every toy.
- Products support multiple skills and learning pathways
- Products grow with your child
- Products support a varies of learning styles (audio, visual, and kinesthetic)
Special Needs
Since discovery toys are so versatile they are great for supporting children with special needs. Their toy catalogue is actually labeled with an Autism symbol that corresponds with the specific learning each toy supports. They also provide a very useful guide to help consumers select the correct product for their child’s needs.
I found this chart to be extremely helpful for any parent. As we watch our kids grow we notice their strengths and weakness in development. My son is a big kinesthetic learner and strong communicatively and cognitively. However, as a strong willed stubborned toddler he could improve his social skills and some fine motor tasks. My 12 month old is very visual and just starting to reach some cognitive milestones. I used this guide to help me choose the right toys to help grow and strengthen the needs of my littles.
Shopping Made Easy
I think my favorite thing about Discovery Toys, besides the toys themselves, is the catalogue setup. It’s perfectly color coded, organized, and supportive of parents’ choices. It’s almost as if a teacher is shopping with you explaining the benefits of each toy.
At the front of the catalogue they provide a table of context of each type of play. Their toys are grouped accordingly and each page is clearly marked.
They provide a key for their autism and special needs toys. Each letter corresponds with the specific learning the toy supports.
Also included are indicators of exclusive Discovery Toys, best sellers, and award winners.
If you are searching for a specific age rage, they provide a index by age. However, most of their toys will grow with your child beyond the listed age.
Our New Favorite Toys
As you can imagine, it was hard to choose just a few toys for our kids! There is a great desire to buy everything I think would interest my children, or be a possible teaching tool! If I followed my desire I would have every toy in the book. So I settled for 3.
All three toys are BPA free and included a tiny informational booklet. It provides a number of ways to play and educate using the given toy.
Heartbeat M.D
This best seller Discovery Toy was my no brainer. My son is getting more and more creative with his imaginative play and I am loving every minute of it. I recently started searching for a doctor kit when my son started using his tool kit for doctor play.
I give him points for creativity!
Normally I would just let it go and be satisfied with him using his tools for multiple purposes. But after a scarring visit to a hospital, while living overseas, I wanted him to get familiar with doctor tools. My goal was to play doctor enough times that he would begin to know the intention of each tool and be comfortable with medical exams.
My problem was trying to find doctor kits that weren’t outrageous colors or extremely flimsy. The Heartbeat M.D met my expectations.
The tools are a nice weight and great quality. My son’s imagination was immediately sparked as we practiced using each tool.
My educational expectations were even exceeded as I realized doctor play helped him learn to take turns, improve his focus, and communicate his feelings. Not to mention, we worked on being gentle when his little sister joined in as a patient.
With the help of baby dolls, doctor play can also be an independent quite play activity. We currently only have one extremely old doll but she made due.
If you have an animal lover, doctor kits are also awesome for veterinary play. We don’t have any live pets to practice on but we do have plenty of stuffed animals.
This toy is suggested for ages starting at 3 years and has won two awards!
Measure Up! Cups
A staple childhood toy has got to be stacking cups. They are versatile, durable, and grow with your child. Cups are great for stacking, playing in sensory bins, pouring in the bath tub, stamping, nesting, and so much more.
I loved that both my toddler and baby were engaged with Measure Up! Cups and developmentally benefited from their play. While my daughter was learning cause and effect of knocking down a tower, my son was experimenting with volume and getting a grasp on relational sizing.
When I received Measure Up! Cups I was curious how Discovery toys had worked to improve such a timeless toy.
The first thing I noticed was the ridged edges. This is to help prevent accidental suffocation, a risk I didn’t even know came with stacking cups. The ridges also help to stabilize the cups when being stacked and make for great castle turrets.
Each cup is numbered on the inside and outside and looks great when numerically arranged or sequentially placed in a circle to make a clock face. The numbers are also written in English, Spanish, and French and include corresponding dots. The bottom of the cups has stamped animals that correlate with the cups size. Cup 12 has an elephant while cup 1 has a butterfly. Measure Up! Cups are designed to be volumetrically proportional and are a great teaching tool for math concepts.
Discovery Toys suggests Measure Up! Cups for children from 12 Months to primary school. This toy has won three awards including the Family Choice Award.
Rainfall Rattle
I was instantly drawn to this rattle for my daughter and knew it would meet her interests. My daughter loves music and always chooses the egg shakers in the instrument box.
The rainfall rattle is a multi sensory experience as little ones watch and hear a stream of colorful beads falling. My daughter was drawn to the moving rainbow of colors and watching the effects of her shaking.
The rattle fits in little hands and is great for shaking, tipping, and rolling. Surprisingly it made for a fun toy for not only my daughter but my toddler too.
My son enjoyed experimenting with the pace of beads by how quickly he turned the rattle. He was so focused on getting every bead through the eight layers to the end.
As an educator, I also found this toy to be a soothing quiet break. My very energetic son often struggles with getting over stimulated and needing an outlet to gain control. Watching the cascading beads glistening in the sun has been a wonderful resource.
The rainfall rattle is suggested for 9 months to toddler age and has won one award.
But don’t just take my word for it, Discovery Toys has a wide variety of toys that meet the needs of any child.
“Discovery Toys® products are available through our independent Educational Consultants in the United States and Canada. Our Educational Consultants are trained to help you select the appropriate products for the children in your lives, to take orders, to share the Discovery Toys income opportunity, to help you plan a party, and to answer any questions you may have.”
If you want to learn more about these Discovery Toys products contact Angela (The Expert!) through her website or by emailing angelakraemer_discoverytoys
Reach out if you want to host a party so you can get some awesome hosting rewards too! Can’t hurt, right?
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