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Welcome to My Natural Wooden Toys Blog
February 24th, 2010
Sound and music is an important part of a baby and toddler’s development. Straight from birth a baby will begin to tune into the sound of its mother voice and may start to feel calmed by a certain lullaby. In fact, it has been proven that unborn babies love to listen to classical music and this adoration of sounds will develop even stronger once born.
Wooden toys can also offer sounds and music to a developing baby. Wooden rattles and shakers can create clacking noises that will delight a small baby as they shake them. Traditional toys such as music boxes will amuse older babies with spinning characters to watch and marvel at. From around eight months babies really start to tune into music and nursery rhymes and will start to move to the beat of a song. This cute shuffle will develop quickly into a form of dance as they start to stand and take their first few wobbly steps. Wooden pull toys often have a rhythmic sound which will make a toddler giggle with delight.
Lullabies are a firm favourite and if introduced early in a baby’s bedtime routine they will lull a fractious baby to sleep. Music can be used to stimulate your baby or create a relaxed and subdued atmosphere. Through sounds babies will learn cause and effect and songs and nursery rhymes will help them to develop speech quickly.
At My Natural Wooden Toys we have a stunning range of wooden toys to appeal to all the developing senses of your child.
Tags: Traditional Toys, Wooden music boxes, wooden pull toys, Wooden rattles, Wooden Toys
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February 17th, 2010
If you are looking to buy a baby a toy that he or she will love and cherish, you can be overwhelmed by the choice within the first twelve months. If you are buying toys as a present you will want to choose something that is welcomed by the parents and entertains the baby for months, if not years to come. Wooden toys are ideal for this as it is often the traditional toys that will capture a baby’s imagination for longer than some of the more flashy toys available on the market.
At the top of the list for simplicity and entertainment value is the stackable rings. You can find this old time classic in a variety of guises, shapes and colours, but it has been loved by children for many decades. These simple wooden toys help a baby to develop hand-eye co-ordination. Suitable from around six months onwards, initially the baby will simply gain pleasure from holding and mouthing the rings. At a later stage the baby will enjoy banging them together and will laugh and giggle at the pleasing sound that wood makes. The bright colours will teach a baby about the different colours around and they will also learn about different sizes.
As a baby gets into their first year, they will start to enjoy stacking the rings in different ways and time and again, this simple but attractive toy will be played with to the point of exhaustion.
At My Natural Wooden Toys, we have many traditional toys as well as exciting new wooden toys to choose from.
Tags: Traditional Toys, Wooden blocks, Wooden stacking rings, Wooden Toys
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February 10th, 2010
Once your baby is a year old, he or she will rapidly progress to walking unaided. They will be very excited about this new found freedom and will want to explore every inch of their ever expanding world. Babies at this age want to experience everything and they are captivated by everything they see, hear touch and taste. A baby of this age is surprisingly speedy on their feet so you will want to ensure that the rooms are all ‘baby proofed.’
Wooden toys, such as pushers and pull toys will be appealing to babies at this age. A pusher will allow them to show off their new found walking skills whilst providing support and a means to transport their treasures from room to room. They will also enjoy banging blocks together and putting toys into different containers. Now is the time when you will find your keys and mobile phone in all sorts of strange places if you don’t keep them out of reach.
Babies will also become more appreciative of music and will love to dance to their favourite tunes and nursery rhymes. Their attention span is very short at this stage and they will flit from one toy to another, so wooden toys that can inspire their imagination are a great idea and can keep them entertained for longer. Wooden blocks will hold their appeal for many years to come and whilst now the baby may be content to simply carry blocks from room to room, in the future they will build towers and shapes with them.
Here at My Natural Wooden Toys, we can provide you many ideas for great wooden toys to entertain your little ones.
Tags: Traditional Toys, Wooden blocks, wooden pull toys, Wooden Toys
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February 4th, 2010
Within the first twelve months of your baby’s life there will be a huge amount of development and changes that take place before your very eyes. By the time your baby is entering their eighth month, they will start to become more mobile and independent. This is the stage were you need your wits about you as they want to move around and get into everything! However, your baby will still want you close by.
Traditional toys such as the classic wooden rocking horse will become appealing once your baby hits the twelve month mark, and the gentle motion of these favourite wooden toys will delight your intrepid baby. Babies will also enjoy pulling themselves up at this stage so wooden toys that are stable and fixed, such as an activity table will allow them to exercise their strengthening leg muscles. Babies love to pull themselves up and then cruise along furniture so keep a careful eye on your little explorer.
Babies are also learning all about cause and effect, so they will enjoy dropping their wooden toys and hearing the noise. They will also get excited about watching mummy and daddy pick it up again!
Other key areas of development are that they will begin to point and gesture along with making sounds to articulate what they want and need. If they get angry they will express it clearly by screaming and stiffening their bodies and they will delight in simple and repetitive games.
At My Natural Wooden Toys we have a wide range of traditional toys that will entertain your baby and last for many years to come.
Tags: Traditional Toys, Wooden activity table, Wooden Rocking Horse, Wooden Toys
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February 2nd, 2010
Between four and eight months a baby starts to develop into his, or her own person. They are full of curiosity for the world around them and excited by all that they encounter. During these months they are content to be with those people they know best and are starting to appreciate traditional toys.
There is a lot of development at this stage and a baby will begin to recognize when his or her name is called, and will turn their head when it is spoken. They will start to develop the ability to roll over, sit unaided and are able to bring their little arms together in order to grasp toys and play with them.
You will have found until four months a baby is content to look and stare at toys but at this next stage, they want to explore them. Wooden toys are ideal for this stage as they provide a safe, natural material for small mouths to explore. Wooden toys that are shaped so that a baby can grasp and move them from hand to hand are ideal. At these stages a baby will also be able to prop him- or herself up on one arm to reach for toys and will enjoy discovering new textures, colours and sounds. From about six months, traditional toys such as wooden blocks and wooden stacking rings can keep a baby amused for hours whilst helping them to develop hand-eye coordination.
Here at My Natural Wooden Toys we have a beautiful range of wooden toys to suit all age ranges.
Tags: natural wooden toys, Traditional Toys, Wooden blocks, Wooden stacking rings, Wooden Toys
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January 29th, 2010
Almost as long as there have been children, they have played with toys. Children who had no opportunity to play with real toys would make their own from whatever they could find, often pieces of wood or stones from the fields.
Boys and girls played with their makeshift toys, making up games and stories about the world around them that they lived in. Children are the same these days. Even when they do have toys at home, they love to go out and make up their own games from what they find around them.
An early game that was probably played was to use a stick as a horse to ride, as in the days when transport was all by horse it was natural for children to copy this.
In time, hobby horses were made of wood specifically as toys for children and eventually these developed into the wooden rocking horse. Although these days there is faster and more comfortable means of transport than horse and cart, children still love to ride on a wooden rocking horse. Here at My Natural Wooden Toys the wooden rocking horse is part of our range and children still love them.
By giving a wooden rocking horse to your children, you will be continuing a tradition of children’s toys that is hundreds of years old and your children can find out what has made rocking horses enjoyable to generations of children. A wooden rocking horse is part of the history of childhood that continues into the present.
Tags: My Natural Wooden Toys, Traditional Toys, Wooden Rocking Horse, Wooden Toys
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January 22nd, 2010
Nowadays is a good time to be a child, with the enormous profusion of toys and games that are available. There are computers specifically designed for children, even pre-school children and any number of battery operated toys from cars to robots. You would think there could not be anything else a child could genuinely want.
This may leave you wondering if there is any place in the modern world for wooden toys, which may look a little as if they no longer have a place in the toy box.
However, this is not the case. Although children enjoy being amused by toys that do everything for them and only need to have a button pushed to do something exciting, children still hanker after toys which need them to do something and use their imagination. Children have lots of energy and need to play with toys that give them an opportunity to use up some of this energy.
Here at My Natural Wooden Toys we know all about providing wooden toys that positively invite children to touch and feel and start using their imaginations as they play with the wooden toys.
From pull along toys that encourage toddlers to walk and run, so hopefully tiring themselves out, to dominoes and the abacus for the older child who is learning to count, wooden toys follow on from a long tradition of wooden toys that children have always played with. Traditional wooden toys continue to be enjoyed by the children of today and can still be a fundamental part of childhood.
Tags: Abacuses, natural wooden toys, Traditional Toys, wooden dominoes, Wooden Toys
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January 15th, 2010
Wooden toys that had previously belonged to and been played with by parents, aunts, uncles or even grandparents are a lovely gift for a child. This is one of the advantages of wooden toys; that they last, are sentimental and never go out of style.
The same cannot be said for some types of plastic toys, which may be carefully put away when children grow out of them in hopes that a new generation will enjoy them one day, for example when grandchildren arrive. Then when the toys are retrieved from the attic and unwrapped, it is found that the plastic has degraded and the toys are no longer brightly coloured and fun, but fit only for throwing away.
Short of being hacked up or set on fire, this doesn’t happen to wooden toys. They may need a bit of tender loving care in the form of a good scrub and maybe some new varnish or modern non-toxic paint, but the toy will be just as ready to play with as it was when it was put away all those years ago.
The same is true for wooden toys that are bought for children now. They are durable and do not break easily and will continue to give pleasure for years to come.
Here with us at My Natural Wooden Toys you can find traditional wooden toys and puzzles. Whether you choose the natural look or brightly coloured wooden toys, you will find that your children love the feel of wood and the look of the wooden toys and can’t wait to play with them.
Tags: My Natural Wooden Toys, natural wooden toys, Wooden Puzzles, Wooden Toys
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January 8th, 2010
Sometimes it can be really difficult to decide what to give a young niece or nephew for their birthday. You can feel quite bewildered by the array of bleeping and flashing toys on offer, especially if it is a while since you last looked at children’s toys, and you may leave the toyshop with nothing as you try to work out what on earth all of these things are for.
Here at My Natural Wooden Toys you will have no such problems. All our toys are exactly what they sound like – natural wooden toys that children will be delighted to play with these days just as much as children in the past always have done.
You can choose from pull along toys for tiny children who are just starting to walk, or dominoes for the slightly older child who will enjoy playing a quiet game with a favourite adult. Wooden toys create a lovely atmosphere of calm and comfort for children as they enjoy the natural smoothness of the wood and its solid construction, even if they don’t really realise what it is about the wooden toys that gives them this cosy feeling.
So, make your birthday shopping a pleasure for yourself, as well as for the nieces and nephews who will receive your gifts, by finding wooden toys for your younger relatives and then bask in the glow of achievement as their parents congratulate you on finding something that doesn’t make strange noises and is actually a genuine pleasure to have in their home.
Tags: My Natural Wooden Toys, Pull Toys, wooden dominoes, Wooden Toys
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January 1st, 2010
One of the pleasures of going to craft fairs and markets is watching the craftspeople and artists at work. Seeing a skilled person creating a household ornament or child’s toy from a piece of wood or lump of stone is fascinating, as the crafted shape starts to emerge from the formless wood or stone.
For many people, this type of skill is something to be aspired to, but maybe not achieved, as not everyone has the aptitude or training for it.
Although it is not possible to predict what children may do and certainly isn’t possible to ensure that they will follow a specific path just because of the toys they are given, it is a possibility that if they are given natural wooden toys to play with it could awaken their interest in natural wood and possibly inspire them to want to work with wood.
The wooden toys we have at My Natural Wooden Toys are all skilfully crafted from natural wood, and are made to be enjoyed by touch as well as by being played with. As children handle the wooden toys and learn what they can do with them they are subconsciously and naturally absorbing information and knowledge about the feel of wood and what you can do with it. It may be that a small child’s experience of playing with wooden toys could be the starting point for an interest in working with wood that stays with them in adulthood and who knows, could even turn into a career.
Tags: classic toys, My Natural Wooden Toys, natural wooden toys, Wooden Toys
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