The RoxAndRoll 2009 Holiday Gift Guide: Stuff for Kids

On a number of levels, I have had it with kids' toys these days.  Who invented these ridiculous Polly Pockets, with the rubber clothes that not even adults can take on and off?  Oh, that's right -- Mattel, a company that's on my Santa-please-give-them-coal list anyway for releasing a homeless American Girl doll without dedicating every single last dime of profit from that doll to homeless charities.  (I have omitted a link to the doll on purpose, and, bluntly, I think you're an asshat if you buy a $95 homeless doll.  Seriously.)  Mattel-owned American Girl states on their web site that they do give money to homeless charities, but they clearly have not dedicated the entire proceeds of the doll as they could have (else we'd have heard that advertised) -- so they are thus, in my hardly-humble opinion, profiteering without a thought to social consciousness.  Hey Mattel?  Bah, humbug.

Clearly, little gets me hot under the collar more than crappy, pointless toys, especially those exploiting a cause for profit.  See, I have these two great kids -- daughter Petunia, age 9, and son Dash, age 4 -- and, when I buy them stuff, I want it to be stuff that isn't junk.  I'm not a Waldorf-style mom, so they're not just limited to wooden blocks and baking stuff (Waldorf cultists followers, don't come after me -- I respect your right to your own ways weird as they are).  I like smart toys, toys that inspire creativity and scientific thinking especially.  And if they have to be dolls and cars, well, let's have dolls and cars that mean something. 

What follows is the list of my favorite kids' stuff of 2009 for kids aged pre-K through grade 5, including some things my own kids are getting for Christmas.  Shhh, don't tell! 

1. My favorite doll of 2009: The Earth Friends

My daughter loves dolls, and Christmas wouldn't be special for her without receiving a new one.  While she usually asks Santa for American Girl dolls, our house is boycotting the company this year over the $95 homeless doll.  Petunia is really, really sad about that -- those have been her favorite doll since age 4 -- but she is the one who suggested we step away from Mattel.  So Santa needed to find a way to fill the void.

Imagine my delight when I stumbled upon The Earth Friends at Green Fest this year.  The Earth Friends are a group of nine boy and girl dolls made locally, in Mendocino, CA, from organic and/or recycled materials.  They each come with a backpack containing a real, live tree planting kit -- encouraging environmental awareness and responsibility in children.  I can't wait to give my nine year-old tree-hugger this socially-conscious gift -- and what better time of year to do it?!

Pros: Locally-made, woman-founded/owned, environmentally-conscious, socially-conscious, organic and recycled materials; also hard-to-find boy dolls

Cons: Small dolls are 14 inches and cost $69; I saved $20 and shipping by purchasing mine at Green Fest.  Large dolls (22 inches) are usually $89 but are presently priced the same as small ones ($69) on the website.  Also, there aren't many accesories/outfits -- but most of my daughter's American Girl outfits will work on these, even though they're smaller.

2. My favorite building toy: Magna-Tiles

My son received Magna-Tiles as a 4th birthday gift in March, and he has played with them every single day since – and his 9 year-old sister enjoys them too!  They’re a great gift for the kid who loves to build.  My son has built his version of “Moffet Field” hangars from these things and uses them to house his mini-space shuttles; he has also built houses for Playmobil charaters, garages for those damn Matchbox cars, and many other things.   I’d gift these to any kid from about ages 3-7. 

Pros: Smaller than blocks, easy to pack for travel (great airplane entertainment!), opportunity for lots of science lessons (magnetism, physics, spatial relations), and fun!

Cons: Price -- at about $50 for a 32-block set, they're expensive.

3. My favorite gifts ever: Books

I struggled with where to put books on this gift list.  To me, they’re a valuable and important gift; but to a kid, depending on the kid, they may not be that exciting… unless you find the right book.  I could make a list a mile long of the books we love, but here’s what I think: if you’re going to give a gift to a child, find out what the kid’s interested in, and find a book to go along with it.  If a little boy loves Tonka trucks, there are awesome books for that, such as “If I Could Drive a Loader.”  If an elementary school girl loves art, she’ll love some how-to-draw books attached to a sketch pad, some pencils, and some Japanese erasers that everyone in grade school is collecting and trading these days.  If my son is given a book about a fire truck and a fire truck, he’s going to want to read the book while holding the fire truck – and I think that’s fantastic.

Here are the books we love most right now:

For Dash (pre-K):

• The Skippyjon Jones series by Judy Schachner: These books about a Siamese cat who thinks he's a chihuahua are rioutously funny, especially if the parent reading them can do a good Spanish accent!  They're a great gift for preschool-K/1 boys especially.
• Andrew Henry’s Meadow by Doris Burn: This classic is my new baby gift to any parents of boys, but girls will enjoy the book, too.  It's about a boy's quest (along with friends) to make his own world when his family doesn't make space for him -- sort-of.  I can't do this classic justice; it's an important addition to any library of kids up to probably grade 1-2.
• Christina Katerina and the Box by Patricia Lee Gauch: Another classic, this book will inspire your child to create great things, but beware: if you're not in the mood for your kid playing with boxes, you're lame this book isn't for you and yours.  I gift this one to lots of preschool girls.
• Mike Mulligan and More: Four Classic Stories by Virginia Lee Burton: All Virginia Lee Burton books are fantastic classics.  From Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel to Maybelle the cable car (a San Francisco classic), these books will be treasured by generations.  A great gift from birth - grade 1 or so.

For Petunia (grade 4):

• The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis: Whereas our daughter prefers to read the Harry Potter series with us, the Narnia books are manageable enough (short enough, with a reasonable age-appropriate vocabulary) for her to read alone.  For fantasy lovers, these can't be beat -- and they're good for boys and girls.
• Books by Madeleine L’Engle: I think "A Wrinkle In Time" remains my favorite book ever.  I can't imagine a better book for a fourth grade girl!  Another great fantasy read, perhaps a little more girlie but good for either gender.
• Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somserset Sisters by Lesley M.M. Blume: Petunia got a real kick out of the 11 year-old protagonist, Cornelia; plus, the book challenged her with some bigger words.   Blume is a relatively new author (and, in the interest of full disclosure, the wife of a friend of the Guv's) who is receiving a lot of good critical acclaim; Publisher's Weekly calls her "a writer to watch," and the Chicago Tribune calls her writing ""brilliant, unusual."  Petunia is getting her newest book, Tennyson, for Christmas.
  

4. My favorite classic gift: Legos

I could spend all day, every day playing Legos with my kids.  In her Lego phase, Petunia built many of the Star Wars ships and the Harry Potter castle from kits;  these days, Dash likes to create his own things (especially biplanes), though he’s using some of the Lego City kits as well.  Fortunately, we don’t have to buy a lot of bricks because we have my brother’s old Legos.  If you’re going to gift these, I recommend buying just the bucket of blocks over a special kit, then go to Lego’s website and download some templates for some cool creations that aren’t trademarked. 

Pros: Inspires creativity, imagination and fine motor skill development; a range of prices for any budget.

Cons: Not great for houses with puppies or babies/toddlers because of the choking hazard factor.  Also, the cost for some of the larger kits is ridiculous.

5. My favorite educational gift: Science Kits

These have always been a huge hit in my house.  Scientific Explorer makes a bijillion different ones.  Have a kid who loves Harry Potter?  There's a "Magic Science Wizards Kit."   A girlie girl?  "Spa Science."  A gross boy?  "Disgusting Science."  These are all for elementary school-aged kids and range from $15-$25 usually.

We've also loved some bigger science toys like the Gears Illumabot , pictured at right.   What's cooler than a robot?!  We bought this for Petunia in 2nd grade, and she required help to put it together but is still enjoying it years later; Dash is beginning to play along.  It's around $50.

At the Fun Paper Airplanes website, you can download paper airplane templates to make your own kit for a kid who loves airplanes, origami, and/or physics.  I used these templates to teach some Brownies physics principles; Petunia used them in her first-ever science fair project last year on "how dihedral wings affect flight."  This is a nearly-FREE gift that is extra-special when you put the time in to build them with the kid recipient.

Of course, you could also wrap up baking soda and vinegar, help a kid build a volcano in a sandbox, and have some cheap fun!

Pros to science kits: You're helping America to close the science gap, keeping us competitive with places like India whose kids are much more ahead in science; you're inspiring future Americans to become great scientific thinkers and leaders.  Science projects are inexpensive.

Cons: You have to help kids with most of these kits/activities -- but what's worth more of your time?

6. My favorite family-time gift: Games

We’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of games that I played when I was a kid and have been learning a lot of new ones, too.  You can’t go wrong with the gift of a game, and there’s something in every price range.  So there’s no pros/cons list here – just an opportunity for lots of family fun.  Here’s what our home enjoys best:

For strategic thinking: Sorry, Clue, Monopoly, Connect Four, Battleship, Mancala

For spatial relations: Jenga, Blokus, Tangoes

For memory: Stare!

For math: Yahtzee, Monopoly

For language: Scrabble, Boggle

For geography: Great States, Great States Junior

Fun card games: Uno, Blink, Set, Would You Rather, and the classics: Go Fish, Old Maid, War

For little kids: Going to Grandma’s House, Boggle Junior, Memory, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders

New games that Santa might bring this year:
- For Petunia: Monopoly City with a Monopoly dog theme pack on the side, Ticket to Ride (I'd never heard of this but found it's highly rated) Sorry Sliders, Clue's Harry Potter edition, Pictureka card game, Rook card game
- For Dash: Monopoly Junior
- For both: Wild Planet Hyper Dash, Qwirkle (received all sorts of award and a Mensa stamp of approval)

I apologize for not linking to all of those games, but I assure you that most are available on-line at Amazon and probably are even cheaper at WalMart or Target, both of which have monster discounts going on toys this holiday season. 

Also, don't forget about classic free games: hangman, tic-tac-toe, charades, scavenger hunts... There are great ways to make homemade "kits" for these games.  Someone once gave me a home-made tablet of tic-tac-toe, dot-to-dot, and hangman games for Petunia, all printed on "GOOS" paper (good on other side -- in other words, recycled office paper!).  We loved it!

7. Puzzles

Along the same lines, our family really enjoys a good jigsaw puzzle.  During the summer between my high school graduation and college, the Guv and I spent hours on end putting together complex jigsaws.  (We were in rural West Virginia; there’s not a whole lot going on.)  If you pick up a puzzle mat and a couple of good puzzles, you’ve got a great gift.

Melissa & Doug makes a lot of great floor puzzles for little kids.  We especially love their Children of the World and Solar System floor puzzles.

For kids of all ages, we love the Great American Puzzle Factory.  How can you not love something with "Great American" in the title?!   We own some of their John Deer puzzles and will be picking up some of their fantasy ones this year.

Ravensburger is also a go-to, solid brand.  It's a German company that's been around since the late 1800s.  They make puzzleballs that are lots of fun.  We own some horse and unicorn puzzles from this company.  Because their quality is high, so is their price; these puzzles will last forever, whereas cheaper ones probably won't last for a second kid.

8. On-line fun

Petunia is in 4th grade, and, since 2nd grade, has really enjoyed on-line gaming.  She collects Webkinz, small stuffed animals that come with an on-line gaming access code, and our family finds the on-line games fun and educational.  The child plays games to earn money, then they have to budget to buy food and other needs for their pets.  (There is no way to "buy" more money within the games -- so don't worry about being pestered for a credit card number!)  There are also cards and accessories available that enhance the online world without your having to buy more animals.  Bella Sara horses work along similar lines with regard to the gaming, but the only thing sold for these are baseball-type cards; they're in packets and sets of packets available at places like Target, WalMart, ToysRUs, etc.

Petunia is also a big KidZui fan.  A subscription site, KidZui is a portal to the web for kids with kid-safe/kid-friendly browsing, search and content such as games and pre-screened YouTube videos.  We like it because we feel like she's in "safe space" when she's on KidZui, and we know that we don't have to be sitting right next to her fearing what'll pop up next on the YouTube screen. 

9. Video games

We’re a Nintendo Wii family, and we’ve been having loads of fun this year with Wii Sports Resort.  We also remain Animal Crossing: City Folk fans, and Rock Band 2 is always a blast – you haven’t lived until you’ve heard Dash’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” and Petunia’s “We Got the Beat!”  These are games that we all play and love -- not just for kids!  Though we all note that there will probably never be another Wii game as good as Super Mario Galaxy.

For the Nintendo DS, Petunia is going to be getting Professor Layton’s Diabolical Box this year; it was swag from our Silicon Valley Moms Blog holiday party, and it looks like an awesome, thinking game.

Dash will score his first hand-held also, as the Guv picked up a half-price Leapster 2 for him on Black Friday.  Since he enjoys his Tag reading system so much and is always begging to play games on Petunia’s Nintendo DS or iPod Touch or on a parent’s iPhone, we want him to have his own fun, interactive gaming.  I like Leap Frog toys and hope that this is as good as their reading systems like the Tag.

Why include on-line and video games in a gift list for kids?  Our family appreciates their interactivity; it’s better than kids sitting on their rumps in front of the television alone.  We’ve seen how the kids math and reading skills have improved through using on-line tools, and hey – if that’s what reaches them best, then they’re not bad.  We limit screen-time; these gift recommendations are for fun things to enjoy during those limited hours.  Everything in moderation!

If you've stuck with this guide 'til the end, thanks, and stay tuned for the last gift guide, Stuff that's not Stuff!