iPads are great for kids

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Angela

Victoria with iPad at sportsThis might sound controversial to many and we as well would have been doubtful before about an iPad in the hands of our kids.

The truth is, since we got an iPad a couple of months ago, it’s mostly used by our kids. It’s a great tool in many ways and while you need to (try to) keep a good balance; the iPad can give extra flexibility to the parents.

One of the situations where our iPad comes in very handy is to do sports. Trying to loose some of the pregnancy kilos we (yes … we) gained over the past 4 years, we got ourselves subscribed to a fitness club. I’m not much for spending hours on a home trainer or other machines, but the various group classes are just right for me. But what do I do with the kids at home? Leaving all 3 at home with daddy is fine when one or two do their afternoon nap, but on those days that Victoria and Lukas fight all the time, I just drag one of them (usually Victoria) along. And instead of carrying a huge bag of books, toys and teddy bears, I just take the iPad.

iPad for kids at sports

And we’re definitely not the only parents seeing things this way. Victoria has got company of several other kids with their respective iPads or other tablets. No worries that Victoria, or even worse, kamikaze Lukas, is running around in the club disturbing other sporty people.

Victoria with iPad at sports

The kids actually spend most of the time either looking at me doing sports, either playing games on the iPad. We’re not even having 3G on the iPad so watching cartoons on youtube isn’t part of the options. But there are loads of great apps out there, for free or minimal costs, that keeps our kids fascinated just long enough to get through a session of sweating …

And when getting home, daddy had enough hands free do some cooking or cleaning, which is a nice advantage as well!

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Raising kids …

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Angela

Raising kids… is becoming increasingly skilled at transforming into a horse, a climbing tree, a slide or whatever the imagination of your toddler is up to!

I am often amazed at the set of extra skills you obtain when you join the club of parents. Again so a couple of days ago when I was relaxing in the couch and my daughter, longing or some playtime with her daddy, came up to me and asked me to be her slide.

For those who can’t imagine how that goes, picture yourself slumped in the couch, you then tighten your body muscles to get as straight as you can. Your daughter of 4 then jumps on the couch, climbs on your chest, legs hanging on both sides and just slides down the daddy-slide. It’s not as smooth a slide as on the playground, but my daughter surely enjoys it just as much.

Just wondering now whether to add these on my CV next to the set of skills of turning into a lion, crocodile, swing, airplane … Maybe I’ll just write that I’m constantly developing my skills of raising kids.

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The Best Giant Puzzle: The Giant Floor Puzzles for Kids from Galt

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Angela

If you ask us what’s our kids favorite toy, we’d  answer very fast: the giant floor puzzles for kids. You want to know why?

Before I elaborate more on this -as a side note- we bought our oldest  her first farm giant puzzle when she was 2.5 years and these puzzles have also been our motivator to start our online toy shop www.toya.be. Now, 3 years later, we have around 6 or 7  giant floor puzzles for kids in our house.

The Best Giant Puzzle- The Giant Floor Puzzles for Kids from GaltThese giant floor puzzles for kids are made of 30 pieces of sturdy colorful cardboard and they are significantly different that the traditional puzzles:

  • They don’t have regular puzzle shapes
  • The big chunk pieces of hard cardboard are easy to grab and handle for children hands,
  • The different shapes enable children to puzzle not only based on the puzzle picture but also looking at the shape of the different available pieces.
  • There are 8 of the pieces  that are cut in the shape of different animals.

All these makes this giant puzzle more accessible than a normal 30-piece puzzle. Personally we introduced this puzzle at the age of 2,5 but we know of friends who did so even earlier.

The Best Giant Puzzle: The Giant Floor Puzzles for Kids from Galt

Why we love these giant floor puzzles for kids so much? We love the big sturdy pieces of different shapes. On top the colorful and busy drawings give us the opportunity to puzzle in so many creative ways and get more out of our giant floor puzzles for kids than just an “ordinary” giant puzzle.

Giant farm floor puzzle from Galt -one of our favorite toys

We love them because we found different ways of playing with these giant floor puzzles for kids. Most of the time puzzling gets down to opening a box of puzzle pieces and motivate the kids to try and make the puzzle from A to Z and providing some support when needed. That’s the basic idea of playing with a puzzle for kids.

The features of this giant floor puzzle for kids invite to do more than that. This is how we play with our giant floor puzzles:

Giant-floor-puzzle-farm

  • Adapt the giant puzzle for small kids: This is a great idea we got from friends. Their kid being too small for a 30-piece puzzle they chose to be play with it in a creative way. They’d make the puzzle, except for the 8 template pieces featuring the animals. They’d give them to their 2 year old kids and invite her to finish the giant puzzle. This way this giant puzzle can be  played with in different ways at different stages of your kid’s development.  When your kids is putting the ‘animal’ pieces in their places, you can name them and teach your kids the sound of each animal, …

Giant-floor-puzzle-farm

  • Do more than just puzzle: Making these giant floor puzzles for kids is only half the fun. Once the puzzle is done, we go on playing with it for 10-20 minutes or more describing and discussing with the kids the various elements and details on the puzzle. With questions like “we’re do you see a bird” (or an apple, or a worm, or a …) or “How many … do you see” we have our kids discover all elements of the puzzle. They simply love it!

We’ve probably haven’t discovered yet all possibilities ourselves. You play with this giant puzzle in a different way? Let us know.

About the puzzle and variants.
This Galt floor puzzle is originally from the UK and comes in various shapes among which the farm version we presented, but also a jungle or a construction yard version . In Belgium you’d find the puzzle in some of the smaller specialty toy stores and you can find it of course on our toy shop www.toya.be.

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