Wood toy lovers! check in please!

[papal]

Hey girls,
Please can you give me a list of the wood toys that are popular in your house.
So far I have in my wish list:
- Heltziger animals (farm animals, wild animals)
- Haba vegetables
- Wood blocks (I CANNOT decide which ones and am going batty.. my child will be 16 by the time i decide!).

I am thinking, maybe some wood peg puzzles or sorter type of thing.. not sure if these are lasting though.. i can see she would not play with these in a few months.

Anyway, looking for toys that have lasting appeal. Wood only please. Thanks!!

[dowlinal]

Rashmi

I have the following puzzles for Madeline. The fuzzy puzzles are too advanced for her right now but she loves to pull the pieces out and play with them. If you got some texture puzzles for Leela they might have a longer appeal. Madeline also LOVES the big knob puzzles (especially since you can hold two pieces by the knobs and bang them together). I am not sure about lasting appeal but I definitely see these being popular through the summer. I have the following puzzles:

http://www.gummylump.com/front/f_product.php?id=386
http://www.gummylump.com/front/f_product.php?id=92
http://www.gummylump.com/front/f_product.php?id=24

Another big hit these days is the pull along animals. She likes to play with them like they are dolls and just recently has started pulling them by their strings. My mom says that we had several of this type of toy as kids and played with them for years.

http://www.gummylump.com/front/f_product.php?id=1130
http://www.gummylump.com/front/f_product.php?id=1128

I know you said wooden but a really big toy in our house these days is the tupperware shape sorted. Madeline likes putting the blocks in the holes and then shaking the whole thing by the handles.

http://order.tupperware.com/pls/htprod_www/tup_show_item.show_item_detail?fv_item_category_co de=7000

I actually bought all of these after being ispired by your non-electronic toys stance. We still have a few things like LP farm and the laugh and learn house but my new toy mantra is she must have to use it to entertain herself rather than just sit there and be mesmorized
HTH
Alexis

[steph2003]

We have a few things by Melissa & Doug. The Noah's Ark animal/shape sorter & peg thing where you can bang on the pegs (um, does that make sense?) and something else but I can't remember cause I put a few of the gifts away for a rainy day. The Noah's Ark thing is for ages 2 years & up although I can't figure out why. All the parts are big enough & mostly he just chews them, bangs them together.

I have a wood block set too - put away for later. Don't know brand though but it was awhile ago when someone posted a set from Kbay Toys online for $14.99

would love a wood co-op!!!

[ethansmom]

Shape sorters have been a fav in our house since DS was a year. Tolo makes a couple, that although are plastic, get my "thumbs up" for those under 2. (Can often find these at TJMaxx and the like.) M&D has a cube shape sorter, but it has more advanced shapes, which is why I think it's for the 2 and up crowd. DS can do some of the shapes, but not all, so I think this one will really last.

I also picked up a Little Tykes wooden shape sorter bus on clearance at TRU, and it's been a big hit. Not only is it a moving bus and shape sorter, but it's great fun for DS to stack the shapes since they are each about 3 inches long.

We've got a ton of M&D toys and puzzles and really like them all. (Rainbow stacker is a fav!) I think I've purchased all fairly inexpensively at TJMaxx or Marshalls.

There's also a brand very similiar to M&D - Wood 'N Things, or something like that. I saw some at Michaels and you can always use your 40% off coupon. Our Meijer also carries this brand and I just picked some up for our "gift closet" at 75% off.

I really do think our wood toys will keep DS's interest for quite a while...it seems the newest and greatest plastic toy only keeps kids' attention for 6 months, so you'd always have to buy new things.

[stillplayswithbarbies]

I love anything by Haba and Brio Plan Toys. I get a lot of them cheap at http://www.kidsurplus.com

Haba does not allow co-ops, but sometimes an authorized retailer can do a "presale" at a discount as long as Haba doesn't find out about it.

...Karen
DS Jake Feb 91, DD Logan Mar 03
http://members.aol.com/khowe14494/superpower.gif http://members.aol.com/khowe14494/borntobebreastfed2.gif

[slknight]

Does the Little Tykes wooden shape sorter bus have 6 people/shapes that go in the top? That is the DS's absolute favorite toy around here. He loves it!

[slknight]

As I mentioned above, the Little Tikes shape sorter bus is a huge hit, and it's wooden.

I'd have to say I've been pretty disappointed in the Holtzinger animals. DS has no interest in them whatsoever. I'm glad I only bought two. Right now, he's only interested in things with wheels.

We do have a set of M&D wooden blocks that I bought at Marshalls. He is luke-warm on those.

I just found a line of wooden puzzles made by Small World Toys. I got this one for DS this past weekend and he loves it:
http://www.smallworldtoys.com/images/large/2574.jpg

I would still like to get a wooden kitchen and maybe a wooden treehouse/castle/dollhouse for when he is older. Right now, I am on the look-out for more wooden vehicles.

My New Year's resolution has been to no longer buy plastic toys and so far, so good. I will buy metal ones (like trucks), but no plastic unless it's Duplo. I've also resolved to stay out of Wal-mart and Target, so that has been helping. LOL. ;-)

[lukkykatt]

We have the Melissa and Doug woodent blocks and my boys like them alot. They have numbers and pictures on them. We also have plain old wooden blocks in different shapes for building.

We have alot wooden puzzles - we have all different kinds - peg puzzles, magnetic puzzles and alphabet puzzle. They are really lasting - my 2yo is just truly getting into them now. The puzzles build up in intricacy. Just get one or two simple puzzles and then add more as Leela gets older.

We also have a wooden pull toy that is two dogs racing each other. I just looked at it and it doesn't say who makes it. I thought it was from Back to Basics but just looked at their site and it's not there. Anyway, this has been very popular.

We also have alot of the Melissa and Doug wooden food sets for our kitchen, and also some of their cutting foods.

Oh, and also Melissa and Doug has wooden dolls that you can dress up - here they are: http://www.arsatoys.com/md-146.html We have given these as gifts and little girls really like them. Something to think about when Leela gets a little older.

Have fun!

ETA: I have a 3 piece shape puzzle that I can give you.

[jpang]

Hi, Rashmi,

We just let DD have the Melissa and Doug wooden alphabet blocks in a pull wagon last week, and she loves them. They are very brightly colored with letters or numbers. She stacks them, knocks them down, looks at the pictures on them (the letters have things like "D" and "Dog" while the number one will have six fishes and six butterflies), and dumps them out. We have a couple of wooden puzzles with pegs which she really likes.

We also have a wooden frog pull toy from Ryan's Room that she drags around. Finally, one of our friends gave us a Kouvalios wooden musical wind up toy when she was born. Although that is an extravagant gift, it has proven very sturdy and cute.

I second the rec of looking at kidssurplus.

Janice

[amp]

I can't vouch for these, but I tried to buy this for Christmas and the store told me that both their locations had sold out of this in less than a month! Apparently they were popular!

http://www.gummylump.com/front/f_product.php?id=1274

[amp]

I can't find a pic/link to the LT wooden shape sorter. Does someone have a link they can provide? Thanks!

[slknight]

Andrea, I tried to find it online awhile back, and couldn't find a link for it either. DH bought it at TRU last August. It's a shape sorter school bus. I had found one on e-bay a few months ago when I posted something about it, but now I can't find the link and I don't see one on e-bay currently. Let me keep looking. Or maybe I can take a digital pic of it.

[kensjen]

Jonah's favorite thing lately is this wooden mail box shape sorter thing. We got it at TJ Maxx, it was only like $9 or $10.

Another huge favorite is this birthday cake thing I got Jonah for his birthday. He loves the velcro candles. (there are some small parts that I took away from him for now)
http://www.gummylump.com/front/f_product.php?id=242


We also have a lot of the wooden food, several different brands. They all are holding up well.

Jonah loves the peg thing with the hammer, he pounds on that all day, and even knows when to flip it over and start pounding again! ;)

I am still on the search for some blocks, I do love these:

http://www.unclegoose.com/BlocksMothergoose.html

There are so many wonderful wooden toys out there! I love them!

[ethansmom]

That's the one! Best $6 I could have spent!

BTW, our DSs share the same bday. :-)

[redhookmom]

Just about all of our toys are wooden. My dds current favs are cradle, highchair, blocks, and PUZZLES. My ds has been playing with his castle and dragons.

2 great catalogs for wood toys:

http://www.rosiehippo.com/
http://novanatural.com/

[corrie23]

DD's current favorites are the M&D cutting food, which she plays with daily (she LOVES to "cook") I also picked up the M&D food groups and sandwich set at Hammett's for 50% off (thanx to the poster here who said they were going out of business) but she won't get them until her birthday next month.

We also have several of the Woodland Fantasies sets that Neve posted about here a million years ago. She loves them and plays with the jungle set daily too (it's her favorite one). Unfortunately, the manufacturer (Maxim) doesn't make them anymore (I spoke with their CS rep) and KB Toys (where Neve found them) is also out of them (I called every store in the country and bought every one I could find, and no, I'm not kidding).

We also have the Kidkraft blender set which came with cutting food too (but no knife, oddly enough) and I plan to eventually add the toaster, baking, and Shabbat/sabbath set to our "collection."

We also have a set of blocks (maybe 16-20) that I found at once upon a child. It's really neat. The blocks are squares, rectangles, triangles, etc. and about half of them are painted primary colors (the other half are natural). The colored ones have beads or other noisemaking items inside them so they make various noises when shaken. DD likes to make music with them and occasionally stack them, but I have no idea who made them.

We just started parent-child classes at a local Waldorf school and they do a really neat "storytime" with a scene set up with playsilks, nesting "caves" and little wood animals and food. I can see my DD really liking to do that sooner than later.

Lastly, she likes to play with the M&D tool set thing (with screws, hammer, etc.) when we go to the chiropractor, but we don't have ths at home.

That's our "best of the wood toys" roundup.

-Corrie

[brigmaman]

>I am thinking, maybe some wood peg puzzles or sorter type of
>thing.. not sure if these are lasting though.. i can see she
>would not play with these in a few months.
>
Rashmi, we bought Brig a set of wooden peg puzzles at BJ's when he when he was 15 months. He drags those silly puzzles out almost every day.
His other favs are wooden M&D books w/magnetic pieces that fit inside. He also has wooden magnets that are all farm related that he plays with on our fridge.
http://www.babyheirlooms.com/product/wood_abc_book.cfm
http://www.babyheirlooms.com/product/wood_colors_book.cfm
*wooden tool box set
*Cadie got a Haba set and Brig is obsessed with it. How's that for lasting appeal? ;) Here's a link:
http://www.oliebollen.com/detail.aspx?ID=411
*He also loves his wooden train:
http://www.creativetrains.com/melanddougtr.html

[babymama]

Hey Rashmi -
We don't have a whole lot of wooden toys (looking forward tot he co-op), but our favorite would be this Melissa and Doug stacking train. Bought at the Carter's outlet for about $20. Santiago doesn't quite get the concept of stacking the pieces onto the train yet. But *I* like the train alot.
http://www.utoypia.com/images/bigmelissa_585.jpg

Lydia
Mama to Santiago, born 11/16/03

[LBW]

I love, love, love the Holztiger dinosaurs we got from Nancy in the December coop. They are so gorgeous. Right now they "live" on the train table -- in the middle of a circular track. It's the dinosaur park!


http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/20567.jpg


We also really like the M&D Pizza Party kit.

[vpalmer]

So far we have...
-A wooden Kitchen and refrigerator (she loves this)
-Haba vegetables (lukewarm on these honestly...it may be her age)
-Erzi popsicles(hardly plays with these; I think she forgets about the freezer!)
-Erzi Pots and bowl set (Initially I was disappointed in these because they are so small, but she loves them. You can really see that these are quality pieces though.)
-Melissa and Doug Cutable Picnic Food (EVA'S FAVORITE! She cuts every piece of food daily. I am looking at getting her the cake and pizza for her birthday because this is such a big hit.)
-Melissa and Doug 4 food group set (Again, she is lukewarm on this. She likes the interactive velcro food better)
-Melissa and Doug Wooden puzzles with pegs. (She likes these but only plays with them occasionally.

Veronica
Mom to Eva
Born 6-03

[brittone2]

My son who is younger than your little sweetie (almost 12 months) loves playing w/ his Lights Camera Interaction giant knob puzzles. He mostly just bangs the pieces together but he enjoys it and sometimes decides to put the circle in the spot for the circle ;)

I'm after a play kitchen. DH is a pretty talented woodworker (hobby) but I am not sure he's going to have time to make one. So I'm debating buying vs. building right now. Of course, I need food to go with it (will probably start w/ the cut-able velcro food).

We have a wooden shape sorter and several wooden stackers. We have a funky brio stacker (arch shaped pieces...they have it at www.kidsurplus.com) that he likes. He occasionally takes the pieces on/off the post.

I got a great wooden, natural finish, german-made truck at Tuesday Morning for $5. It was worth at least 5x that price. It was the only one, no price on it, so they made it up. I was happy ;) DS has shown an interest in this already. We have a Tumble Tree Timbers set put away for later that we got inexpensively at Tuesday Morning as well. (this is compatible with and essentially the same as Lincoln Logs).

A big hit from Christmas is a musical instrument set that I picked up for something like $7 at Michaels using a 40% off coupon. It has a wooden tambourine, a musical triangle, a set of maracas, a "clacker" and cymbals (the cymbals are pathetic). DS really likes the maracas, triangle and tambourine. I figure this will have lasting appeal. If he really likes them I'll invest in better quality musical pieces down the road. I'd like to add a wooden drum type of toy. We also have a set of 3 large jingle bells mounted to a strip of leather that he looooves. (not wooden but it makes a nice addition to the other items).

I also eventually want playstands, which are quite spendy but again, will be used for years.

I know you are looking to simplify and have things w/ lasting value. I'm the same way. In my reading though, I've noticed a lot of recommendations to not over-buy in an effort to "replace" all the plastic items if that makes sense. Part of the simplicity of wooden toys should be to encourage creativity. Our kids will make "dolls" out of pinecones if we let them, kwim? I struggle w/ this as well because there are so many neat things, but if they aren't really open-ended and creativity inspiring, you've taken away some of the point of cutting out the plastic. But toys are for parents too, I understand...the desire to buy is tough to overcome ;)