Toys On The Brain

Posts Tagged ‘Playskool’

Now here’s a classic toy. Everyone’s gotta have a Sit n Spin, right?

It’s too bad I couldn’t enjoy this toy much when I was a child; turning around and around on the flat wheel made my stomach well, turn around and around. But my little boy has thoroughly enjoyed this toy’s features since he could barely stand. And there’s nothing like a toy that lasts through several developmental stages.

He loves hitting the handle to play the music that goes through a round of tunes and stops, only to be started again when touched. As he got older, he learned how to spin properly: holding on to the handle while pulling himself in a circle with his lower body.

Then one day last fall, he laid down on his stomach and spun himself around - legs stretched and toes pointed - while pushing off the floor with his hand for speed. His daddy and I are certain it could be a new Olympic event.

The Playskool Sit n Spin was used when we got it, and it hardly has a scratch. It’s durable, lightweight, and I’ve yet to change the batteries after owning this toy for over two years.

Spin on baby, spin on.

• Sit N Spin at the Hasbro Website

Buy Sit N Spin Online:

• at Amazon.com

One of the best toys for older infants I’ve found is this wonderfully simple, yet thrillingly exciting (for 9 month olds - you’ll be ready to scratch your eyes out well before they tire of it) pop up toy. It consists of five different little animals that can pop up when their switch is activated. The different switches encourage fine-motor skills by encouraging baby to twist, push, slide and otherwise manipulate.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand these days, it’s the over-proliferation of loud, annoying electronic toys for kids and infants. The wonderful, beautiful thing about this toy is that it doesn’t scream music, make animal sounds, or light up. Baby isn’t being entertained, she’s entertaining herself. Note that there are different versions of this toy that do require batteries and do all of the previously mentioned annoying things - avoid them. Find this one (it also comes in white) and watch your baby learn to have fun without electricity.

Buy Busy Poppin Pals Online:

• at Amazon.com
• at Toys R Us

Much to my chagrin, I have to admit that this has been one of the most popular toys the boys have ever played with. Sure it’s annoying, loud, and prone to coming apart, but it has an incredibly long play lifespan - four years and counting so far.

The basic idea behind the ball popper is that five balls are blown through a plastic housing to come flying out one end, roll down a track and then go back in to be blown out again. In practice, most of the balls come flying out with such speed that few are caught by the saucer-like attachment at the end, but that’s one thing that seems to make it so much fun for the kids - they don’t know where the balls are going to go and they love chasing them all over. Of course, the downside of that is that we have only one original ball left; luckily, other lightweight balls of similar diameter work just as well.

The music that accompanies the balls (and which can’t be turned off) is loud and annoying, but that’s something that is seemingly required by many toys these days. In addition, the saucer thing constantly comes off; at this point, we’ve discarded it and just let the boys play with it minus that attachment.

In terms of education, it certainly teaches cause and effect for infants and can help demonstrate the effect of different weights for older kids - Small Person #2 loves shoving kleenex in and watching them fly all over the room. One thing to note is that small hands love going into the holes, inevitably getting stuck. Nothing horrible has happened (yet) but it’s something to watch out for.

Bonus points for being easy to put together and having reasonably long battery life.

Buy Playskool’s Busy Ball Popper Online:

• at Amazon.com

To be honest, when I first saw this toy, I thought it would be completely lame. I mean, come on, a stupid little bee that goes around in circles? Big whoop.

Boy was I wrong.

Turns out, there’s little in this world that is more enjoyable to little kids than running in circles and jumping over a little plastic bee stuck on a long plastic stick. The basic idea behind the toy is that the arm (with bee attached) goes around in circles while it plays Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s (yes, I had to look that up) “Flight of the Bumblebee.” It has two speeds and, thankfully, an off switch on the bottom when you just can’t stand listening to it for one more second. If the arm gets stopped for any reason, it plays a little “bumped into” tune and stays still for a moment. It starts up again on its own. It claims it turns itself off after a while, but I have yet to see that happen - we usually just hit the button on top until it stops.

Everything is made out of plastic, so odds are your kids won’t be passing it on to their kids, but for $20 it’s a fun little toy. We’ve used it exclusively on carpet (it works very well), but I find myself wondering if it would go even faster on hardwood floors.

Bonus points: it’s easy to put together and can be taken apart (sort of) for storage.

Buy Playskool’s Honeybee Hop Online:

• at K.B. Toys
• at Amazon.com