Screens may be everywhere, but some of the best gifts are still the ones that encourage kids to build, imagine, create and play.
This holiday season, Emily Richett of Mama Bear Survival is sharing screen-free gift ideas that bring back some good old-fashioned play, from handcrafted wooden toys and beautiful learning materials to creative gifts that keep kids busy and engaged.
Treasures From Jennifer
If you love beautiful toys that can be passed down from one child to the next, From Jennifer, also known as Treasures From Jennifer, is a family business creating wooden toys, learning materials and home pieces from solid hardwoods in Missouri.
Their wooden slingshots and bow-and-arrow sets are a fun throwback to old-fashioned childhood play. The slingshot is made from maple or walnut and uses soft wool felt balls, while the wooden bow sets include wool-tipped arrows.
They also make beautiful heirloom-quality puzzles and personalized name puzzles, along with wooden learning materials for the home and classroom.
Montessori Language
One of Emily's favorite ways to encourage screen-free play is to choose toys that sneak a little learning into the fun, and Montessori Language does this beautifully.
At first glance, these look like toys and games, but they're actually thoughtfully designed learning materials. Their rhyming memory game puts a clever twist on the classic matching game: instead of simply finding two identical pictures, children listen for and match words that rhyme. It turns early literacy and phonological awareness into play.
And the wooden sound phone is a simple tool that kids can't resist. Children speak into it and hear their own voice amplified back to them, helping them listen closely to the sounds they're making as they work on speech, sounds and early phonics. But really, they're just having a ball playing phone!
Lovevery
Buying toys for babies and young children can be surprisingly tricky. You want something educational, but you also want something they'll actually play with. And what interests a one-year-old can change incredibly quickly.
That's what makes Lovevery Play Kits such a great gift, particularly from grandparents who want to give something meaningful throughout the year. Lovevery Play Kits are designed around specific developmental stages, with toys and books selected to meet children where they are. Kits arrive every two to three months, depending on the child's age, and Lovevery offers Play Kits from birth through age 5.
One of the most popular is The Babbler Play Kit. Its Slide & Seek Ball Run introduces object permanence, while other hands-on activities encourage fine-motor skills, coordination and exploration. Plus, every item just looks fun! Play Kits start at $80 per kit.
Jellycats
Jellycats may be incredibly trendy with kids right now, but there's also something wonderfully classic about giving a child a really special stuffed animal for Christmas. These are one of the few gifts my children ages 3 up to 12 all love!
The designs include everything from classic bears and bunnies to the whimsical Amuseables that turn everything from food to everyday objects into cuddly characters.
The Christmas collection is especially fun for gifting, with seasonal characters alongside dressed-up versions of beloved classics. And part of the fun of Jellycat is that collections continually change, so certain characters can become particularly sought-after once they're no longer readily available.
Makedo
Finally, if your house seems to accumulate cardboard boxes around Christmas, this is a gift that will keep on giving!
Makedo turns ordinary cardboard into building material with kid-friendly tools designed specifically for cutting, folding and connecting corrugated cardboard. Kids can transform boxes into forts, cars, costumes, robots, or whatever else they can dream up.
The system includes reusable plastic “Scrus” that connect layers of cardboard, along with tools such as the Scru-Driver, Fold-Roller and Safe-Saw. The pieces can be taken apart and used again and again, so today's cardboard castle can become tomorrow's rocket ship. And the best part: you don't have to buy the building material. It's already sitting in your recycling bin.
Visit mamabearsurvival.com for more information.
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