MomReviews

There are two things that Kaitlyn loves, and I mean loves, to do-the first is put together puzzles. She loves the chunky wood toddler puzzles, the thicker cardboard puzzles, even puzzles meant for grownups with the teeny pieces-she tries to fit the pieces together.

The other thing she loves to do is draw circles. She has a MagnaDoodle, and she draws big circles with dots inside and calls them “Happy Faces”. And she draws them all the time. But if she just has a crayon or a pen and some paper, she will still draw circles.

Which is why the Cranium Bloom “Seek & Find-Let’s Go To The Zoo” puzzle that MomCentral sent me has been her absolutely favorite, to the point of being somewhat maddening, game to play for the last few weeks.

Cranium Bloom is a new line of preschool books, toys, games, and puzzles that are designed to nurture the abilities that preschoolers are developing. Like counting, recognizing colors, drawing simple shapes, and using their fine motor skills.

The Seek & Find puzzle has 24 big, sturdy pieces that form a picture of a zoo. Then, there are 30 cards divided into two groups (easy and advanced), held together with a spiral bind at the top. On the Beginning level cards, each card has a picture of things to find-two polar bears, four parrots. It comes with a dry-erase marker, and that’s Kaitlyn’s favorite part-she gets to draw on the puzzle. It’s obvious that the makers of Cranium Bloom did their research, because a puzzle where it’s okay to scribble on it with a marker? And then it just wipes off for the next time? Genius.

We also received the Cranium Bloom “Let’s Play: Count & Cook Game”. This one is too hard for Kaitlyn right now, and my youngest son rolled his eyes when I asked him to play it with me, so for now I’ll just describe it to you. It comes with a board, 18 tokens, 4 movers (which look EXACTLY like Smurfs wearing chef’s hats, there’s even a Blue one), a recipe book, a die, and a rule sheet. The idea is to place all the tokens on the board face-up, and each one has a picture of an ingredient.

Everyone agrees on one recipe to “make”, and then using the die to move around the board, the first person to collect all of the recipe’s ingredients is the “top chef”, and gets to pull a tab on the recipe book for a surprise-an action activity like “pretend to crack an egg”, “pretend to mix up the fruit salad”, that sort of thing.

The recipes look easy and delicious and healthy, and are for foods most preschoolers will eat-hamburger, peanut butter sandwich, omelette, cookies. So even if the game is too hard, you can still have fun in the kitchen! And I bet if I told my son that I would make him the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies IF he plays the game, he’d be more than happy to play it.

Any of the products in the Cranium Bloom line would make a wonderful gift for a preschooler. I’m thinking it would also be a great item to purchase for a daycare, or even a preschool itself. I’m so happy that MomCentral included me in this review, because I’m sure I’ll be purchasing more of these products! Oh, and Cranium Bloom is sold exclusively at Target and online. Pick one up and have fun!

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From singer and actress Solange Knowles, sister of Beyonce, comes a new line of toys called Baby Jamz. Featuring Solange’s hip-hop versions of familiar songs like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “Skip To My Lou”, and “Old McDonald”, each toy in the Baby Jamz line is meant to be a fun toy and a musical activity.

We received two toys for review, the Baby Jamz Mix Master Chair and the Baby Jamz Shape Sorter. The Shape Sorter toy has three plastic shapes that fit into corresponding holes and plays three songs, “Wheels on the Bus”, “Hip-Hop Buckle My Shoe”, and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, all sung by Solange. It’s shaped like a little DJ, too.

The Mix Master Chair is Kaitlyn’s favorite, she carries it from room to room. The songs are activated when she sits on the big yellow note on the seat of the chair. It plays three songs, but the only one Kaitlyn ever plays is “Skip To My Lou”. To be honest, it kind of bugs me, because the way Solange sings it, she sings “skip to my LOUUUUUUU” in this high pitch sort of shriek. But Kaitlyn loves listening to it. There are four buttons on one of the arms of the chair that add sound effects to the songs, which Kaitlyn loves to push over and over. This might be sort of an annoying toy to me, but my two year old loves it!

The chair came with the legs not assembled, but it’s easy to put together. I think that if you are looking for an alternative to traditional cutesy nursery rhymes, any of the Baby Jamz toys would be a fun choice.

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I’ve already bought Kaitlyn all of her Christmas presents, and believe me, she is going to flip out when she sees her “My First Dollhouse” and her “Musical Tea Set” and the Twin Babies baby dolls.

But look what I saw advertised on Nick Jr. today!

Stuffed WonderPets toys! And she LOVES Ming Ming! When she watches WonderPets, she sits on the couch giggling and shaking her head, saying “oh, Ming Ming”. It is so cute!

But my husband is a believer in the Less is More theory when it comes to Christmas presents, and I know he wouldn’t be happy if I bought this for her. My Dad has already bought her a present (another item she will flip out about), maybe her other Grandpa will give her some cash or something that I can use to buy it.

Wouldn’t it look adorable peeking out over the top of her Christmas Stocking though? I want it! Sigh.

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The company behind Kaitlyn’s favorite video, “We Are The Laurie Berkner Band”, is Big Kids Productions. I guess they must have noticed me constantly gushing about how much she likes that DVD, because they sent me a whole pile of DVDs plus a CD in the mail! I had no idea that they had such a diverse catalog, either.

Big Kids Productions has a Mission Statement that I can really support-”Big Kids Productions was founded by an independent children’s video producer with one goal in mind: to make the highest quality non-violent and educational videos available to parents through one convenient source.”

They didn’t ask me to write this blog post, but I just had to share this information with you. Any of these DVDs or the CD would make great stocking stuffers! Included in the package I received were:

The Best of Big Kids CD-This CD has joined the rotation in the CD player in my van. Kaitlyn loves listening to it! Her favorite is Joe McDermott’s “Baby Kangaroo”, in fact, the boys and I love it too! I dare you to listen to “Baby Kangaroo” and not find yourself singing along The 42 minute CD includes these songs:

1. House Party - Dan Zanes
2. Riding My Bike - Imagination Movers
3. Goin’ Down To Mexico (The Monarch Butterfly Song) - Lucas Miller
4. Baby Kangaroo - Joe McDermott
5. Three Blind Mice - Mother Goose Jazz Band
6. I Like Silver, I Like Gold - Ben Rudnick
7. Brontasaurus Got A Sweet Tooth - Justin Roberts
8. Are We There Yet? - Trout Fishing in America
9. Deep In The Jungle - Joe Scruggs
10. The Alphabet Song - Susie Tallman
11. The Couch - Kevin Kammeraad
12. Great Big World - Joe McDermott

I also got these great videos from the Big Kids DVD collection. They have DVDs on a wide variety of topics that are interesting to kids! My set includes:

Potty Power

The Big Rescue

Baby Dance!

Squibs-Science for Growing Brains (I keep thinking Harry Potter though-lol)

Professor Parrot Speaks Spanish

Rock ‘N Learn Spanish

Any of these would make an excellent, and LEAD FREE Christmas gift! Big Kids Productions has about 600 selections to choose from so check out all the great selections at BigKids.com!

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I am in love with the adorable hair clips from Oopsie Dazie! Oopsie Dazie hair clips are unlike any others you have seen online, because each one is individually designed. You select the type of clip (baby gator clips with a “grip” strip) or older kid’s clips, select the ribbon style you want, and then Cindy at Oopsie Dazie chooses a topper to match. It’s very possible that your daughter will be the only person wearing a particular clip!

There are too many choices to show, so go to the Oopsie Dazie site and click on “I wanna order some”. You’ll see all the adorable ribbon choices! And here is the very very best part about ordering clips from Oopsie Dazie-they are so cheap, they are practically free! Each baby clip is only TWO DOLLARS, and each older kid clip is only THREE DOLLARS! You can order a whole bagful at that price! Match a clip to every outfit your daughter has!!

My daughter wears a lot of pink, purple, and orange, so these clips are perfect:

This is not a sponsored post, by the way. I just think these clips are adorable, and an excellent price. So if I can send some traffic their way, I’m happy to do it!

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