EnviroChild|Healthy, Green, and Safe Products for Children

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The animals of Indonesia are in danger…the power to save them is in the cards. Globetrotting adventure, eye-popping illustrations, and challenging strategy make Xeko a favorite with kids ages 8 and up.

Xeko is a really fun trading cards game for kids that has won many awards, including game of the year in 2007. The game teaches players about ecology and endangered species in various parts of the world. It is a trading card game with a social conscience and there are a couple different missions available in places like Costa Rica, Madagascar, and Indonesia. Game players learn about the multifaceted nature of ecosystems, as they try to save the endangered ecological communities in whatever destination they have chosen. It is difficult to describe the game and it was pretty complicated to learn the game as well. Principally you play cards against each other on a big map of the ecosystem. I play it with my 8 year old son and my husband. The starter set comes in a lovely collector’s box and the cards and board (or map) are really beautiful. Extra cards can be bought to expand the game and the missions can even be combined.

The game is made from recycled paper stock printed with soy based inks. Players can send their card wrappers back to the company too. Conservation International is provided with 4% of the net sales of each game, for their work in supporting the hotspots that inspired the game.

Natural dolls are almost impossible to find in conventional stores. Most dolls you can get at big box stores are made of plastic with phthalates and PVC. Cloth dolls can be found at specialty stores but can they be very expensive. Recently my little girl fell in love with small wooden fairy dolls from an etsy seller online.

These little dolls are made of high quality, sustainable wood and they are hand painted by the mom seller with non-toxic paints and finishes. I love the fact that these dolls are safe for my daughter to play with and they are planet friendly. I also love that they are made in the United States by a small business mom. Buying toys made close to home helps support US families and the US economy and that is important to me.

The dolls and other play items sold at The Fairy Ring help kids get involved with creative play and really use their imaginations to create a magical fairy world of their own design. In addition to dolls with adorable names like Lavender, Ivy, and Rose you can also buy little mushrooms, trees, fairy beds, and fairy home accessories. Since they are hand painted each item will have a unique look and feel. No fairy will look exactly like another. They really are special toys that provide countless hours of fairyland fun.

An innovative combination of magnets and wood, this dress-up set is sure to provide hours of imaginative play. This magnetic dress-up doll includes stand and loads of colorful, magnetic outfits and accessories for pretend play.

This dress-up doll set has reinvented the concept of playing with paper dolls. Instead of using paper that can tear easily and need to be discarded, this set uses durable wood for the doll body and a wooden stand so that dressing is a snap. The different pieces of clothing (27 pieces) are all magnetic so that all a child needs to do is place the clothing on top of the body. This makes it incredibly easy for small hands to dress up their dolls.

Nina Ballerina is an adorable doll with a variety of clothing options with tutus, blouses, slippers, and crowns in a variety of colors and styles. Ballet enthusiasts will love to play with her. My own daughter loves to play with Nina Ballerina often and finds this dress-up doll much easier to play with and dress than paper dolls or even Barbie. I like the fact that it is made of wood and it is very durable. It also comes with a nice wooden box to store the doll in with compartments for all her clothing. The pieces are small and can get lost easily so this is a nice feature.

There are also several other dolls you can buy including a Princess doll which we also have. They provide many hours of creative play for little girls and can usually be found for around $10-12 so they are a great price too.

This colorful wooden set includes twelve wooden, sliceable cookies and eighteen toppings, wooden knife, spatula, cookie sheet and a kitchen mitt for safe, “low-calorie” play. The cookies store in a durable dough tube.

Kids love baking cookies with mom. It only makes sense that they would also love to bake their own pretend cookies in their play kitchens. This is why the Melissa and Doug Slice and Bake Cookies Set is a big hit in our home. The set is made of natural and sustainable wood and painted with non toxic dyes so it is much safer for them than the plastic toys and doughnuts you see in conventional stores. The wooden cookies come in a tube just like the slice and bake cookie dough at stores. Kids can pull out the roll of cookies and slice through the Velcro attachment pieces with the wooden knife and then place them on the little metal cookie sheet. From there they can bake and serve to all their family and friends.

The cookies and the separate frosting pieces come in a variety of “flavors” and designs. They can bake cookies with vanilla or chocolate frosting and then top with a coordinating colored frosting or sprinkles. The set also comes with a spatula and a kitchen mitt, everything a little baker needs to make some cookies. This set is great for creative play and it is an awesome value for the money.

This simple wooden toy fosters creative play and is a wonderful addition to imaginary kitchens everywhere. Use the wooden spatula to serve the cake and the fake candles to make a wish. This toy will make an excellent birthday gift for future bakers.

Most children love to play in pretend kitchens with play food. They can spend hours creating pretend delicacies for their parents or stuffed animals to eat. There is a big market nowadays for play food and play kitchens but unfortunately much of it is made with potentially toxic plastics that could have BPA or phthalates. Melissa and Doug is one company that makes wooden food that is not only more sustainable and safe they are some of the cutest sets you will ever see! One of their most adorable sets is the Birthday Party Cake. It is a colorful wood cake that is cut in slices and held together with Velcro. Kids can pretend to cut and serve slices to their party guests by using the wooden spatula. The cake is adorned with delectable toppings such as strawberries, jellybeans, and gumdrops and has wooden candles to wish upon. All children love birthday parties so this toy creates a little bit of that magic every time they play with it. Every day can be a very merry un-birthday.

To keep all the pieces organized it comes in a wooden box for easy storage. Several of their sets come this way so it is really easy to stack them and keep all the pieces together. They are also very high quality. They won’t chip or break even when played with roughly. They are a great value for a relatively low price.

Purchase: Amazon

A unique touch and talk device that brings stories to life, the Tag Reading System works with a library of books and games from LeapFrog. Funny voice-overs and cool sound effects add to the fun of discovery, helping ensure that children four to eight love the way this interactive, educational system boosts their confidence and their reading level.

This product is great for moms that are trying to get their kids to love reading. It is also great for keeping younger kids entertained in an educational way. Using the TV as a babysitter can often be an attractive idea but using the Tag reading system is a much better one.

We have been using the Tag Reading System for several months now and continue to love it. We bought the tag pen along with 3 starter books. I signed up for an online account, downloaded the audios for our books, synced the audios with the Tag pen and off kids went, to listen. The Tag pen reads the book to the kids and uses audio cues to tell them when to turn the page. You can hook the pen up to earphones if it is hard to hear.
 
Unlike other LeapFrog reading systems that have heavy plastic cases, spiral notebooks, and plastic cassettes the Tag system has no bulk. There are no cassettes that get lost. This system just uses regular hardback books and the special Tag pen that is the size of a small flashlight. It would be a snap to put the Tag inside your purse to take on a trip. The stories are also engaging and fun, like Fancy Nancy and Kung Fu Panda. The Tag provides hours of story time fun.

Hammer Balls is a curved wooden box with three colorful balls and a mallet, this toy helps children to improve hand-eye coordination, aligning, slotting and aiming. Pound the balls and watch them roll out one by one.

This is one of my all time favorite toddler toys. We got this toy for our 3 year old son as a Christmas gift and not only does he love it, his older siblings do to! It is a wood block with a lovely curved shape that has three holes in it. You place one or all of the three colorful, wooden balls on it and then you use the hammer to pound the balls through the holes. They roll out from underneath and the fun begins again. The concept is incredibly simple but it is fascinating to most young kids. It is similar to the idea of wack-a-mole but without the violent concept of striking an animal. Early childhood learning involves playing and this toy helps to develop hand-eye coordination and aiming. It is easy for toddlers to grasp the concept and fun enough to keep them practicing.

Hammer Balls also has a beautiful Euro-contemporary design. The curves are sleek and fun, making it one of the most aesthetically pleasing toddler toys I have come across. It is a natural and healthy alternative to plastic toys that have chemicals and off gassing potential since it is made of natural recycled rubber wood. It is painted with non toxic dyes. As always Plan Toys has successfully delivered a fun and natural toys for kids and I highly recommend it to other moms of toddlers.

A good night’s sleep is as important for an infant or a child as it is for you. Frankly speaking every one of us feels that if we have an uncomfortable or sleepless night it affects our day too. It’s the same with infants and kids. They will not understand their discomfort level and will remain irritated or cry instead of settling down to sleep. It becomes difficult to understand why the infant is crying because you have to make out what they’re uncomfortable about.

Here the duty of mother becomes difficult but we know there are two or three areas where the child reacts. So why not give your child the complete comfort of organic bedding? We offer organic baby foods and baby clothes to give a safe and allergy free atmosphere for our child but forget to look into the bedding and pillows.

I came across organic pillows and first used them to get assured of their authenticity. Then I bought the Sachi Organics Toddler Pillow for my child, which is made in the US which is a plus. The filling in the pillows is also of US grown organic cotton that are grown and processed in organic way throughout. That’s not all - the casing of the pillow is also of organic cotton damask and that too is US grown. Apart from that, the pillow is silky smooth for further comfort and a cozy feeling.

There are so many cases of allergy with all these unnatural and synthetic wools these days that I worried for my 9 month old child. It is also common for allergies to create sleeping problems. But thanks to this organic toddler

This hands-on indoor planting set is complete with organic seeds and soil. It includes three yellow planters, one green planter tray, orange trowel, three packets of organic seeds and three expandable soil disks.
 
Many parents hope that their kids will come to love nature and plants. The quickest way to make sure they want to protect the natural world around them is to help them come to love it and all its wonder. Help kids get exposure to gardening outside is one way to do this but other we can’t forget to bring nature indoors to. The Green Toys gardening kit is a fun set for kids and beginner gardeners. It comes with 3 pots, a pea-pod shaped planter tray for the pots to sit in, a trowel, soil, and 3 packets of organic seeds (Teddy Bear Sunflower, Zinnia, and Basil). It is set is pretty easy to use and very attractive with yellow and green pastels and great design. This is especially amazing in light of the fact that this set, along with other Green Toys, are made from recycled milk jugs. They are not only great toys but innovative and planet friendly ones too.

To use the set just drop peat in the 3 pots, soak with water, wait 30 minutes and you are ready to plant the seeds. The pots do not have drainage holes so if your kids will be watering they need to be careful not to get things too wet. Parental supervision may be needed. This set look fabulous on the window sill of the kitchen or a kid’s bedroom and helps bring a little nature inside for us to enjoy.

Purchase at Amazon.com

These are a reinvention of classic wooden toy car for the iPod age, Automoblox is a fusion of heirloom craftsmanship and ultra-modern styling transformed into a mix-and-match design system that allows kids to create their own unique car styles.

Little boys usually love to take things apart and put them together again. They also usually love cars and trucks. Automoblox is a toy concept that takes these two ideas and puts them together to help boys (or girls) create and invent new vehicles. Usually creative building type toys are plastic…it is just easier to make interchangeable parts in plastic than in wood.

Automoblox manages to deliver a natural building toys made of wood and plastic, the best of both worlds. The majority of the vehicle is wood that comes apart in sections and the plastic parts like the wheels, windows, and people are plastic and interchangeable so that with just a few cars or trucks you can create a variety of customized vehicles. You can alternate colors and body pieces so that the design possibilities are endless.

Both of my boys like cars like Automoblox cars and trucks. They can play for hours designing new cars and trucks. The quality of these cars is excellent too. These vehicles will stand up to rough play, even if they get sent crashing down the staircase at high speeds daily.

They get high ratings from me because they at least partially use sustainable materials. They are quality toys that inspire creative play, design, and imagination. The interchangeable pieces help with problem solving too. They have all the makings of an excellent toy.