However, if we are to focus primarily on the materials used to make a toy a “Green Toy” then there are several in the market already.

One such material is wood. Wood is recyclable and can last for many years.  The best wood to use is ones that originate from forests that are under the Responsible forest management.  The toy would bear the FSC or PEFC mark.  FSC is an international, non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting responsible management of the world’s forests. The FSC runs a global forest certification system with two key components: Forest Management and Chain of Custody certification. This system allows consumers to identify, purchase and use timber and forest products produced from well-managed forests.

Another is cotton, cotton can also have the organic logo.  Cotton becomes organic in the way it is grown. Organic cotton growing is intended to establish a balanced ecological system: organic farming and environment-friendly fertilizers preserve the fertility of the soil and protect the ground water.

And lastly, the use of biopolymers and recycled materials in plastic products contribute to ecological sustainability.

All of the toys in Green Owl Toys Ltd are green because of their material that is used to make them.  The dumper truck is green in the materials used and green in the function of recycling it provides.  Even the building bricks are made from eco-plastic!  Its good to think about the world around you and how it may effect others.

However, the scooter now has a challenger…the balance bike!  It made me wonder what was all the hype behind balance bikes? I stopped a couple of mothers to understand a little more:

“Jake had very little confidence on his cousins bike when he first tried so we bought him a balance bike. He loved it! He could keep his feet close to the ground for reassurance without the pedals getting in the way. He soon got used to the “wobble” which happens on both kinds of bike.  When we bought him a proper bike – it took him 2 or 3 tries and off he went! “ – Lisa mother of 2.

“Oh Sally has had a balance bike since she was 2. When she was 4 she went straight to a bike without stabilizers and had no problems riding it. But as you can see she still loves her balance bike and rides it on lovely stretches like this.”  – Natalie mother of 2.

I did not hear any negative views about the balance bike. So I did some further research.  Most balance bikes are made of wood and generally bought over the internet.  When you search there are quite a few to find and its difficult to decide which ones to buy.  The 4 categories to consider are: from which age, seat, weight, and design.

Age: I would suggest to go for the smaller bikes with adjustable seat height ( where the lowest setting of the seat is 30cm from the floor).  In this way your child can grow with the bike and not wait to grow to the height of the bike.

Seat: Aha! I think this is what defines a good balance bike to a mediocre one.  Here is where the reviews of products on the internet come in very handy. Some seats on balance bikes have a wooden base on which a padded seat is placed on. The wooden base seems to make the seat wider and makes the childs’ legs stick out the sides.  It might be a thought to find a seat without the wooden bit.

Weight: Wooden bikes feel great to ride but wood is not light, aim for the lightest possible bike.  They are only young .

Design? Well, there are many designs to choose from and I think this is up to personal taste.  Maybe to keep in mind: the bike needs to be slender for their legs to sit naturally on both sides, keep it looking fun for children and possible easy to get on and off.

There are many balance bikes out there for everyones tastes but one thing is for sure every child reacts with the same, sheer excitement and eagerness to ride their very own bike!

The European Union’s Council Directive 2009/48/EC on the safety of toys limits the use of 19 types of heavy metals, while only eight types were restricted by the previous regulations. During toy testing, the new regulation includes 57 articles where previously there was only 16. Due to this new testing machines will need to be acquired. It also forbids the use of 55 allergenic fragrances and limits the use of 11 others for the first time.  This is the toughest regulation toy manufacturers have seen so far.

What does this mean for the consumer? The consumer can trust the production of toys more however, this may come at a cost.  For retailers it means its easier to be aware of the dangers. Green Owl Toys Ltd has always been on the look out for quality and safety.

The next text I am going to lift directly from the article made by the BBC – you can find the full article on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14012541

“Stricter rules on toy safety will come into force this month making it easier for consumers and authorities to trace the origin of toys.  Under the new rules, importers will be responsible for ensuring that toys they bring into the EU are safe.  Contact details must also be carried on packaging.”

Green Owl Toys Ltd, has always been concerned on the safety of toys and the regulations the head office has on its factory.  In one of our earlier documents we mentioned it is easier to have control on a factory that is just round the corner than a factory based in another country.  We have sourced our products where the designer and factory are in the same location.  This is both beneficial to safety and carbon footprint on the product.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman will announce proposals to extend a voluntary code on cutting packaging on toys after an official review of waste policy. She has invited toy makers to join a working group aimed at cutting down on packaging. The packaging should go straight into the bin and recycled.

This follows on from my original article about Green products. One of the 4 issues of a “green” product is the packaging of the toy.

There are a few companies that are thinking of the environmental impact their packaging has. One of these companies is Bajo.  Their toys are all green and all their packaging are easily recyclable.  No plastic is used  - there is a window to see the toy and see it “as is”.  The products are all wooden so they are pleasant to even look at and once touched you can feel their great quality and care given to each toy.

There are factors of:

~ What the toys is made of: Wood, Bamboo, card, from FSC sources

~ What is the production cycle : from collection of raw materials, to end result of the toy

~ What the toy represents : Does it teach about recycling or fuel efficiency

~ How it is packaged : Is the packaging made of recyclable materials

As long as the toy falls under one of these categories it is thought of as “Green Toy”.  I will write about each topic separately.  Green Owl Toys Ltd is continually watching these factors when purchasing toys.

There might not have been much talk about it in the years when you and I were kids because times have changed. We are now more aware of bacteria and germs and have quite a few products that we use on our surfaces to kill them. We can even buy a little bottle of “Hand Gel” which “Kills 99.9% of bacteria” to carry in our handbags!

Messy play might be taken out of our kids “everyday” way of life. Due to this change we need to introduce “messy play” into play. This need not be a big task from yourself – it can be fun and everyone can enjoy themselves. Some centres now have “messy play” sessions or you can make one in your own home. (“Children and Family Centre”).

Messy play is useful for children to feel and touch. To understand different textures and feel comfortable with their environment.

There is a great little pack of finger paint that you can buy that does not stain most materials. (lets face it – if you want the vibrant colours some white shirts will just hold onto those colours). The Giotto range of finger paint have a great paint mixture that looks after your surfaces. Get involved and enjoy the squishing, smooth paint between your fingers and feel how it tickles your feet when you paint it on.

Other types of messy play can be found in this article.

Go on! You’ll love it

Salt dough is brilliant because it is totally made of natural ingredients.  If your child decides to taste it – it would not harm them!  All they would do is pull a face from the salty taste.

Salt dough is great for creating decorations. Instead of buying something in the shop, mix up the salt dough with the kids. Then cut up the dough with dough cutters.  For this time of the year, the shapes would be of Easter Eggs or Bunnies or Chicks.  Don’t forget to pierce a hole at the top of the shape while it’s still wet. This is so that you can put a piece of ribbon/string through it and hang it up. 

And now for the great household arty Salt dough recipe:

Salt Dough Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 cup cold water

Directions: In a large bowl, mix table salt and flour together. Gradually add 1/2 cup of water and mix to desired consistency. Knead the dough on a flat surface, adding a few more drops of water as needed (but not making it too moist).

Once the dough is made, roll it into 3mm thick pieces with a rolling pin. Use dough cutters to cut into the shape of your choice, and place the shapes on wax paper or other surface to dry. If you want to make hanging ornaments, pierce the dough through with a toothpick while it’s wet.

Allow the shapes to dry for about two days, turning them over periodically to speed up the drying process. You may need to re-pierce the hole several times during the drying process. After the shapes dry, you can use a fine grit sandpaper to gently smooth any rough edges.

If you would like to speed up the process:  you can bake them in the oven at 100 degrees C  until hard. Baking times varies depending on oven and dough thickness. Make sure the dough is completely baked. You can cover the dough with aluminum foil if it starts to darken before completely baked through.

Painted objects should be sealed on all sides with polyurethane spray or clear varnish to make them lasting gifts or keepsakes.

Our feature was on how we pride ourselves in selected toys that grow with our children. The wooden toys begin with giving your child the sense of touch, sound and sight as they feel the high quality of the wood, here the jingle of the rattles and see the vibrant colours.  As they grow and begin to understand the world around them they learn other values of the toy.  It could be about shapes and proportions or action-reaction as they push or pull the toy or even hand-eye coordination.

The wooden educational toy grows with your child.  The wood makes the toy durable and lasts for many years even their own children. The environmental toy offered here are safe and have passed high quality tests in Germany. They are also fun to play with.

The Independent Newspaper featured the Sorting Scale is a great example of this. It has 5 vibrantly coloured weights at each end of the scale. The scale is for 1-year-old and over. It helps in learning about colours, the relationship between size and weight and concept of balance. As your toddler grows you  can include games of addition and subtraction.

First of all discuss which story you will make the puppets for.  Take out some books.  Look up the characters.  Talk about the story.  Decide which characters you will draw and how many of them you will make.

Next take a piece of card and draw oval shapes for each character ( about 8 – 10 cm long) .  Let your child cut out the shape.

Write the names of the characters on the oval shapes.  Depending on your child’s age, either you do this or your child.  She could trace over your writing or you could spell it out.

Next let him/her draw the character on the oval shape.

Now find some short sticks which could be either a lolly pop stick, ice lolly stick or even straws cut shorter. Sticky tape them to the back of your oval character cards.  Hey presto! You have little puppets which you can act the entire play out. You can practice for Daddy who comes home in the evening or for relatives coming over the weekend! Lots of fun filled with writing, cutting and creative skills all in one fun afternoon!  Enjoy!

Its a lovely Autumn – with the sun shinning and the leaves slowly, slowly changing in all its spectacular colours.  Its a time for long walks with wellies and fleeces. A great item to take along with you is the Explorers Activity pack! Its a neat little box with a string handle that holds many items needed to record and describe your experiences!

Its loads of fun picking up leaves that have fallen. Finding the different shades of green, yellow, brown and red! Search under the logs for creepy crawlies and then go home to warm up inside.  You might think now what with all these leaves!?? Well, try some collages.  Draw a vase, let the kids draw zig-zags and circles (good to practice their writing skills) on the vase and then stick the leaves at the top of the vase.  Or change the vase to a tree trunk.

This is fun once or twice but you might need some more ideas…and here is where the Explorer activity pack fits in perfectly.  It has illustrated flashcards, activity booklet, inspirational book and a postcard to send your experience out. It stimulates creativity, develop communication and social skills, encourage problem-solving and hours of fun!

All this pressure but as always there is somewhere, something on the Internet which a parent who feels the same as you has created just the right thing to get you out of a muddle. Green Owl Toys has found just that party box to create the party that will run smoothly and filled with lots of laughter.  There are even 3 different themes to choose from! The Circus, The Enchanted Kingdom Party and the Superhero Party.

Try it out! It has all the checklists, plenty of different ideas for games and to liven up the party. The games are set to the theme of the party box you choose. The games awaken the imagination of children and the innocent nature they have to laugh, giggle and have fun.  The Party boxes even include party bags to go home with! Just add a bit of the goodies that were left over from the table and hey presto! The party is rounded up with a neat little bow and not an expensive entertainer in sight.

There are heaps and heaps of puzzles out there. Many companies only sell puzzles and do well but how do you know which one is a good buy or which is the best for my child?

Firstly, puzzles are great for the imagination, creativity and logic.  They also create a medium for conversation and language building.   Doing simple tasks correctly at an early age gives the child success. Putting a few pieces together will bring confidence in their own abilities. There are different types of puzzles depending on your child’s age.

The very first type is cubes with pictures on them.  Here the toddler learns that a picture can be made by putting pieces together. Cubes make it easy to create logic and make the first type of understanding about puzzles. The wooden cubes are simple and involve one type of thought process: make a picture. The pictures should perhaps be what the toddler is learning to sound or speak . Nothing too complicated. Pictures of farmyard animals is usually best.

The next step is to put one, two or three pieces together that resemble actual puzzles pieces. This adds another dimension to puzzle building: make a picture and to make the pieces fit.   Here again, keep to simple pictures and ones that your toddler can recognise.

After this you need to build up to more and more piece puzzles. All the time he/she will need your guidance:  How to put them together? Why did you think this piece goes with that piece? What is in the picture and then to talk about the pictures.  Encourage your child to talk about what he/she is thinking while you watch or interact. This will build self esteem and one-to-one time with your child.  Children love it when their parents are praising them and helping them with activities. It will encourage him/her to do more and say more and help you create experiences together.  Here are 3 great puzzles that have pieces just the right size to put the pictures together but has enough to challenge your child. These are called “Beneath our city / country / seaside” and are all available at www.GreenOwlToys.co.uk.  It also has a few things that are easy for parents to talk about but will open your child’s eyes to the world around us.

Although Green Owl Toys is too small to enter such a competition, we are definitely following suite by cutting our carbon footprint. We only import toys from within the EU and all our products are made of natural materials.

The toys are either made of wood, cotton or leather.  These are all materials that are long lasting and a pleasure to touch.  Parents enjoy the thought that our children are enveloped in natural products and not the touch of cold plastic.

By importing these beautiful toys from the EU the company not only minimize the carbon footprint but we can also ensure their safety.  The toys all have passed safety control tests set out by leading European Laboratories. To read more information on the stamps found on toy boxes to ensure their safety please click here.

Do we just opt to buy the things given to us on a Christmas list or do we choose to buy a toy that is similar but has a lot more to it? A toy that can fire the imagination and become a irreplaceable, rather than a cheap, mass produced toy that is cast aside in days.  It may be the toy is wooden and not plastic, it may be the toy needs to sing or jingle or even have an educational feature.

A wooden toy crafted and polished to present round corners and smoothness is much more pleasant than a synthetic product that has been moulded under heat. For the amount of value you receive from a wooden toy is much more than the slight increase in cost.

There is a growing popularity in educational toys. Toys for a child from birth to Primary school age.  In these first few years children play with many different toys as they grow and learn new things. Not only are they developing their coordination and speech but also their role in society, how to behave and in opening their minds to imagination and creativity. With toys they can learn new things and very importantly practice them. Practicing enhances their self-esteem and confidence to move onto the next step. Some toys need parental input but most (if bought correctly) can be self learnt which is brilliant for our busy lifestyles.

With so many toys that are out in today’s market, it is up to us, the consumer, to make a good decision depending on which quality you think is most important. Keep in mind the following features when shopping next:

• Safety
• Educational
• Durability
• Design.