Since I started cloth diapering, I got to thinking more about the toys I give D to play with and buy her. I looked around her room one day and saw a lot of plastic with flashy lights. I'm trying to move more of her toys to wood.
In comes Melissa and Doug! They offer cute, quality wooden toys at very reasonable prices. And the best part is you can find them anywhere! I have a Toys R Us, Two Targets and Two Walmarts along with G Wilikers and Treehouse Toys (the local toystores) all within 30 minutes of my house. Also Carters carries a few Melissa and Doug toys in their stores too!
I love giving their wood puzzles as gifts. Great quality and there are a whole bunch of different ones to choose from! My nephew got this Pirate Ship as part of his christmas present.
D is a music lover and when I stumbled across Melissa and Doug's Learn-to-Play Piano I fell in love. We have a little laugh and learn piano but it sings songs when you push a key and she likes it a lot but I thought she needed the next step up.
We love this piano! Gramma surprised us by ordering it for us and it showed up not two days later. D was napping though, so I opened the box expecting at least SOME assembly and to my surprise nothing was required of me other than cutting the cellophane. Now the blue bar with the letters that you see in the picture is just a piece of cardboard, so I took that off to save for when an older kid comes to play. It also came with a little songbook that you can use with the cardboard bar to play songs!
Danica loved it! She likes banging on the keys and then banging on the top to hear the different noises. It sounds almost like a music box, which I like a lot better than the recorded noises of her electronic piano. It's a bit smaller than I thought it would be but D seems to have no problem with it. She will go into her room on her own and sit down and play a song.
Good for older kids too! We had my neice and nephew over (9 and 12) and they were playing around with it too! I'm glad that D will be able to use it for quite a few years. I have no concerns that it won't hold up that long, it is VERY sturdy! I don't think D will be able to break it.
My absolutely favorite part though, is that it has no batteries, no electronics, it's a quality piece and it requires imagination and toddler-power to make it go. Not saying that all electronics are bad, we have our fair share of talking phones and cameras and other various things. It's just refreshing every once in awhile to not hear pre-recorded songs over and over and over. To enjoy in D making her own music!
To learn more about Melissa and Doug visit their website at
http://melissaanddoug.com/ Browse around a bit, see what catches your eye.
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