Egg Race WrapUp!

An egg-cellent time was had by all at our 34^th Annual Easter Egg Race last Saturday! 

The day featured a lot of snowy rain, “white rain” as we Coloradans call it. But, in true Colorado fashion, no one gave up because of a little weather.

The races were divided into three different age groups. The 1 to 3 year olds had an “egg meander,” and it was adorable to see them toddling about as they picked up the eggs.

The second age grouped, the four to six year olds, had to scramble to grab the eggs. But they could only dash when they heard the word, “Fuzzy Bunnies!”

The last age group, the seven to ten year olds, could only pick up one egg at a time and race back to their baskets in an egg sprint!

With twelve races total, each age group ran four times. There were a total of 12,000 eggs to be had over the course of all the races.

The golden egg was found in the third race. The lucky child received a coupon for $50!

Plenty of prizes were had by all, and the children got to spend their money on special Easter treasures. 

This Week's Hopping Links, Earth Day Edition!

Welcome to our round-up of all the best links we found this week! For Earth Day, here's a list to get you and your kids started on some ecological adventures, and one that might help you as a parent when it comes to talking about the tougher environmental issues. 

• Kaboose has some fun craft and activity ideas for earth day. They also have quizzes, coloring pages and project guides and a green checklist.  
• Here's a cool online magazine run by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources called Eek! (Environmental Education for Kids) It's aimed at ages 4 - 8.

• "TUNZA" is a word in Kiswahili (the common language of most East African countries) that means to "treat with care". It is also the name of the UN Environmental Program's Children and Youth program. Their website has many great resources and fascinating articles - many contributed by kids and teenagers themselves. 

• For your budding zoologists, the University of Michegan's Museum of Zoology has a website with information on thousands of species, compiled by university students and professional biologists. Lots of photos to look at, and some creature pages even have videos and sounds. 

• Want more animal antics? the National Zoo in Washington D.C. has live cams for many of it's animals, including the pandas, orangutans, and octopus. 

• If your kids want to get involved with helping endangered species, there is a great campaign run by Earth Rangers and the Nature Conservancy of Canada called Bring Back the Wild. Kids can set up their own fundraising campaign to protect animals like the Grizzly Bear, Wolverine, Peregrine Falcon or Jefferson Salamander. 

• Want to learn how to compost? California's Integated Waste Managemetn Board set up a website with flash cartoons featuring Vermi the Worm and his various composting adventures. There are also a lot of great resources - sans animated worms - to help you get started on your own composting journey. 

• Finally, talking to your kids about environmental devastation can seem daunting. Especially in the wake of the Gulf Oil Spill, many kids had questions about what happened and why. The National Wildlife Federation had some helpful tips after the spill last year about how to talk to your kids, with age appropriate suggestions.  

Our Favorite Eco-Friendly Toys!

In 1969, Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, took a trip to California to survey the damage done by the devastating oil spill that occurred that year off the coast of Santa Barbara. He was so angered by the destruction he saw, and how slow Washington was moving to clean up the spill, that he conceived the idea for a national day of environmental teach-ins to be held at universities across the country. The response at the grassroots level was tremendous, and on April 22, 1970, around 20 million Americans participated in events marking the first Earth Day.

Now over 175 countries participate in Earth Day, and many communities even plan an entire week’s worth of events that focus on environmental issues. In 2009 the United Nations declared April 22^nd International Mother Earth Day, officially making Earth Day a global event.

At Grandrabbit’s, we are proud to carry a variety of environmentally friendly and educational toys for your children. We wanted to spotlight some of our favorite companies and products here. Just one way you can celebrate Earth Day, every day!

PlanToys – As their website states, PlanToys practice “the FOUR R’s of green living: Rethink, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.” Their products are made of rubberwood from rubber trees that no longer produce latex and are assembled with an E-Zero glue instead of toxic wood glue. They use non-toxic water-based dyes on all their toys, and soy and water-based inks, which biodegrade more easily, on all their printed materials. We carry a range of these cheerfully designed products for babies and preschool children, as well as pretend, dolls, dollhouses and dollhouse furniture.

HABA – This company was the first toymaker in Germany to pass the country’s ecological audit. All of their buildings are heated without fossil fuels, using a combination of thermal, biomass and solar energy.  They also collect rain and well water in giant cisterns for maintaining the facilities.  They use only environmentally-friendly, water-based stains on their wooden toys, which are made out of indigenous beech and maple wood. We have several colorful Haba baby toys and blocks to choose from.

EverEarth – This line of toys from the EverMax company is kid-safe and manufactured with materials supplied from nurseries that have been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international organization that brings people together to find solutions that promote responsible stewardship of the world’s forests. We love their super fun toddler activity walker,  their bamboo five-in-one activity cube, and their unique pull toys, such as the duck with egg, or, one of our favorites, the koi fish.

Sprig – As the story goes, the three designers who began Sprig were inspired to start their own company after they visited the factories where the toys they designed were produced. After seeing the environmental effects of the manufacturing process, they were moved to start their own company in Fort Collins, Colorado. Their imaginative toys are battery free – “kid-powered” as they put it – and are made out of their own patented Sprigwood™, a durable, child-safe, bio-composite material made from recycled wood and reclaimed plastic. Visit one of our locations to check out some of their cool vehicles and adventure sets!

Green Toys – Green Toys makes all of their products out of recycled milk containers. There’s a counter on their website, which shows that, as of the date of this blog posting, they’ve recycled over 6 million milk jugs! The containers are reprocessed into a plastic called high-density polyethylene (HDPE), considered one of the safest, cleanest plastics around. Even their packaging is made out of recycled cardboard and contains no plastic, cellophane or twist ties. On top of all that, this company truly keeps it local. Every step in the process, from recycling to manufacturing to final assembly, is done in California to cut down on environmental transportation impacts and support the local economy.  Our stores carry a wide variety of Green Toys products, from dishes to tea sets, tool kits to building blocks, toddler toys to trucks!

Blue Orange Games – For every tree that is used to create the high quality, all natural  pieces of Blue Orange’s wooden games line, two trees are planted. Blue Orange definitely makes being eco-friendly fun. We carry several games by this company, including Gobblet!, Yamslam, and Spot It!, just to name a few for starters.

miYim – This adorable line of organic cotton plush toys is manufactured in a factory that uses a low eco-impact dye process, filtering water waste with natural enzymes. This means the water is purified before being released back into the ecosystem. They also design their packaging to be reused as photo or memento boxes. We carry their cuddly Lovie Blankies, and will be getting more miYim products in soon!

Thames & Kosmos – The stated mission of Thames & Kosmos is, "To improve informal science education," through their high-quality, award-winning kits. Their products teach science concepts and skills through hands-on modeling of real world devices and processes. They have an extensive Alternative Energy and Environmental Science line, and we are happy to carry many of their kits at Grandrabbit’s. As an extra bonus, 1% of the purchase of every Wind Power and Hydropower kit goes to U.S. environmentally focused nonprofits.

Are there other eco-friendly companies or products we should know about? Leave us a comment and let us know!

This Week's Hopping Links!

Here's this week's round-up of Hopping Links! These are cool, helpful and interesting links we've found this week while burrowing around the internet.

Since Monday kicks off Screen-Free Week, we thought we would share a handful of great articles we found.

• The Campaign for a Commerical Free Childhood, the sponsors of Screen-Free Week, have a great fact sheet on children and time spent in front of the screen. It downloads as a pdf, if you click on this link.

• Here's a 2010 article from the New York Times about wired kids. Lots of experts weighing in, with their advice and experience. Read all about it here.

• Another article from the Times, this one about the movement to restore children's play. We quoted it in our blog entry about Screen-Free Week, but definitely worth another read!

• We've had a mild winter in Colorado, but still those colder days can lead to more time in front of the TV. This article from The Boston Globe has some great suggestions on how to ween your kids way from the screen this spring. 

• Here's some awesome suggestions from a father on how to arrange your home to encourage more play time and less screen time. Lots of great ideas here!

• Finally, although you may not go to the lengths journalist Susan Maushart went to unplug her family - which included three teenagers - from technology for six months, her story is inspiring, and hilariously told to boot. You can soon pick up a copy of her book, The Winter of our Disconnect, at Grandrabbit's, but in the meantime, check out this intriguing preview here. 

 

Happy reading and happy Screen-Free Week!

Screen-Free Week Starts Monday!

Screen-Free Week starts this Monday, April 18^th, and lasts until Sunday, April 24^th. Previously called TV-Turnoff Week, Screen Free Week is a chance to unplug your family – and yourself – from TV, video games, computers and ubiquitous mobile devices. 

ASTRA, The American Specialty Toy Retailering Association, of which Grandrabbit’s is proud to be a member, is one of a host of official endorsers for Screen-Free Week. By turning off the screens and turning on real life, this week can provide time for your children – and yourself - to play, connect with nature, read, daydream, create explore and spend more time with family and friends.

There is a growing consensus among health professionals, educators, and parents all this time hooked in to our media-saturated environment has detrimental effects on a child’s wellbeing. As compiled by the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, the facts are sobering:

• School-age children spend nearly twice as many hours with screen media such as television, video games, computers, and hand-held devices as they do in school.
• Television use is at an all-time high among preschoolers—according to Nielsen, young children spend, on average, more than 24 hours a week watching TV.
• Screen time is habituating and linked to poor school performance, childhood obesity, poor sleep habits and attention problems.
• Forty percent of 3-month-old infants are regular viewers of television and DVDs—even though the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time for children under two.

Perhaps one side effect often overlooked in the myriad of problems over-exposure can cause – such as attention deficit disorders, declining physical health, and addictive behaviors – is the fact that all these devices cut into one of the most valuable experiences of being a kid: playtime.

photo courtesy of  hinnamsaisuy/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A recent article in The New York Times laid out the growing movement to restore playtime in children’s lives. As the article explains, playtime isn’t just silly time – it teaches valuable socialization and thinking skills:

Too little playtime may seem to rank far down on the list of society’s worries, but the scientists, psychologists, educators and others who are part of the play movement say that most of the social and intellectual skills one needs to succeed in life and work are first developed through childhood play. Children learn to control their impulses through games like Simon Says, play advocates believe, and they learn to solve problems, negotiate, think creatively and work as a team when they dig together in a sandbox or build a fort with sofa cushions. (The experts define play as a game or activity initiated and directed by children. So video games don’t count, they say, except perhaps ones that involve creating something, and neither, really, do the many educational toys that do things like sing the A B C’s with the push of a button.)

Also, think of your own life. Think of how much time seems to slip away while we’re checking our smartphones at the dinner table or surfing through videos on youtube. This isn’t just a week to encourage kids to get away from the screen – this is a time for adults too!

Still, the thought of unplugging completely may seem daunting. So for Screen-Free Week, one strategy could be to set small goals, like cutting TV viewing down to an hour daily or keeping computer time for school work only. You could even focus on a specific device (no video games for a week) or a particularly addictive aspect of a device (c’mon, do you think you really couldn’t live for a week without knowing what your Facebook friends ate for dinner and “liking” that “Mary Smith ate some awesome roast beef lol”? I bet you could!). Or just simply try to fill the week with family activities – you may find you have less time for the screen than you thought.

photo courtesy of photostock/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Here’s a list of 15 suggestions for activities for your family during Screen-Free Week. Feel free to add more ideas in our comment section!

1.     Play outside! Go for a hike, fly a kite, or go play a game of Frisbee in the park.

2.     Visit a museum – science museums especially have lots of cool stuff for kids.

3.     Invite a bunch of friends over for a cookie or pizza baking party.

4.     Participate in a volunteer activity your family will find rewarding.

5.     Explore your neighborhood on bikes, skateboards or scooters.

6.     Have a picnic – if it’s raining, you could even have one indoors.

7.     Have a family game or puzzle night.

8.     Work on art projects together.

9.     Have story time. You could read a book, or make up a story.

10. Have an indoor dance party. It could be a great time to find out what music your kids dig, and maybe even teach them about the music you like too!

11. Build a fort out of sofa cushions, blankets or whatever you can find around the house. If you’re really ambitious, you could make a whole obstacle course.

12. Have pretend time. This could be a great time to play dress up and create new stories about your kids’ favorite characters.

13. Organize a scavenger hunt.

14. Play a classic game like Tag, Hide and Seek, Red light/Green light, Simon Says or Duck Duck Goose.

15. Celebrate a random holiday! Every day of the year has an interesting, historic and sometimes downright silly, holiday associated with it. This website has a great list of holidays to choose from.

  

Stay tuned to The Hop Spot for a roundup of some of our favorite links and articles we’ve found about the movement to unplug. Remember, it’s not just about one week. We hope Screen-Free Week can help kick start positive changes for the rest of the year!

An Easter Poem

It's National Kite Month!

National Kite Month started on March 26th and runs through May 1st. This time of year is perfect kite flying weather, especially around Grandrabbit’s home base on Front Range of the Rockies, where the wind is mighty and gusty.

Most historians believe that kites were first invented in China around 2,800 years ago. When Marco Polo returned to Europe in the 13th century, he brought stories of these amazing flying contraptions back with him. A few centuries later, kites were finally brought to the West by sailors returning from Asia, where they became incredibly popular for scientific research, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries. Famously, Benjamin Franklin is thought to have flown a kite in a lightning storm to prove lightning is simply electricity. Whether or not this actually happened remains unproven, but either way, the kite has become an iconic symbol in American folklore.

Although research kites were replaced by advancements in aircraft in the early 1900s, they have remained a popular source of recreation on blustery days, and new designs and developments continue to come on the market. Whether you’re new to kite buying, or would just like to add some more kites to your collection, there are lots of great options out there. In fact, there are so many different kinds to choose from, it can be intimidating knowing where to start with your kiting endeavors.

We spoke to our friend Jennifer Schmidt, one of the managers of Gasworks Park Kite Shop in Seattle, one of the best kite stores in the country. Here are some of her recommendations.

For first time fliers, Schmidt recommends Deltas, because they are easy to fly. “They have very little assembly and fly high and stable in light and strong winds.”

Delta Kite

Octopus kites are also good choices for newbie kite fliers. “They have no assembly other than hooking on your string, have a wide wind range, and dance playfully around in the sky. We sell these to kids as young as four and five! They love them,” she explains.

Octopus Kite

Another great option for families on the go is a Parafoil kite. It doesn’t have any sticks, so assembly is a breeze. This kite, “Looks like a little parachute,” as Schmidt describes. Since it packs up into a small stuff sack, it’s perfect for travelling, so you can take your kite with you, even to places that require a long distance flight.

Parafoil Kite

But she says her personal favorite to fly is a Serpent or Dragon kite, with their curved faces and long tapered tales. There are “short” ones that have tails 25 feet long, but Schmidt says, “I own one with a tail that is 75 feet long!”

Chinese Dragon Kite

So now that you have a few suggestions, we hope that you’ll celebrate National Kite Month and get flying!

National Poetry Month: Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies

April is National Poetry Month. Started by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National poetry month is when publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and writers across the United States come together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture.

At the Hop Spot, we’re going to celebrate National Poetry Month by reviewing some of our favorite poetry books, and suggesting fun activities that will get your kids’ writing some poems of their own. After all, some of the most beloved children’s storytellers, from Dr. Seuss to Mother Goose, would always find the time to rhyme!

To kick off our month-long celebration, we wanted to draw attention to one of our favorite poetry books at Grandrabbit's. If you’re looking for a beautiful and extensive volume of poems, we can’t recommend Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies highly enough. The nearly 150 poems were selected by Andrews and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton, and represent a wide range of writers such as Emily Dickinson, Shel Silverstein, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Ogden Nash, Emerson, Robert Frost, Shakespeare – and, of course, Broadway songwriters like Rogers and Hammerstein. Original works by Andrews and Hamilton are also featured. The poems are accentuated by James McMullan’s gorgeously lush watercolors, and the collection also features a CD with 21 poems read by Andrews and Hamiltion.

Each section is divided into themes, such as Sea Fever, Talk to the Animals, and Laughing Song, and features introductions by Andrews where she shares family stories and memories associated with the poems. It makes the collection feel very personal, and Andrews’ passion for the written word and its ability to bring families together, especially through reading out loud, is apparent.

We thought we would share this portion of an interview Andrews and Hamilton did with the good folks at Reading Rockets. It features readings of A. E. Housman’s “The Loveliest of Trees” and John Masefield’s “Sea Fever.” You can check out the full interview here.

This book would not only make a wonderful edition to your personal library, but also make a great gift. Stop into Grandrabbit’s and check it out!