Why Buy Wooden Toys?

Many people have asked us this question over the years so we decided to tackle it. After thinking it over and getting input from fellow coworkers and parents we found that we all had about the same idea on this. Our answers can be summed up in 6 categories: Durability Hand Crafted Nostalgia Play Value Wood is a Natural Product Being Green Let's take these one by one. 1. Durability - Wooden toys tend to last longer than plastic toys. Plastic toys often have many components and once a piece breaks you end up with a sharp, jagged edge. This can make the toy unsafe immediately. Wooden toys tend not to break nearly as often. They are made of a stronger material! 2. Crafted by Hand - Many wooden toys are crafted by hand. There are parts to the process of manufacturing wooden toys that require an actual person to work on the toy. Some are made by master wood craftsmen. Wooden toys are made to last through years of play. 3. Nostalgia - Because wooden toys are made to last for so long, they are often handed down through a family. This makes the toy special because the older children (or maybe grown ups) "remember when" it was their toy. Wooden toys that are generational develop a much more sentimental importance to the family. Often the handing down of a really special toy has great family significance. 4. Play Value - Let's not forget that play value should be one of the main reasons we purchase a toy to begin with! Wooden toys lend themselves to unstructured play. What does that mean? It means that many wooden toys can be played with any way a child's imagination leads them. Wooden toys have been known to inspire inventive and truly imaginative play in children. This is probably due to the versatility inherent in most wooden toys. Wooden toys tend to be passive. The result is that the child has to become more active in their play. A more passive toy like a wooden toy may also encourage greater problem solving skills. Many plastic toys require batteries. If the batteries die and you don't have replacements on hand, that toy is useless to the child until it's "on" again. Wooden toys are always on! Wooden toys stay relevant. Wooden toys come in many varieties. Vehicles, puzzles, blocks, and manipulatives are quite common. Take at look at any large selection of wooden toys (on our web site for example!) and you will come to the conclusion that they would be as relevant in 20 years as they are today. 5. Natural Product - Wooden toys tend to be green! Many parents also love that wooden toys are a natural product..made right from trees. Children also understand this and can even be shown this process if you make your own wooden toys. Many believe that the wooden toy has a living energy to it that a child will respond to. It's the same material as the tree in the backyard that they touch every day. Many wooden toy manufacturers are cognizant of the fact that their product requires cutting down trees. This may make some people unhappy. HOWEVER, many wooden toy manufacturers have active reforestation policies and may replant as many as 5 trees to replace every one that is used. Further, wood from some trees isn't actually taken until another product has been taken from it. Take the rubberwood tree, for example. Rubberwood trees are cut for wooden toys until AFTER they have been sapped for all of their juice! BTW, contrary to the name, "rubberwood" is actually a HARD wood (much like maple). 6. Being Green - What's greener than a tree? Wooden toys are environmentally friendly DURING their production process as well as AFTER they are no longer useful. Put them in a landfill and they will decompose. What about plastic toys? Ummm....I don't think so! Many wooden toy manufacturers even use recycled materials in their packaging. We have an enormous selection of wooden toys (and furniture) on our web site, including these great manufacturers: Melissa & Doug Kidkraft Guidecraft Voila HABA Anatex Automoblox Educo Hape Heritage Playsets IggiBig Jonti-Craft Kapla Maple Landmark One to Ten Toys Quadrilla Shure The Toy Workshop Uncle Goose www.GummyLump.com Toys That Make Sweet Memories