Guest blogger Joyce from Childhood Beckons shares a DIY Recycled Magnets activity!

One of my son’s all time favorite books to look through is his Safari Ltd. catalog. And who could blame him? The book is awesome! So when we received the newest version, I immediately began to brainstorm ways to creatively recycle last year’s catalog and extend the fun. One of our favorite ways is to create our own magnets!

Homemade Magnets:

More Ways to Play:

We’re always looking for ways to incorporate toys and the arts. One opportunity to combine the two together is to use your child’s toys as a model for sculpting!

Whether you use professional clay or kid-friendly play dough, this activity is sure to be a blast. You can start with simpler objects to sculpt, like our Safari Ltd® Incredible Creatures® Pufferfish or Monterey Bay Aquarium® Gray Whale, and slowly work your way up to more detailed items, like one of our many dragons. You can also have your child mold out his or her very own fossils, like the Tyrannosaurus rex Tooth or Dino Footprint.

This is an easy activity that combines creativity, imagination and the arts all into one. Get those brains thinking and let the fun begin!

Math conversion can be tricky, and to a youngster often boring. An easy way to bring in a little fun is, as usual, to incorporate your child’s toys!

All you need is a ruler, like our super cool Optics & More Solar System Ruler, with inches and centimeters. To start, you can explain to your child that 1 inch is the same thing as 2.54 centimeters. How cool is it that you can describe how long, tall, or wide something is in either inches or centimeters, and people will understand either way!?

Show your child the ruler and have him or her count the numbered centimeters that are within the 1 inch to demonstrate what you mean by 1 inch and 2.54 centimeters being the same thing.

Next, grab a few of your child’s favorite toys that he or she can measure. (We might be biased, but Safari Ltd® replicas are a pretty solid choice.) Explain to your child that you are going to measure the replica in inches, and then convert that measurement into centimeters. After you measure the replica in inches, ask your child to guess the amount of centimeters it measures first. You can even teach estimation by saying that an inch is between 2 and 3 times the amount of a centimeter, so they can multiply by whole numbers if they haven’t learned decimals yet.

After they estimate, you can bring the ruler out and see for yourselves what the correct measurement is.

Is there a math concept particularly difficult or boring for your kiddo?

Believe it or not, Election Day 2012 has officially arrived. While we, as adults, may not think twice about what it means to vote, a child could have difficulty understanding it. There are plenty of fun ways to teach a kiddo about what voting means in the United States.

A good place to start is to tell the story of America’s beginnings. Our Safari Ltd® American Revolutionary War Continental and British Army TOOBS® are an excellent introduction to this historical concept. Explain how Commander-in-Chief George Washington, who is included in the Continental Army TOOB®, was a trusted general who led the American troops to victory during the American Revolutionary war. This victory established freedom for America. After explaining how America fought for freedom from Britain, discuss how the Constitution came about and how Washington was elected in 1789 as the first President of the United States. For additional information (in five different languages!) on each replica in these TOOBS®, check out our educational information on our website.

By fulfilling their civic duty to vote, Americans today honor those soldiers who fought for the United States’ freedom. Today, voters across the country exercise their right to vote and have freedom to select who they want to be their next leader – this is why on Election Day in November, people across the nation visit voting booths to help make the decision.

Add some fun to this lesson by practicing voting in your very own home! For example, when deciding what to eat for dinner, take a vote from your family members. If you are a teacher, you can have your class take a vote on whether they would rather have a reading assignment or writing assignment. Or even create an election polling place in your classroom by isolating a desk or table, copying paper ballots, and selecting a fun topic to vote on (like what should snack time be for that day). Another idea is to have a play date with your friends and their children, where everyone votes on whether to play games such as duck-duck-goose or red light, green light. The options here are endless!

Has your child or student asked you about the election process? 

Halloween is finally upon us! We already shared with you our idea to pass out toys instead of candy, but if you’re struggling to find a fun costume for the big day tomorrow we’re here to provide you with a little insight that is sure to spark light in your child’s eyes. 

The idea is simple: Pick out of one of your child’s toys and model your costume after it! Your child will love the idea of his or her toy “coming to life,” and you’ll be relieved of the stress of solving the “what do I wear” conundrum.

At the Safari Ltd® Halloween Party last week, our Graphic Designer Dary did this very thing and brought Days of Old® Medea the Witch to life right inside our office! We thought she looked pretty legit.

Sticking to the “classic” characters will be easiest since it’s a little last minute, or you can stick to costumes that can be created mostly from home. For example, to go as Pirate Boatswain Benjamin Jeffrey you can simply roll up some khaki pants, roll up the sleeves and tuck in a button down shirt in a neutral color, draw on a beard and mustache with eyeliner, and wrap a red shirt or towel around your head. You can carry around the toy for added effect and comparison.

Have you already decided what to be for Halloween? Share with us!

Colors are one of the first things a child likely learns. While pink, blue and yellow are easy to grasp, colors like fuchsia and turquoise may be more difficult to explain. A tangible, fun way to help your child understand abstract colors is using his or her toys!

We recommend using a TOOB® since there are up to 12 replicas in each, but this strategy can work with any toy lying around the house. One that we think works particularly well is the Coral Reef TOOB®.

With this TOOB® you can discuss lime green, yellow gold, coral, rose, forest green, royal blue, aqua and more. Your child will enjoy learning the colors (if for no other reason than receiving a toy) and each time your child plays with the replica you can prompt him or her to tell you the color to keep it an ongoing lesson.

How have you taught your child colors?

Halloween is almost upon us! Guys and ghouls (see what we did there?) all around will be dressing up in costume to partake in tons of fun and games. While it’s safe to indulge in an occasional sweet, the various events your child goes to throughout October can really add up between classroom parties, friends’ parties, local neighborhood parties, and Halloween night itself.

So instead of enabling this sugar high your kids are about to get, we offer you a solution that takes out all the unhealthy without removing the fun. In fact, we’d like to think it adds to it! Instead of giving out candy, invest in a Safari Ltd® Bulk Bag of replicas to disperse instead!

If you’d like to stick to the Halloween theme, we have everything from Glow-in-the-Dark Insects to Dino Skulls, but any figure would be a joy for a child to receive. Bulk bags contain 48 replicas, which are sure to be enough for most neighborhood Trick-or-Treaters since each child will get one instead of the traditional handful of candy. Beyond that, it can be a fun change for a child who may be tired of receiving the traditional chocolate bar or chewy candy.

What do you all think? Do you have any special Trick-or-Treating plans this Halloween?

If you are a parent you probably are always trying to think of ways to spice up games for your child. One classic game you may have taught your child is Hot Potato, which is perfect for parties or family bonding time. One easy way you can jazz it up is by replacing the potato with none other than a Safari Ltd® replica!

We introduce you to: Hot Pufferfish. The rules of Hot Potato remain the same. Players form a circle and pass around the Pufferfish while music is played. When the music stops, the person holding the Pufferfish is out and sits outside the circle. The last person out is the winner – and the new owner of the fun Pufferfish!

If you’d like, you can even go grab some of our very small but cute Good Luck Minis® Pufferfish as a “condolence” prize to those who get out first. Since right now the Good Luck Minis® Pufferfish are only sold in bulk online, you can call your local neighborhood toy store to see if they carry them.

Happy playing – hope you don’t get burned!

Nurturing the arts is so important when raising your child, but your kiddo may need a little inspiration to get his or her creative juices flowing. Therefore we introduce you to Cock-a-Doodle Doodle: a way of getting your child to draw without the stress of knowing where to start.

To coincide with the (cute) title of this post, we’ll use our Down on the Farm TOOB®  as an example. Start by surprising your child with the TOOB®  as a gift and exclaim you are going to play a fun game where you arrange the different figures to reflect a “scene.” After you have fun depicting a “day in the life” of a farmer, challenge your child to draw it on a piece of paper to hang on your refrigerator, bulletin board, desk or wherever you showcase your child’s work in your home.

Encourage your child to get creative along the way, and laugh together as he or she draws an oversized rooster or a pink horse. Use this as a fun bonding activity and a way to incorporate that “just because” gift into a learning activity.

Happy doodling!