Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Toys for Christmas?
How should you decide on what toys to purchase for Christmas for your childcare, or the kids in your care, or your own children? Rather than browsing through your local toy store, do a little advance investigation.
Each year Family Fun magazine holds a Toy of the Year (T.O.Y.) competition. This year, the magazine's writers collected 520 brand new toys from 170 different manufacturers, dropped the toys in front of 130 elementary school kids in Kennebunk, Maine, (and then ran for safety).
Anyway, after destroying as many of the toys as is humanly possible, the kids in Kennebunk narrowed down the field of 520 toys to only 63 finalists, the toys the kids wanted to take home with them. And that's when the fun began. The 63 finalist toys were sent to 17 different KinderCare facilities around the United States where 1,275 children spent a combined total of 30,000 hours of play time hitting each other over the head with assorted Tonka trucks.
At the end of the play testing/pummeling, each child voted privately for their absolute favorite toys. The results were compiled by Digital Research on behalf of Family Fun magazine. (Oh, and the KinderCare centers got to keep all of the toys as a thank you.)
Long story short: The toys on the 2005 T.O.Y. awards list are literally the best of the best, the toys your kids WILL want to play with well after you take down the holiday decorations. For a complete list of this year's winners, just point your favorite web browser to the Family Fun TOY awards site.
The T.O.Y. Awards themselves are pretty self-explanatory, and the layout of the Awards site hasn't changed much since we first visited it back in 2001. There are two dozen award categories that cover both the type of toy and the age group for which that toy was designed. Click on any of the award-winning toys and you are taken to a page
that shows you
- A picture of that particular toy;
- The toy's manufacturer and suggested US retail price;
- A one-paragraph description of what makes that toy so cool; and
- Either a telephone number you can call, or a link you can click,
to locate a store in your area that carries that particular toy.
For you video gamers, a new addition to this year's Awards page is a list of this year's best family-friendly video games at Family Fun's Video Award page.
You should check out the Family Fun magazine T.O.Y. Awards year after year because it is the best, most up-to-date toy buying guide around. If you are looking for a toy that kids will play with long after the holiday season is over, check out Family Fun's toy list before you even THINK about bravely venturing into the eternal nightmare that is a toy store during the holiday shopping season.
Happy toy shopping!
P.S. Family Fun.com is an excellent site for your list of online resources... with arts & crafts, receipes, party ideas, printables, and more.
How should you decide on what toys to purchase for Christmas for your childcare, or the kids in your care, or your own children? Rather than browsing through your local toy store, do a little advance investigation.
Each year Family Fun magazine holds a Toy of the Year (T.O.Y.) competition. This year, the magazine's writers collected 520 brand new toys from 170 different manufacturers, dropped the toys in front of 130 elementary school kids in Kennebunk, Maine, (and then ran for safety).
Anyway, after destroying as many of the toys as is humanly possible, the kids in Kennebunk narrowed down the field of 520 toys to only 63 finalists, the toys the kids wanted to take home with them. And that's when the fun began. The 63 finalist toys were sent to 17 different KinderCare facilities around the United States where 1,275 children spent a combined total of 30,000 hours of play time hitting each other over the head with assorted Tonka trucks.
At the end of the play testing/pummeling, each child voted privately for their absolute favorite toys. The results were compiled by Digital Research on behalf of Family Fun magazine. (Oh, and the KinderCare centers got to keep all of the toys as a thank you.)
Long story short: The toys on the 2005 T.O.Y. awards list are literally the best of the best, the toys your kids WILL want to play with well after you take down the holiday decorations. For a complete list of this year's winners, just point your favorite web browser to the Family Fun TOY awards site.
The T.O.Y. Awards themselves are pretty self-explanatory, and the layout of the Awards site hasn't changed much since we first visited it back in 2001. There are two dozen award categories that cover both the type of toy and the age group for which that toy was designed. Click on any of the award-winning toys and you are taken to a page
that shows you
- A picture of that particular toy;
- The toy's manufacturer and suggested US retail price;
- A one-paragraph description of what makes that toy so cool; and
- Either a telephone number you can call, or a link you can click,
to locate a store in your area that carries that particular toy.
For you video gamers, a new addition to this year's Awards page is a list of this year's best family-friendly video games at Family Fun's Video Award page.
You should check out the Family Fun magazine T.O.Y. Awards year after year because it is the best, most up-to-date toy buying guide around. If you are looking for a toy that kids will play with long after the holiday season is over, check out Family Fun's toy list before you even THINK about bravely venturing into the eternal nightmare that is a toy store during the holiday shopping season.
Happy toy shopping!
P.S. Family Fun.com is an excellent site for your list of online resources... with arts & crafts, receipes, party ideas, printables, and more.
// posted by Tammy Wachter @ 8:41 AM 
