After the Christmas rush to buy gifts, comes the after-Christmas rush to exchange them. This is a great time to get the kids some high quality educational toys.
Baufix Crane Construction Kit. Photo courtesy of ChildTrek.
I’ve found that ChildTrek is one of the best places to look for a wide selection of eco-friendly, educational toys and parenting advice on child development.
The ChildTrek has just won second place in the King 5 Best of Western Washington 2011 contest for Best Children’s Gift. The event is sponsored by King5 News in Seattle.
The retail company makes sure that all of the toys and items it sells meet several safety standards, including:
- Documentation of high safety and quality controls from product designs, material acquisitions, product development, and delivery.
- Compliance with the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act laws (CPSI) and the European Standards (EN 17).
- Excellent product safety history.
When deciding which toys to carry, ChildTrek also evaluates them against its “wholesome, natural, and educational vision.”
miYim Organics – Tigger. Photo from ChildTrek.
ChildTrek considers wholesome toys to be toys that facilitate the development of social skills, such as sharing, taking turns, and negotiating problems.
As for the naturalness of its toys, the company says, “The vast majority of the toys you’ll find at ChildTrek are made of natural, biodegradable, recyclable, and/or recycled materials. They are made of sustainable wood and/or natural fabrics such as wool and cotton. A few are made of cotton and polyester blends and very little new plastic is used.
“Most of the toys are finished with vegetable or other natural dyes, polished with beeswax, and painted with non-toxic paints, or retain their natural, unfinished beauty.”
The company also supports recycling and reusing, so to that end, ChildTrek says, “We offer toys that are made from reclaimed or recycled plastic (i.e., milk jugs, margarine tubs) using environmentally-sound practices.
Crocodile Creek Pouch Puzzle–Space. Photo by ChildTrek.
“Since packaging can significantly harm the Earth, ChildTrek also offers toys from companies that are making measureable steps to lessen the environmental impact of packaging. ChildTrek often ships orders in repurposed boxes as a way to give many boxes we receive from manufacturers another life.”
From an educational standpoint, the company promotes toys suitable to developmental needs from birth to 12 years old. The toys range from arts and crafts, blocks, construction toys and kits, dolls and animals, games and activities, magnetic toys, puppets, to puzzles, and a lot more. Children’s books are also a big part of the ChildTrek’s inventory of items.
The developmental emphasis of many of the toys are to promote skills including recognizing numbers, shape, colors, and words with simpler toys, as well as analytical and problem solving skills with more advanced toys.
Reader comments and input are always welcomed!