Day at the Beach - Holiday Toy List

In a way, this play set made me desperately wish we were at the beach! The bright colors really pulled me away from the gloomy winter days that we've been having and into the memories of our trips to the ocean.

Day at the Beach is a magnetic building set that features a walk-up cafe window, surf shop double doors, lifeguard stand, surfboard workshop, food prep kitchen, cafe seating, surf scene, beach gear, rescue gear, outfits, tools, and yummy food!

This is a high quality construction set that allows children to not only create their own stories but to re-imagine and re-design the scene each time they play. The kids had a great time constructing different layouts. The Day at the Beach was designed with girls in mind, but Joey enjoyed playing with the set as well.

I like how easy it is to assemble and disassemble. It was easy for the kids to create different scenes and then to pack up and store once playtime was over.

Build a Scene and Imagine Countless Stories!

Emily and Lucas can’t wait for their day at the beach working at the surfside café and shop. Between running the café window, the surf shop register, and the lifeguard stand, there is always action to keep them busy. After the lunch rush, they catch a few waves to try out Emily's latest surfboard designs.

Day at the Beach includes:

• Emily and Lucas dolls
• 10 illustrated building panels
• More than 40 action packed magnetic accessories

Rich Imaginative Play

Build & Imagine play-sets contain illustrated scenes that children can build, decorate, and use as a backdrop for imaginative play with the included dolls. We call them StoryWalls, because it’s like building a storybook setting in 3-D and then jumping in to play!

Open-Ended Building

With Build & Imagine StoryWalls, kids aren’t limited to one design—they can quickly reconstruct the structure into whatever design suits them. They can also change the context of their story with magnetic accessories that stick to the floors, walls, and dolls. Or combine multiple play-sets to build a larger scene.

Develops Foundational Skills

The layered play experience creates long-term engagement to hold your child’s attention and helps to develop foundational language and engineering skills, including spatial reasoning, problem solving, and creativity.

Build & Imagine offers several different StoryWalls. You can find them here. This is a toy that I've used in our classroom for downtime and to entertain young children in my care. It's great for the imagination and entertainment!

Build & Imagine StoryWalls develop early engineering skills including:

• Spatial Reasoning
• Experimentation
• Creativity & Design

Build & Imagine StoryWalls are easy to setup, cleanup, and store. The panels allow for limitless combinations, and you can expand your structure and story with additional sets.

I was provide a Build & Imagine Day at the Beach StoryWall for review purposes. All opinions are my own.

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Pirate Pursuit - Holiday Toy List

This past summer, we took a short ride on a "pirate ship" during our beach vacation. Ever since then, Joey has been fascinated with anything and everything pirate. So, he was excited when Pirate Pursuit arrived.

Pirate Pursuit is a pirate track game with a wind-up pirate galleon to sail around the treasure island. Be the first player to fill your loot bag with coins from the treasure chest before the pirates catch up with you in their galleon! For 2 to 4 players. Contents: game board, wind-up pirate galleon, 4 loot bag boards, 24 play coins, 4 pirate counters with stands, dice, dice shaker, guide.

Each players chooses a character and a loot bag. The goal is to fill your loot bag with coins first. Players take turns rolling the die and moving across the board trying to collect coins and not lose any!



We often do a family-game-night with the extended family. I think I'll take this along next time for the children to play! Want to try Pirate Pursuit? You can find it on
Amazon!

Random Like: You know how a lot of board games fold up and fit inside their box? I thought it was neat that the Pirate Pursuit board went together and disassembled like a puzzle! Four pieces fit together to make the board and are then easily taken apart for storage. It always drives me nuts when a board game finally breaks in half from overuse or misuse. I thought that was a neat way of designing the game board.






* I received Pirate Pursuit for review. All opinions are my own. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy here.

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Mexican Train Game - Holiday Toy List

I was so excited to finally have the chance to play the Mexican Train game. My dad has talked about it for several years after having a co-worker introduce him to it. He loves this game and hadn't been able to find the 'right one'. He had wanted all of us to play this for a family-game-night, but I guess it just isn't the same if you don't have the original. Now, we have the original Mexican Train game and all is right with the world.

It's been quite a while since I've played any sort of game that involved dominoes and Joey heard the word 'train', so he was in! The game is fun and a little addicting. It can also last for quite a while just depending on how things go. So, do prepare yourself for that!

The object of the game is to keep your train moving all the way to victory! Lay out a chain of dominoes (called trains) from the center domino piece, or add pieces to the group’s common chain (The Mexican Train). The first player to finish playing wins! There are many ways to block the trains along the way – so beware of obstacles!

Want to try the Mexican Train game for yourself? You can find the Mexican Train game by Tactic on Amazon. Mexican Train Game

* I received the Mexican Train game for review. All opinions are my own. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy here.

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SpyX Roll-In Spy Bug and Long Range Walkie Talkies

Joey believes that he is crafty, clever and sneaky. At the age of 7, he hasn't mastered being crafty enough to fool mom and dad but he enjoys it. As sneaky as he is, or believes himself to be, I wasn't sure if he would fully enjoy a set of SpyX toys. They were something that I would have loved as a kid but I didn't know if kids these days were really into walkie talkies and spying on their parents. Oh was I wrong. So wrong.

We recently received a pair of SpyX Long Range Walkie Talkies and a SpyX Roll-In Spy Bug. The first day, Savannah and Joey played with the walkie talkies nonstop. They hid from each other and used them in the basement. They took them outside and pretended to be on a secret mission of some sort. At night, they took them to bed and chatted for a bit before mom and dad decided it was time to sleep.

I guess that with the use of cell phones, I hadn't imaged that kids would find walkie talkies so neat. The SpyX Long Range Walkie Talkies have become a prized toy. I like that it's something they can play with together, bond and create memories. I also like that it helps to expand their imaginative play.

It was also nice to bring them along when I run on a local track. It kept the kids busy as they ran around and tested the signal strength and began a new "mission". Unfortunately, the walkie talkies did not work from one end of our small town to the other end. They were disappointed in that - but hey, from one end of the neighborhood to the other was pretty good.

They also had a lot of fun with the SpyX Roll-In Spy Bug.  Oh how sneaky they thought they were when they'd slowly place it in the room where adults were and sliver out the door.  Their giggles and laughter were priceless.  The SpyX Roll-In Spy Bug was pretty interesting.  They could place or roll the bug in it's desired location and then, using the receiver, listen to conversation up to 50 feet away.

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