Here are some fun facts about Green Toys:

• Made in California – Keeps the jobs locally in our country in a time when most manufacturing are outsourced overseas.
• Great Packaging – Simple packaging with recyclable materials that doesn’t require mom and dad to drag out their tool box to open
• Eco-Friendly materials – We think it’s incredibly cool that they are made of recycled milk jugs + we are extremely impressed with how durable the toys are!

Recently, a film crew from CBS went out to the Green Toys factory in California and shot a feature. You’ll hear from the founders Robert von Goeben and Laurie Hyman about how their toys are made.

It’s a really cool insight about how Green Toys are made!

It’s getting closer to the holidays, and people are wondering what to get for the little ones in their lives. I’ve compiled a gift guide for children and the mom-to-be, there’s also a stocking stuffers section. Enjoy!

0-6 Months Old	6-12 Months Old	12-18 Months Old
18-24 Months Old	2 Years Old	3 Years Old
4 Years Old	5 Years Old	6 Years Old
Mom-to-Be	Stocking Stuffers

The Little Amsterdam wooden building blocks by HABA is a lot fun.

We have just received a notification from HABA regarding a problem with the Twitterling Mobile.

One isolated complaint was filed with HABA this week regarding a metal piece falling out of the wooden holder at the end of the string. It is the piece in the woman’s hand as seen in the picture on the left. It is important to note that the piece that fell out for this consumer is metal and not magnetic. The actual magnetic piece is sewn inside the fabric on the birds back and is therefore inaccessible.

There are two different design runs on the Twitterling Mobile. The older version has wooden pieces at the end of the string. The newer version has a plastic end on the string to hold the metal piece. There has been no incidents of failure on the version with the plastic end. The complaint Haba received this week was on the version with the wooden end.

For anyone who have purchased a Twittlering Mobile, please check the end of the string to see whether it is wood or plastic that is encasing the metal. We will be sending out an email notification to everyone who has purchased the mobile from us.

If the end of your mobile has wooden casing, please contact us to receive further instructions on how to get a replacement from HABA. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact HABA or us at KangarooBoo.

Thank you and we sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.

Many of you may be aware of this already – wooden toy maker Selecta, a German company that designs and manufactures in Germany had ended distribution of its toys in the US market in December, 2008. Meeting the new US CPSIA standards would have required an increase in the cost of Selecta’s prices by at least 50 percent, Selecta’s US distributor says, effectively pricing them out of the US market.

We were quite sad when we received that news from our distributor, as we truly love Selecta’s innovative yet classic designs and high quality workmanship. We especially like the thermal printing process they use for printing pictures on wooden blocks and game pieces, as well as these wooden books and slightly bigger versions of them. Not only are the colors vibrant and vivid, the thermal printing makes the picture last a very long time. To top it off, Selecta uses natural beeswax to seal it so it’s saliva and scratch resistant, able to stand the test of babies/toddlers play.

The whole CPSIA just does not make sense: European toy testing standards and requirements have always been higher than the American testing standards, and yet that isn’t good enough for CPSIA requirements. The new law is in the right direction of making toys and products safer for children, but the unintended consequences of putting reputable manufacturers out of the market is really bad lawmaking. It is probably not what lawmakers and activists wanted. The extreme irony is that, these reputable toy makers were ones consumers sought after when the Toy Recall of 2007 exploded. We were secretly hoping that the 1-yr enforcement stay issued by the CPSC would extend Selecta’s export by 1-year as well, but that isn’t the case, as confirmed by the distributor.

Once our current Selecta inventory runs out, we will no longer be able to get additional shipments. These are truly Limited Editions, at least in the US market.

Here in the Midwest it takes a little longer for the weather to warm up. However In the last couple of days we’ve had some really good Spring like weather of 50-60 degrees. We couldn’t resist spending a day at the beach with the kids.

So, we built our own “little city” with the Baudino Haba sand toys:

• Bucket
• Sand Water Trowel
• Shovel
• and the Carterpillar which we used to make the roads.

Fun!

My favorite nutrition podcaster has another bit of newsletter info the other day that surprised me: Plain button mushrooms have more antioxidants than tomatoes, carrots or zucchini!

I love mushrooms more that carrots or zucchini, so that’s not a problem for me, but I know they can be a sticky situation for many kids (and grown ups too).

Luckily, there are some great online resources for getting kids familiar with the wonder that is the mushroom:

• NAMA’s Manual for Teachers and Naturalists They even rent teaching kits; so cool!
• The Great Morel Fun photos of kid shroomers.
• Fun Facts About Fungi Utah State University hosted site includes games, facts and great fast-motion video of growing mushrooms.

And often times play food can help kids get used to new veggies as well. We have a couple types of play-food mushrooms, as well as some other good-for-you veggies like peppers, tomatoes, carrots and more!

Do you have tips for getting kids to eat more veggies? We all want to know!

Today is Lincoln’s birthday, and what better way to celebrate than look at some really cool old photos? The Library of Congress added some never-before-scanned photos of Lincoln to their Flickr stream. I never even realized this resource existed!

I’m a photographer, so I’m especially interested in the stereoscope image (a really early Viewmaster) and the glass plate used as the basis for his image on the five-dollar bill. There’s also a really young unshaven Lincoln, who freaks me out like whenever I see Tom Selleck without his mustache.

My son’s been studying some of Lincoln’s famous presidential activities, so I can’t wait to show him all these photos after school. The captions are amazing, with great asides and details. I think he’ll also like to see Lincoln with his kids, although photos in those days were never “candid.”

Make sure to check out our President’s Day ideas.

Well, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today, which never really bothers me since I usually live in places where if there really were only six more weeks of winter, it’d be a blessing.

Since there will still be looks of inside-play days before any beaches are hit, check out our selection of games and art/craft items.

And don’t forget to browse our sale items. Lots of fun to be had at great mark downs!

President’s Day isn’t usually on my list of favorite holidays, or even ones I remember until I’m at the post office and it’s closed, but this year, because of our historical (and I know everyone’s been throwing that word around ad nauseam) election.

If you’re looking for tools to inspire young presidential hopefuls, here are a couple of great ones: USA Map (the shapes are the shapes of the states, not just random like some map puzzles) and Magnetic Responsibility Chart.