Category — Toys

I have a cool contest for my Canadian readers today thanks to the awesome people at FabulousSavings. If you’d like to win a $50 gift card for Toys ‘R Us, keep reading!

The rules are simple.

Visit FabulousSavings.ca and answer the following question:

“Name a coupon listed in our Home & Garden category.”

Just leave a comment below with your answer and the winner will be chosen randomly on January 4, 2010 to receive a big fat $50 gift card.

You must be a Canadian resident to participate. Sorry to my dear readers outside of Canada. I’ll have something special for you soon!

Don’t forget to check out online coupons for Canada to save a few bucks!

If you’re looking for something a little different for your child to do today, try having a tea party! This is often something I forget about, but both my kids love it.

Tea parties can provide hours of fun, literally. I set my kids up at the table with their cups and teapot, give them a bit of water, and all I hear is giggling for the next two hours.

Every once in awhile I’m required to have a sip of the delicious tea.

It may get pretty messy, but if you just use water, it’s easy to wipe up. You can even plan ahead and lay down a few towels to soak up any spills.

The important thing is that playing “tea party” is a great way for kids to develop their fine-motor skills by pouring the water into the cups and back into the tea pot. I think that’s worth a little spilled water!

For more fun activities, check out this article I wrote:

Fun and Free Educational Activities For Your Toddler

Last year for Christmas, I bought my kids an Aquadoodle Travel N Doodle which was the second best gift I’ve ever bought. They still play with it every day and it works just as good as they day I bought it. It’s small so it’s easy to store, and it’s perfect for travelling. When I have this in the car, I don’t hear a single peep out of my kids even when we’re driving an hour out of town.

You definitely need to have a few Spin Master Aquadoodle Magic Water Pens for this toy to work. The pens fill with water and come out through the felt tip which “draws” on the Aquadoodle pad.

My son likes to suck the water out of the tips though so I like to buy a few pens at a time and toss them once they get too dirty which is every few months. If the pens get temporarily lost (which does happen with two little kids) a washcloth or damp sponge does the trick.

The single best gift I purchased for my kids was a MagnaDoodle. Unfortunately, it got stepped on and eventually had to be thrown out although I have to say that it put up with an insane amount of abuse before it took its last lickin’.

This Christmas when family members asked for gift ideas for the kids, I suggested they buy some more MagnaDoodles. They ended up with six!

We have two big Magna Doodle (Classic) pads that we keep in the house, and two smaller ones that I keep in the car for travelling. The last two have a permanent home at my mom’s.

These Magnadoodles and Aquadoodles are favorites with my kids since they both LOVE to draw. It’s great for their creativity and imagination, and I use them a lot to teach them shapes and words. I’m constantly amazed at the things my little artists come up with!