what to buy my nephew

[hotpink]

...for christmas. he'll have just turned 3. what do little boys like at that age, i don't want to get anything that will be too old for him.

[oldgrape]

roary the race car is the new IT toy!

[woodhamgirl]

Hiya
What about some duplo - its fun and educational and encourages them to use their imagination. My grandson is 18 mths old and he loves his.
Also books that are fun and educational - is he into thomas the tank engine or bob the builder.
Jigsaw puzzles too are great for them

[curiosity]

Walkie talkies, they love them.

[Psychick]

How about a wooden trainset that he can add to. They have good ones in tesco for a good price and got all the add ons.

[slinkycat]

have to agree with curiosity, my boys had walkie talkies and got loads of fun out of them, they also had toy tool belts and hard hats (this was a long time ago, pre bob the builder!) which they wore all the time, although the furniture did take a bit of a bashing!

[VillageVicar]

One of the greatest developmental gifts I was ever given as a child and the greatest gift I gave both my children when they turned three was a Brio wooden train set. I call those generational toys, in that they can be passed along from generation to generation. They�re a perfect size for small hands, they encourage creativity and forward-thinking, and they are safe for small hands and mouths.

I encourage you to only buy the original products as the replicas are made to a lesser quality. In time they can split and splinter and they do not have the same safety should they be placed in a child�s mouth.

Brio train sets aren�t just limited to trains. There are entire communities and family members can buy add-on pieces as the child grows. The only limitation to the product is the child�s imagination. Some people write on the bottom of the sets, notes and notable dates to celebrate when the add-on gifts were given.

I can�t think of a lovelier gift for a three year old.

http://www.adventuretoys.co.uk/briochoice.asp? subcat=Train+Sets

I wish you well

Fr Bill

[VillageVicar]

Psychick: You and I were of the same mind! Well done you!

Fr Bill

And I love Duplo also! Same reason..they encourage development. However, I'm not sure at three whether they're quite safe yet due to the possiblity of ingestion.
However, I 'think' there may be some larger pieces made now for smaller hands.


Be well

[Psychick]

Ive just checked on the tesco website and the wooden trainset they do is aged 3+ years.

The reason we were looking at that kind of thing is because my boyfriend cant wait to get that sort of thing for our baby (he is using the baby as an excuse anyway! lol) Btw, baby isnt due til February! lol

[slinkycat]

hi psychick, could be worse, he could be checking out the price of scalextric!

[VillageVicar]

I would encourage anyone not to buy the Tesco version. I'm only sharing a life-time of experiences with Brio and the disappointment when we've gone 'cheap' and bought other pieces that weren't Brio...very disappointing...

Early Learning Centres carry Brio brand, as do Harrods, Selfridges and Toys R Us..

best of luck

Fr Bill

[bigmamma1]

My son had a collection of the Brio sets and it is very child friendly and gives them a good few years of play :-) x

[Psychick]

I undertsand why youre saying that Village Vicar. However, not everyone can budget as much as one of those sets cost. I have 8 neices and nephews and there is no one way I can spend that much on each of them at christmas time.I was just offering a cheaper option. Personally speaking, I have never been dissappointed with cheaper versions, nor have those Ive bought for.

Slinkycat, no doubt my boyfriend will get round to the Scalectrix! lol

[annie0000]

Hi psychick - I agree about the train set, my boys had a variety of pieces from Brio, Tesco, Asda and IKea in their train set and apart from one platic bit of a bridge which got stood on (or more likely jumped on) it is still in perfect nick after 5 years. And whilst at 7 and 6 they were still happy to be playing with it, making space for new things for Christmas, I have passed it on to my neighbours little boy - his Dad is delighted with it - and my 7 year old has shown him the best configurations!

I would also agree with any kind of building bricks - I would say that duplo are better than mega bocks - for some reason, the mega blocks tend not to stay together as well as duplo.

Imaginext toys are great and so are match box magna wheels. The best quality vehicles they ever had were the bob the buider things, though I don't know if Bob is still the in thing. They also really enjoyed playing with glove puppets at that age - and still do now that Emu is back on on saturday mornings!

All the little boys in my street though are really into star wars just now and spend all their time out playing with light sabers.

What about some dressin up stuff?

[VillageVicar]

My concern about the lesser costing copies of the Brio sets is merely on a safety basis. The copies use a variety of woods. Some of them, in Canada at least, were found to be toxic. Small children can often use damp hands to play with toys, or even place them in their mouth. That was my key concern. The second safety concern was durability. However, that can be discounted on a sustainability basis. Where it can�t, however, is should a child stand on one of the tracks, the connector breaks off, which typically is not prone to with the harder (and more expensive woods) and become ingested. The recall that was done in Canada also had to do with the metallic connecting pins that were used for wheels, etc. They were found to be defective in that they could come off.

I do apologise as I�m actually not certain of how big a differential there is between the Brio brand and the copies. I can certainly imagine that if you�re buying for a large number of children at the same time, anything could become prohibitive in cost.

Developmentally, we�ve found this to be an amazing product for our children in Moldova and Romania � even the psychologists use them in helping children relate stories about their kidnapping and trafficking.

I wish you all well

Fr Bill

[redcrx]

my son is 2 and for xmas so far we have a huge truck from woolies, some early learning centre toys from boots (3 for 2 at mo), he likes the little people toys which encourage imagination.

He is also really into 'in the night garden' and 'thomas' and there are plenty of these themed toys about at the moment.

[Reverandfunk]

When I was three i got a lump of coal and an orange.

or it may have been a scalextric

[redcrx]

rev, from what we see of you on here Im sure it was just a lump of coal.

I hope youre a good boy this year :)

[Reverandfunk]

i am always good red. or it may be bad lol

Where is 4get hiding? is she in prison again?

[redcrx]

i have absolutely no idea. I should be seeing her tomorrow so will ask.

[curiosity]

I think the train sets are good and also Duplo is great but both are expensive and really do create a "want more" situation, and to be honest are mainly lots of fun when you have a variety of things to make or do, We have loads of duplo that I bought 2nd hand 12 years ago and it is onto child number 3. But in my experience walkie talkies and dress up outfits (woolworths do good ones) are great one offs.