To Buy or Not To Buy and if we buy then what to buy?

Now that sounds like a tongue twister, but it’s a dilemma that many parents and carers face. Children’s Day, birthdays, Christmas and other holidays will be here soon and all imply that we should be buying some kind of gift. On the other hand there is a lot of advice about how to minimise the toys that children have and generally cut down on what you buy and this gets more intensive the closer we get to the end of year holiday season.

As a company selling children’s books and toys, we of course have a vested interest in families and carers buying our products. However, we do put a lot of care into making sure those purchases are intelligent, meaning that we chose with the following principles in mind.

Toys

• They always contain an educational or key stage development purpose.
• Complementary to creating themed environments e.g. our train sets and the many accessories or complementary toys such as the fire stations, extra track, themed trains, stable, farm set and more.
• Materials that can be used in a variety of ways. E.g. coloured blocks with numbers and math operations on them to use not just for building and designing, but for working with colours, understanding maths concepts and practicing mental maths. 
• Toys that can be used in a simple format initially and then with progressing complexity as the child develops. E.g. our very simple wooden puzzles. These can be used singly or mixed together so the child progresses from putting together one puzzle with just a few pieces to creating 3 different puzzles by starting with and sorting all the pieces according to the design, before making each puzzle.
• Long lasting so they can be passed to different generations or ages within a family or donated for someone else to enjoy.
• Positive role play. What children play with should emulate the lifestyle and personalities that you want them to grow into. So for example, in our range of play foods, you will only find healthy foods. Have them play with vegetables and it’s more likely they will eat them.
• Environmentally sustainable. E.g. we avoid single use disposable products and the only plastic or resin products we sell are long lasting items that can be recycled via donations.

Books

Books should be fun and they provide a world that children can relate to, lose themselves in and or learn something from. At Book & Toy a HUGE amount of time is spent on assessing and choosing our title range. We aim for the following characteristics:

• The content is entertaining and / or informative.
• There are a wide range of situations that children can relate to across the full age range.
• There is a diverse set of topics that can become discussion pints at school or at home.
• They are attractive and physically easy to read (e.g. quality of illustrations, text spacing, paper quality).
• We have a wide range of titles appropriate to every age from babies to teens.
• A focus on inclusivity, ranging from the topics covered to reading ability and disabilities.
• They are fun and entertaining – i.e. not EVERY book has to have a message within it.

At Book & Toy our goal is to help parents, families, carers and educators give their children access to quality toys and books that will always make a positive contribution to helping a child reach their full potential. You can be sure that whatever you buy in our physical or online shop will be a smart investment in their ongoing development and future.