95: Holiday Gift Guide: My Top 12 Favorite Toys for Kids
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Laura Park Figueroa: Welcome to Therapy in the Great Outdoors, the podcast where we explore the business and practice of nature based pediatric therapy of all kinds. If you're an outdoor loving pediatric practitioner in the fields of occupational, physical, or speech therapy, social work, or mental health, this podcast will help you start and grow a successful nature based practice or program.
I am the ever honest, always 100 percent real. You'll hear it all on this podcast. Dr. Laura Park Figueroa. I'm a pediatric OT with over 20 years of experience and I run a thriving nature based practice with profitable locations in two different states and multi six figures in revenue. I also host the free online community at therapyinthegreatoutdoors.
com to help you pursue your nature based therapy dreams too. Are you ready to take action on those dreams? Let's jump in.
Hello friends. This is the first time I'm recording since being back from my month long trip to Nepal and Indonesia. With a little 10 hour stop in Tokyo on the way home. It was an amazing trip I planned for this episode to be. A little bit of my unpacking and sharing about that trip because I could not shut my therapist's brain off while I was traveling.
And I saw so many things when I observed children and these different cultures. And so I want to do an episode on that, but. This week inside of the therapy in the great outdoors community. Online Layna Lovelady who's this awesome nature-based therapist posted a. Question about. Holiday gifts for kids and it got my wheels turning, and I just had so many things that I wanted to share because my own children are older.
Now my youngest is 14 and my oldest is 22. With one in the middle at age 20, who I was doing the traveling with in all of these different countries. And I. Really from that question that she asked, I thought back over the years too, when my kids were young and realized that there are a lot of toys that have stood the test of time.
Right. And. Things that are like heirlooms to me now that I will never get rid of my grandchildren will play with them. If I have grandchildren someday, I hope I do. I'm ready to be a grandma I'm only 48 years old, my kids are too young to have kids right now, but. I feel like I'm ready to like, hold a baby.
That is related to me. Somehow my niece just had a baby and that was like, The closest I've come to feeling like it would feel like to be a grandma to hold this baby that I was related to in some way she's adorable. She's almost three months old. Now I'm about to go visit her again before. Or right after Christmas, because I just can't stand it that I haven't seen her since she was like a week old.
She's about six hours south of me. in St. Louis. So anyway I digress. So this episode, I am going to share my top 12 gift. ideas for kids. Mostly, these are toys because they are for children. But there is one little bonus one at the end, I guess I should say there's 13, but I don't know.
12 just sounded like a better number for the title of an episode. So. all right. Let's dive in. These are in no particular order.
Okay. So. I'm not going to group them according to ages. I'm not, I'm going to just unload and let you know. The things that I have found really amazing for my kids over the years and that I know families that we've worked with in my practice have used these as gifts for their kids. They're like. The greatest hits of kids' toys.
So a couple of caveats before we start. The first thing I want to talk to you about why. Before I share the list, why these are. What I believe toys that have stood the test of time. And the things, the criteria that I use when I think about giving a gift to a child, So the first thing is to. Try to avoid plastic as much as possible. And also in an effort to.
Support our local people who are still making things try to avoid big box stores.
If you can. Now I realize in this day and age, it's. Virtually impossible for many of us to avoid ever going to target. I love target just like the next person. But I know I'm not alone. And that when I'm at target, I'm a little bit over or any big box store, really, I'm a little overwhelmed at the waste in our world and how a lot of the things that are produced now. are one use things that just get thrown in the trash and or end up in a landfill within a year.
And so the toys that I'm describing here and the gifts that I'm going to share with you are things that I believe will, will not do that. They will be things that will be used for many years on end. And they will be things that you value in your family or for the child that you're giving them to. That the child that you're giving them to his family will value them.
Okay. The second consideration is I just said this and I wasn't even following my outline, but is to consider the longevity of what you're purchasing. Think about the. Length of time in which these gifts will be used. Giving things that are quality versus things that are quantity. And then finally the last consideration is that gear is great, right? Like I, I know There's so many gifts that you can give a child that are things that will help them get outside that are gear like waterproof pants or. Wool long underwear or gloves or. But the thing is kids.
Don't so much love gifts of clothing. So I've focused on toys and stuff that kids will love on this list to really focus the gift guide on. Things that children will really. Take joy in and be excited about. All right, so let's get into the gifts. So the first thing that came to mind. Is a pocket knife.
So the one I recommend is by Maura knife. It's M O R a K N I V I think it's a Swedish or a Dutch company. The one I recommend has a fixed blade. So it's not a folding knife. Those folding knives can often cause injury because the child's fingers are crossword folds, and then the blade closes and. So a fixed knife.
And the other thing I. Always make sure to look for is a little bit of. Of a ledge that comes down over where their hand is to protect their hand from the blade so that their hand doesn't slip up onto the blade while they're using the knife. Now, this is when I will give an age range for, I, it very much depends on the child and on. The skill of the adult who will be supervising them. But I personally think like age eight is a good age to give a knife to a child, but some kids are ready, much younger and some kids you might need to wait until they're older. So. That's just my observation over the years, my kids probably had them when they were younger, but I also was using them as Guinea pigs to learn how to. Practice knife skills with kids in order to do knife skills in my groups with children.
So, so they might've been rushed into using a knife as young children, but. Okay, so that's number one. Number two is a wooden Slingshot. So these are really beautifully made. You can find these on Etsy. I will. Oh, I forgot to say. I will put a link in the show notes to every single item I'm talking about here. They will not be affiliate links because I don't have time to. Organize that and figure out how to do it. They're just going to be links out to these different items that I talk about on the podcast. So if you go to therapy in the great outdoors.com, you can always click on podcasts there and find the latest episodes. Okay. I feel like I'm all over the place today. I maybe should have had some coffee before I did this recording, but I'm going to forge ahead.
This is the thing with podcasting that. A lot of times you overthink what you say, because you know, you can go back and edit it. And I often have to just continue to forge ahead when I want to just scrap the whole thing and, and start over. So not going to do that, I'm going to continue moving on. So wooden Slingshot is great.
This one, I, I'm feeling like I'm going to start saying the ages for everything. So I'm going to just not say ages. You guys can use your therapeutic brains to decide what age a child is ready for each of these gifts, you all are therapists probably. Probably listening to this or people who work with children understand child development.
So I will not give an age for every single item here, but wooden slingshots are really fun. They generally have like a. Kind of a stretchy. Band and you can use Small pine cones or rocks, if you want to be brave. In the wooden Slingshot, and I will have a link in the show notes to one that I found online. Okay.
Number three is. A bow and arrow from two bros bows, that's a tongue twister to say. So this company makes really great high quality, bow and arrows, but they have these arrows that have a little. Ball of patting on the end of them instead of an arrow. So it is not a true archery set. That's super dangerous, but it is very fun for kids to use in nature-based therapy sessions.
So, They, I hope that makes sense. They have a padded and so that they like aim and then bounce off of something rather than penetrate and hurt somebody. So even if. There was some accident where. The child got hit by one of the arrows. It really would not hurt them. So that is a great gift.
They, I think, I do think they might be a, it's a little bit more of an expensive gift. It's not like a $20 item, but I highly recommend them. We use them in our therapy groups in my practice and the kids love them. They're always a hit. So. Two Bros Bows is the name of the company. All right. Number four is Waldorf sack dolls.
So I made one of these when. My son was really young. In fact I gave it to him for Christmas when he was a year old. And so Facebook just showed me the memory recently, like this day, 13 years ago. And they showed a picture of the little doll that I made. So there are patterns online. You can actually make these dolls if you want to.
Like I did. I made one, never made another one. After that we still have it though. It's like something that I really cherish because it was something that I hand made for him. Right. But you can also get them online. They are really cute. They're just like the S the SAC. They almost look like they almost look like the bottom of them is like a paper bag gathered at the top.
Like it just has this sack on the bottom and then two little arms and a head. And they usually have some kind of hood on them. They're very cute. You can get them with all different kinds of skin colors. You can find them on Etsy. Tons of people make them on Etsy. Very sweet gift for a child who, for a younger child, just as a first doll.
It's very cute. Okay. Number five is Hearthsong. If you don't know about Hearthsong, they are a company that sells a lot of different toys. But the thing I love them for is their outdoor swings. They have so many different outdoor swings that you can buy from them. So that is number five, Hertz stone, outdoor swings. It's H E A R T H S O N G is how you spell the name of the company.
And when I first started my practice, I bought a variety of different outdoor swings from them, and you'll just have to go to their website to see all of them. They just have so many that you can get, and it's fun to look at the different options there and let your. Brain go a little bit wild with like different ideas that you could do in therapy sessions with kids using those outdoor swings.
Number six ribbon sticks or play silks from Sarah's silk.
So you can get these from any company, but Sarah's silks is a. Very famous place where I got some things for my kids when they were young. And a ribbon stick is just something that you. You have a stick and then it has a very long ribbon on the end of it. So I, oh my gosh, you guys, this is going to be TMI, but I just had the craziest memory came, come to mind and I have to share it. When I was young when I was really young. I was born in 76.
So this was probably in the mid eighties. There is a company. Oh my gosh. Now I want to go on YouTube and look up. If I can see any of these old commercials for this company, there was a company that probably existed only for a few years because. I don't know. You'll understand. It was called, get in shape, girl.
So they had a whole theme song and everything. So they'd sell these sets of like exercise stuff for like young girls. With a tape. Yes. A cassette tape. That's how old I am. Y'all a cassette tape. And like a ribbon stick or some weights, or like a little exercise mat or a head band or whatever. So they, they sold it was like this whole company that was trying to, it was, it's you got to admire it.
It's like a good. Good. Thing to encourage girls to be physically active. Right. So. I had the set that I got from get in shape, girl. That was a ribbon stick. It was a white stick with a super long pink ribbon on it. And then they did, they had routines that you did with it, where you would move the stick in different ways. So, not that I'm saying with a ribbon stick, you should tell a child how to use it.
I'm all for open-ended play. I don't think you should give a child a routine. If you give them a ribbon stick for a gift, but. That, that just the idea of the ribbon stick brought up this memory of that gift. That I got. 40 years ago, almost. So anyways, so ribbon sticks and place silks are open-ended. Things that you can give a child that let them play in a variety of different imaginative ways.
Okay. And the play silks and, well, I didn't explain what plays silks were. Play silks are different colored silk fabrics in different sizes that children can use in imaginative ways while they play. So. I handmade. This is another one that you can hand make a bunch of. You can get blank silks from Dharma trading company. I will. I need to put a note to myself to put that in the show notes here. Dharma blanks.
I will add that after I finish recording. So Dharma trading company. I think it's called Dharma trading company online. Bay, they sell blank silks and you can dye them yourself at home. Very simply. So I did this when I was young. These are things I still have. I still have the place silks that I made for my kids.
I made like a big rainbow one. And then I made a bunch in a variety of different colors and I was thinking of different nature themes. Like I made one that was green and one that was like a sky blue with some like white kind of tie in it, like a. It looked like a sky with clouds in it. And it was just really fun.
It was a really fun thing to make when my kids were young and I again saved them and I think my grandkids will probably play with them. So, and the ribbon stick is just super fun for movement. It's fun to make shapes. It's fun to run outside with it. It's just a really fun Open-ended toy. The ribbon sticks from Sarah's silks are so beautiful.
There they have wooden sticks with like different colored rainbows on those silks of the ribbon or different colors that they have. It's just, they're just beautiful. You'll see if you go to the website, it's just beautiful. So.
All righty. Number seven. Okay. If you have not heard of Tegu blocks, go and look them up because they are so cool. This is a rather expensive toy, but it is absolutely an heirloom quality kind of thing. I still have my kids from when they were little. I will never give them away. I bring them out every time we have young kids over to our house, it's like the thing I go to in the closet and grab and have out on our living room floor.
They are wooden blocks with curved edges. That are perfectly sized for kids' hands there. They're small. They're not like giant big kind of like wooden blocks. Now I don't have wooden blocks on this list, but that's another really great gift for kids. But anyway so the taboo blocks are small and they have magnets inside of the wooden blocks. And so you can build these really cool similar how you do with Magna-Tiles, but I don't love Magna-Tiles because they're so much plastic and I do think. Magna-Tiles can be used for a very long time and probably don't end up in a landfill.
The way that like a piece of plastic junk from the dollar section of target might, but. I do think Tegu blocks are a better option because they are wood. And I don't know the people who created the company, but I, they are from St. Louis where I grew up and they created the company. You'll have to go read it on the website.
I'm sure the story is there, but they created the company in order to help. People in a country, I think in south America. To have jobs and a sustainable income. So it's a cool origin story of the company too. And I love the quality of the toy. It's just an amazing toy. So if you haven't heard of those, go check them out.
It's T E G U is how you spell it. Lego blocks. Number eight is, would. Food or dishes or a mini kitchen some kind of wooden toy that. Facilitates imaginary kitchen play. This is just a classic, right? Like kids. Love to play kitchen when they're young and that's like a great there are so many wooden. Items on Etsy that you can buy that are just state, you're supporting a small business, a maker, someone who's creating things with their hands. And you can go anywhere from getting a couple of wooden eggs, to a full on built mini kitchen, which is a more pricey item.
Okay. Number nine I had as any book. From the living books list that I made awhile back. So if you did not listen to episode 68 of the podcast, I don't remember the exact title of it, but it's something called living books. And if you're not familiar with the term living book, this is a term from Charlotte Mason. Education. And you can hear more about it on that episode, but basically a living book is a book that is rich with good ideas for children and a lot of the. The stories that are living books are very imaginative and fun, and they really draw you in. So a classic. Example of a living book is where the wild things are.
That's like everybody, most people are familiar with that book. I would think if you work with children, it is such a beautiful book. It's beautiful illustrations. It's an imaginative story. There's a little bit of emotion in it. You can get scared and then. Peaceful and then happy. There's like a lot of rich ideas in that book. Encouraging a child to be brave.
Right? There's just rich ideas in that book. And so I did this episode all about living books while back, and I made a book list. That included, I don't know, 10 or 12 of my favorite living books and some treatment ideas to go along with those books for therapy sessions. So if you didn't get that list, you can go to therapy in the great outdoors.com backslash list. And put your email in there and you'll get that list. So that is available for you.
. If you want to just have some treatment ideas and some good books to use during nature-based therapy sessions. So it books are always a great gift, right?
But quality books, the same way. I think about toys. I think about books and I. Was voracious when my kids were little or that's not the right word, I was. I was militant. I don't know the right word. Clearly I needed coffee this morning. Y'all before I recorded. I was really good about getting rid of books that. Did not align with my values or that were just what Charlotte Mason called them as Twaddle.
Like they're just. Books that do not teach anything books that are Just not teaching good values to kids, essentially. So. I got rid of all the Twaddle. Except for one there's one book that I did not get rid of that was Twaddle. And it was a beloved book that we found on the streets of Berkeley.
So I used to live in California and in Berkeley. People often just clean out their closets and put a box of stuff out on the street for free. It's like a thing in Berkeley, Oakland too, like in the bay area in general, like people just leave stuff out on the streets that they don't want anymore because the weather's so good.
And. You can just have stuff out. So. We've found this book when my son was really little, that had a big picture of Elmo on the front. And that is one thing about living books. Generally, they are not books that have cartoon characters on them, right? They are books that have characters that are regular people or regular children that are like learning something or whatever.
So they're not, they typically are not books that are cartoon, and there's this big picture of Elmo on the front, and Elmo's very winsome in bright red. And so my son was maybe two, I don't know. And he really wanted this book. And so. I let him bring it home and it became like, It was called. I could still recite the whole thing to y'all.
It was called bubbles, bubbles everywhere. Okay. And you open the book and it's this is a good example of Twaddle. You also, I am on topic for the podcast here. The book was like, it'd be a big picture of Elmo in the bathtub and be like bubbles, bubbles in my hair bubbles, bubbles everywhere. Bubbles Bubbles in my toes bubbles, bubbles. Something, I don't remember the whole thing, but it was, it's the kind of book that. You read and you just want to shoot yourself as an adult while you're reading it.
You're just like, oh, I'm so sick of reading this stupid book. So that's another thing about living books that there. They tend to be books that as an adult, even you can enjoy them. Like I could read where the wild things are a hundred times and not get sick of it. It is a beautiful book. It is fun to read.
The pictures are beautiful. So I hope that little funny story from when my kids were young, gave a good example of Twaddle versus a good living book. I do still have the bubbles book because it became too special to me. Because I read it so many times to my kids and I thought they would like to see it when they're old.
So anyways, All righty, we are to number 10. So. The ones I've already mentioned are ones that I actually answered Lena's question in the. Therapy in the great outdoors community. So most of the ones I've already mentioned are things that I wrote in my post there. But I added a few more for the podcast because some other things came up in my mind.
The next one, number 10 is a potholder loom.
So this is great for I'd say like kids. Eight and up maybe seven, but really they need pretty good, fine motor and visual motor skills to use this. But. One of my most cherished things in my kitchen is all of these little potholders that my kids made for me when I was, when they were young. Using this potholder loom.
So it's just a loom that you take these little cotton. Things that they're like rubber bands. They're like stretchy pieces of cotton that are like a loop and you put all of the loops on the loom and then you weave. Loop through each of the Lu Lu. loops that are already on the loom. I hope I'm explaining this. Well, I hope you guys know what I'm talking about and it makes this woven little cotton potholder, and they are just. I there the best I, there, they make great gifts.
So, so it's a great gift for a child to let them make gifts for other people the next holiday season or the next birthday that comes up in your family. And I love mine. Like I have probably eight to 10 of them in my kitchen. I have three children. They each made me a few. And I love them there. They're just such a great, useful item and that the kids got really into making them when they were young.
So, and that is something too that I still have. I still have the loom and I still have the little. Circles of cotton that I will again make with my grandkids. I'll get more when I have grandkids, it'll be so great. I'll get new potholders.
Okay. Number 11. I confess that this is something that I do not own and I've never used, but they looked so amazing. I had to add them to the list. So Nova natural toys is another great brand. It's N O V a. And they had on their website. These river rock blocks that are these flat. Oh, oval ish. They're shaped like a river rock, s a smooth flat oval ish block that is made out of wood. And they're painted all different colors and for a young kid for a real, this would be for a really young kid, maybe.
They just are so beautiful and. And. Fun to stack up and then knock over. So I. Wanted to when I saw these on their website, I actually could, I had the sensation of what it would feel like to play with them. And it just felt, so my youngest always says that is so satisfying when something feels good and. That it felt like it would feel so satisfying to have these little river rock toys in my blocks, in my hand, and to be able to stack them up and play with them.
So I added that to the list, even though it's something that I don't have because I hope someone will get them and report back to me how satisfying they are to play with. Okay. Number 12. And the last one on my list, besides the bonus, which is a family gift idea. Is again something I have not used, but I actually think would be beloved by children.
And that is a night buddy beanie headlamps. So this is a headlamp that is built into the cuff of a beanie, like a hat that a child can wear. And I think they were like 20 bucks or so, so. A great gift, like a good price point for a good gift for a kid. And it avoids the. Dilemma of the headlamp constantly getting lost.
And I even was thinking about getting these for as gifts for kids in our groups this year. Because a lot of times the headlamps that we use when it gets dark at night in these winter months, Get lost. They fall off of kids' heads. And so if it's actually embedded in the actual hat itself, I think that's a fun, that's a really fun gift for kids and encourages them to get out at night.
I think it's great. It could be used on Halloween, like lots of different times when Kids could use something like that. And it's a piece of gear slash clothing, but it's also something that I think kids would find cool to have a light in their hat. So I added that one to the list, even though technically it's not a toy. Okay.
The last one is a bonus kind of family gift idea. So again, the origin story of this one is fun. It was created by a kid. And it is a cast iron fire wood splitter. So it has a circle at the top with this kind of Like blade of iron in the middle of it. And you put a piece of firewood in the top and you use a mallet or a sledgehammer to bang the firewood down and it splits the firewood over this blade that's in the middle. So it would be a re we have one in my house.
We love it. My. My sons love to use it. It would be a great family gift for an outdoorsy family who lives in a place where maybe they're making fires over a winter season, commonly. So. Make sure though that you also give the mallet or sledgehammer with it because that's the real fun part. So. That is, I will put the link to it in the show notes. I'm going to click on it here and. It's called a kindling cracker.
That's what it's called. kindling cracker firewood, kindling splitter 60 bucks. So it's a family gift maybe, or I guess if you're, spending that per person in your family, then you could get it for a person, but. A nice gift. Something that they'll use a lot in the winter season, if they live in a cold climate. So that's it.
Those are my top 12 ideas for outdoorsy kids gifts for outdoorsy kids and the bonus family gift idea of the firewood splitter as number 13.
Okay. I have one little announcement before I wrap up, I will be opening the Contigo nature-based pediatric therapist certification program for enrollment for our February cohort. During the last few weeks of December until December 31st. At the 2024 price, because we are going to be raising our prices in 2025 for the program. We did a significant revamp of the program. It requires a lot more time and energy from me and my team. And so we are going to raise the price accordingly. So, if you want to get in at the 2024 prices. You can do that by enrolling for the February cohort before the end of 2024.
So this will be for the February, 2025 cohort. If you enroll before the end of December. 2024, you will get in at the 2024 prices. So I have not at the time that this podcast comes out on , Monday, December 9th. We'll not have the enrollment open yet, but you need to be on the email list to be notified. So the way you can do that is you can go to Contigo approach.com. C O N T I G O. approach.com and then you can join the waitlist there. And I will email everyone on the waitlist as soon as we have the enrollment open for the Contigo program for you to get in before the end of 2024.
So, okay. That's it. And I will see you all next week when I will talk about what I observed in kids in Indonesia and Nepal and. A little bit in Tokyo as well. Talk to you then. Bye.
