Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Educational Toys for the Modern Child

Valerie has a lot of toys. I don't know how it happened. I think I've bought her a grand total of three toys (two of them second-hand). I'm pretty sure they reproduce while we are sleeping.

Some of her/my favorite toys are her Melissa and Doug toys. They tend to be good quality, and they lean more towards the "children should play with toys, toys shouldn't play for children" philosophy that I hold. (Which, I will admit, is partly motivated by my philosophy that toys shouldn't annoy parents to death.)

That said, Valerie has a couple of Melissa and Doug toys that I wonder if they fully thought through...

1. The Corporate America Shape-Sorter



This birdhouse has four doors, in four different shapes, and four different colors. It also has four birds, in four different shapes, and four different colors. The child is meant to match the round, red bird to the round, red door, the triangular, blue bird to the triangular, blue door, etc. But here's the catch: the birdhouse and birds are both plush. So you don't have to match anything, you can just squish the square bird into the round hole, or whichever hole you feel like making all of the birds use, regardless of their individual attributes. A perfect training tool for future CEOs.

2. The Kidnapper Training Peg Puzzle



It's a puzzle where you can remove one finger at a time from a pair of hands, what more can I say? The fingers are conveniently labeled for ease of reminding children, "No, take the pinky from the left hand first, that's the finger they are least likely to miss." Special bonus feature: Remove all but one finger to teach your child practical hand gestures for use while driving!

2 comments:

Jeremy said...

Your choice of title for the plush shape-sorter was funny until I realized it's too close to reality.

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