Top Toys for Christmas 2008: Toys R Us announces list

Leading toy store Toys R Us has announced what it believes will be this year’s must have Christmas toys. Don’t be surprised that a lot of these are quite high-budget items, including Nintendo games consoles and an Asus Eee PC.

Having said that, it’s good to see some of the classics are still in place, including LEGO, plus some educational items from LeapFrog.

So here we go. (Please note that the links are to relevant searches on Amazon.co.uk. If you buy anything from Amazon directly from these links, we earn a small commission. Thanks )

• High School Musical Dance Mat
• Hannah Montana Tour Bus
• Baby Annabel Doll
• Ben 10 Action Figures
• Ben 10 Omnitrix Watch
• In the Night Garden Upsy Daisy and her Bed
• Dance with me Teletubby
• Lego
• Star Wars Clone Wars
• Dr Who Classic Figures
• Bakugan Battle Brawlers
• My Meebas
• Catcha Beast
• Fur Real Biscuit
• Silverlit Picoo-Z Helicopter
• Nintendo Wii & Nintendo DS
• Monopoly Here and Now; the World Edition
• Baby Chou Chou My First Tooth Doll
• LeapFrog Tag
• LeapFrog Musical Fold Up Trike
• Asus Eec PC 7" Laptop
• Nintendo Wii and DS Lite

Early Learning Centre gears up for Christmas with 450 new toys

The Early Learning Centre has announced a huge range of new toys coming into stock in plenty of time for Christmas this year.

As a special offer, customers buying any product from the Star Buys range will receive another free toy.

The Brilliant Start range of toys is designed specially for babies, featuring black and white designs with bold colours and graphics.

Toys such as the Brilliant Start Activity Table help to encourage babies’ visual development and boost their strength and co-ordination.

The ever-popular Classic range of toys are made from wood, tin, and fabric, and include the Tin Spinning Top and Rocking Horse.

A number of Christmas toys are also on offer to encourage children to use their imagination and creativity including the Snow Queen Palace, featuring towers and balconies. Along with the Magical Figure Set, this is a Christmas must have for imaginative children.

Early Learning Centre

Turn”down time” into “family time”

Down time? What on earth is that?

Yes, I expect we all know what the phrase means, but there seems to be precious little of it around.

Despite this, it’s highly likely that there are small pockets of “down time” in between all of life’s busyness. These are the times that can be turned into “family time”.

We don’t need hours of time to enjoy being with the people we love,” said Lissa Coffey, family and relationships expert for Hasbro games and author of Getting There! 9 Ways to Help Your Kids Learn What Matters Most in Life. “Catching moments here and there, at home or while waiting at the doctors office, helps to create memories and will build strong, lasting relationships.”

She comes up with some ideas for making the most of short pockets of time that could otherwise slip past.

Green Therapy

To avoid “nature deficit disorder”, get outside — even for just a few minutes. Not only does it distract kids from modern entertainment, but it helps them to appreciate both the family, and the natural world around them.

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Early Learning Centre release their latest toys to create a wonderful Christmas

Christmas is always an exciting time for children and this year at Early Learning Centre there are more than 2,000 wonderful toys to choose from, with over 500 new introductions this season.

Christmas is about the magical realms of make believe, imagination and fairy tales. The Magical Fairy Toadstool (ages 3-8yrs), a pretty woodland home for fairies, is just one of the fantastic new Christmas toys available from ELC. Open the toadstool to reveal an upstairs and downstairs play area with two gorgeous fairies and their furniture. Children can just press the buttons to see lights and hear magical sounds.

Little mermaids can dream up under the sea adventures with the Mermaid Wonderworld (ages 3–8 yrs). This wonderful underwater kingdom has coral to swim around, shells to sit on, friendly sea creatures to talk to and a glowing palace. To add to this, there are glamorous sea princesses, King Neptune’s shell carriage and 4 beautiful mermaids who love to play under the waves. Rosebud Dolls House (3-8yrs) is a gorgeous three storey, painted doll’s house with fully opening front and attic. Children can arrange the room sets however they like and create their own family adventures and lose themselves in this tiny world.

Little cooks will fall in love with the Retro Kitchen (3-8yrs). A beautiful wooden kitchen in cool blue with an oven, two hob rings, dishwasher and sink. The roomy fridge freezer has plenty of space to store play food. With a kitchen as good as this children could run a top-starred play restaurant.

Evil alien Doc Tox is polluting the world with his smelly GLOBS (Gross Lumps Of Bad Smells). Only the brave Planet Protectors team (3-8yrs) with their clever vehicles can stop him. Children can choose Ice the arctic protector, Reef the sea protector, Kat the land protector, Eye the sky protector, Ridge the mountain protector or Ace the jungle protector. The Planet Protectors spaceship (3-8yrs) opens up into their HQ where Nuts the monkey is always on the look out for Doc Tox.

Brave knights will love the Castle of Courage (3–8 yrs) with 4 towers, turrets, battlements, flagpoles and working drawbridge. They can relive the old stories of knights in shining armour, wonderful wizards and epic conflicts with a range of accessory characters or come face to face with a Remote Control Dragon (3–8 yrs). He roars, walks and flaps his wings.

The magnificent wooden Pirate Galleon with cannons, crow’s nest, plank, helm, anchor and sails (3–8yrs) is a must-have for aspiring sailors. Who dares to sail into the cave on Skull Island (3-8yrs)? A fierce rocky outcrop with portcullis jaws, platform and rickety ladder across to the pirate landing stage.

Early learning Centre creates fantastic toys - toys that help develop vital skills, toys that help kids get off to the best possible start, and toys that are tremendous fun. A passion for learning through play and a commitment to quality make Early Learning Centre a wonderful experience for everyone this Christmas.

Early Learning Centre

Wanted: Top tots to trial Christmas toys

Christmas will come early for ten lucky tots, as a search gets underway to find the UK’’s youngest panel of toy experts to play Santa’’s little helpers’, and pick out the must have toys for this festive season.

North West based Toy company, Martin Yaffe, is offering 10 children aged between three and six years old a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join its ‘play panel’ - spending a whole day playing with hundreds of brand new products that won’’t hit toy shop shelves across the country until September.

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