Fun Links

1) Toy Safety Standards

Parents Magazine Toy Safety Checklist

Specific, useful, and down-to-earth!  Every parent, child care-giver, teacher, toy retailer needs this list close by and convenient at all times!   For Parents Magazine’s Toy Safety Checklist, visit this page – and afterwards take some time to browse the entire site:  http://www.parents.com/articles/health/2101.jsp

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

When it comes to official, this is it:  the U.S. government’s product safety commission.  For safety standards, recalls, the up-to-date information on not just toy safety but product safety in general, visit this site:  http://www.cpsc.gov/

2) Wholesome Healthy Play

 The Good Toy Group

Toys et Cetera is proud to be one of the founding members of The Good Toy Group, an organization of educational toy stores across the country.  From Alaska to Alabama, our member stores number the finest specialty shops in the nation and work closely together to offer the best in toys for children.  We jointly produce catalogs and other personalized promotional materials and are constantly on the hot line with one another to exchange good toy leads and secure specific playthings for our own customers.  For a listing of the member stores by state and specific location, visit this site:  http://www.goodtoygroup.com/

Playing for Keeps

We wish we had coined this expression!   “Playing for keeps” embodies what Toys et Cetera believes that play is a child’s most important work and that how a child plays and with what a child plays last a lifetime.  Playing for Keeps is a national not-for-profit organization that brings together leaders in education, human services, parenting groups, and the toy industry to help promote wholesome, healthy play.  Their goal is to translate research into practice and thereby bridge the gap between what researchers have learned about play and what parents and professionals and the producers of toys need to know.   For the latest research and for one useful link after another, visit this site: http://www.playingforkeeps.org/

ASTRA

The American Specialty Toy Retailing Association, aka ASTRA, was founded in 1992 by a young retailer from Iowa.  Toys et Cetera joined from the onset and has watched this organization of retailers, manufacturers, and sales representatives grow from a small band of toy “missionaries” to the largest trade association in the industry.  For listing of hot new toys, articles on the toy industry and play-related topics, visit this site:  http://www.astratoy.org/

Dr Toy

With a PhD in Child Development, Stevanne Auerbach is Dr. Toy and a friend of ours as well as so many in the toy industry.  She’s the director of The Institute for Childhood Resources, a not-for-profit organization.  For information on over 3000 toys and children’s products, as well as articles, resources, and toy-related links, visit this site:  http://www.drtoy.com/