Let’s face it, the last thing you want is for your kid to go on a playdate, or visit grandma’s house and get caught drawing on the walls. By contrast though, you don’t want to discourage your child’s artistic talent either. So it’s always best to be prepared, and this Take Anywhere Chalkboard Cloth is idea for bringing with you everywhere your little artist goes.

Measuring larger than an square meter, it’s a bit bigger than your average chalk board. But that’s a good thing because it gives kids plenty of room to draw, or do their math work, or even for you to take the class outside and teach on a gorgeous day. Check out these features:

* Great rainy day activity
* Use indoor or outdoor
* Works with regular chalk
* Use on the floor, table or wall
* Fold away for compact storage
* Waterproof, durable surface
* Easy to clean just wipe with a damp cloth
* Use as a tablecloth for fun dinner parties
* Hang on the wall for shopping list/meal planner
* Easy to cut into any size
* Enough to make placemats as well
* Made from Oilcloth – easy to sew and hem or leave edges raw as Chalk Cloth doesn’t fray

And the best part is, the PVC used is phthalate free, meaning it’s perfectly safe for kids. Cost is about $40 AUS from Urban Baby.

Hat Tip – Babyology

The Marines have been collecting Toys for Tots since 1947. Semper Fi!

And it’s grown far beyond and extra curricular activity for off duty Marines. In 1995, the Secretary of Defense approved making the annual Toys for Tots drive an official mission of the Marine Corps Reserve. Over the last 62 years, the US Marine Corps Reserve have distributed over 400 million toys to more than 188 million needy children and the Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation has added to the toy collections by purchasing nearly a half billion dollars in toys to insure that no child gets left behind at Christmas.

And this year, as with any year, the campaign needs your help. You know the mission – pick up an unwrapped toy for a boy or girl and look for one of those dashing jarheads sitting next to a collection box near the entrance to the store. Or, you can Swing by http://www.toysfortots.org/ to make a cash donation to the Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation. While at the site, you can find more information on a toy collecting center in your area.

Semper Fi and Merry Christmas!

The first one is a kit called Snap-Circuits. With Snap Circuits, kids get 80 parts with which they can build over 750 experiments, including a sound activated switch, lie detector, adjustable light controller, am radio, rechargeable battery and more. Parts included: photoresistor, power amplifier, variable capacitor, analog meter, solar cell, computer interface, full color manuals. Snap-Circuits have received the Awards from the National Parenting Center, Creative Child, the Toy Industry Association, and Dr. Toy. Cost ranges from $20-80.

Next is the littleBits Starter Kit by Spark Fun. littleBits is a collection of circuits and diodes that can be connected via magnet and can be used to create from simple to complex electronic circuits. Kids can even use them to prototype their own ideas! Each “Bit” is a piece of an electronic circuit. The bits are color coded and divided into 4 categories: power, input, output and wire. By combining the modules in different ways (by simply “snapping” them together magnetically) you can quickly create any number of interactive electronic projects.

Finally, for older or more advanced kids, there’s Arduino from Adafruit Industries. They are a great way to teach kids how to build complex electronics through the use of home built arduino processors, which is very popular right now in the Maker movement. Arduinos are used for making everything from perisistance of vision signs to complex robotics.

And if you want to see what a kid can do with all this stuff, check out Sylvia’s Super Awesome Maker Show!

Check out the list after the jump …

The first is the Fisher-Price Fun 2 Imagine Cash Register. Teaches children to count and handle cash transactions through pay and comes with brightly colored and sortable coins. It also makes some cool noises that would make a slot machine giggle. (From ages 2 -4)

Next comes a pair of savings banks that are self counting. The first is a cute, pink Digital Coin Counting Piggy Bank which allows them to always keep track of how much they’ve got saved at a glance. The concept is, if a child knows exactly how much they have in the bank, they are more likely to save to achieve the savings goals they want to reach. The other is the Zillionaire Personal Saving Machine which has a programmable allowance reminder (as if a child needs to be reminded to hound mom and dad for their allowance) and a calculator. The bank can also be set up with multiple accounts for several children and even adults to save with. It also works like an actual bank account at home. Both are ages 5 and up.

Finally, there’s the Learning Resources Pretend & Play Checkbook with Calculator, which teaches kids to balance a checkbook and keep track of spending. It includes 25 actual size “pretend” checks, deposit slips, and calculator.

The new toy line is aimed at the preschool set and includes classic wooden toy blocks, puzzles and musical instruments. Eventually, PBS hopes to add toys based on their popular PBS Kids characters and will add other items, including customizable backpacks, water bottles, apparel and birthday party supplies.

Currently, the toys available are:

* PBS KIDS Sounds of the World Rhythm Set, musical toys designed to build hand-eye coordination and sound recognition.

* PBS KIDS Puzzle Playset Safari, a themed playset that explores words and vocabulary and will have beach and playground themes.

* PBS KIDS Exploration Blocks City, building and construction toys

* PBS KIDS 3-Layer Puzzles with Barn and camping themes.

At launch, the toys will be exclusively available online, with retailers getting their shot at offering them in the fall – just in time for the holidays. The price of the toys will range from $10-40, to keep them affordable.

Hat Tip – About Toys

Here’s how it works. After building the city layout with puzzle pieces, players can then use the included time reference sheet to add buildings according to when they were actually constructed. So the CityScape expands as you travel in time. It’s a really cool concept. The London set, for instance, begins in the year 1074 and builds out until 2014, when buildings that haven’t even broken ground yet are to be finished.

Other sets include, Chicago, Toronto, Rome, New York City, Washington DC and Las Vegas, (a challenge considering Sin City loves to demolish old hotels) This teaches kids city planning, history, architecture, and more. And it’s a very engaging way to pass the time and stimulate the mind. Sure beats a regular old puzzle!

Cost is around $30 with free super saver shipping.

All Lego construction sets and games are also going for Buy 1 get one at 50% off. Nerf toys, 25% off. BOGO50 deals on all baseball equipment and trading cards. Nintendo DS games 2 for $50. $25 off Microsoft Kinect and 2 Video games. BOGO50 on Thomas the Tank Engine Toys, $20 off bikes, BOGO50 on dolls. You’d be hard pressed to NOT find a deal on the toys you’re looking for as just about everything is on sale.

So hitch a ride on the Jeffrey Soul Train and shop early for Christmas! Sale ends Sunday.

Celestial Buddies teaches kids about our solar system

A really great way to teach kids about the planets in our solar system (and I don’t care what anyone says, that INCLUDES Pluto), is with Celestian Buddies. These cute plushie planets are cuddly, personable, and educational to boot.l

Debuting at Toy Fair 2011 this weekend, Celestial buddies will be starting off locally with the Sun, Mars, Earth and the Moon. They are plushies to be sure, but with them, kids can learn how planets orbit one another and the differences in size (although sadly, they’re not to scale).

Celestial Buddies was created Jessie Silbert who saw a documentary series on the Solar System and didn’t see any toys that could teach the very young about the universe we live in.

Look for them later this year for between $18-30

Hat Tip – Plastic and Plush

My 3D promises to turn your iPhone into a digital Viewmaster

Ah, the Viewmaster. Definitely one of those classic coolest toys that took kids everywhere … and in 3D to boot. With those cool white discs that you slid into the Viewmaster, kids could see three dimensional slides of everything from their favorite geographic sites, to the lastest Apollo missions. But we have to face it, like the Polaroid before it, Viewmaster has been faced with an evolve or die proposal as the digital world leaves it behind. Well, not if Hasbro has anything to say about it. Not only are they embracing the digital world, but with Viewmaster Goggles, they’re getting the digital world to embrace them … thanks to the iPhone.

Hasbro’s My3D, takes a Viewmaster and connects it to the iPhone. n Then, users will use the My3D application to view stereoscopic images in the spirit of it’s analog cousin (although he don’t know if it’ll be a side by side affair or how users advance to the next image). There will be exclusive content from Dreamworks, Sony, Discovery Channel, and IMAX. But what would REALLY be cool is if it comes with a camera app so users can make their own viewmaster experience.

Here’s hoping they’re that forward thinking.

Cost will be about $30 for the adapter and app and it’ll be out next spring.

Hat Tip – PMPToday.com

Get your kids REALLY smart with this Periodic Table Block set

Blocks are the most basic toy little rug rats first get. Usually, they’re meant to subtly teach kids their ABCs. But if you’re a parent who’s wanting to raise a little Einstein in your home, you may want to check out these beauties …

These Periodic Table Building Blogs have every element in the Periodic Table, complete with their Symbol, position in the chart, and color coding to determine what element group they belong to. Kids will start learning about how the world is built and with that elements it’s built with. Each of the set’s twenty blocks tells the origin of the element, it’s status in nature (natural or synthetic) and how the element is created.

Twenty blogs showing every element in the table. VERY cool. And not just for toddlers either. Teachers, science geeks, even adults can dig on this toy.

Exclusive to THINK GEEK and for ages two and up. Cost – about $40.