Who we are
Hello! My name is Jen and I'm a mother of three boys. LivingPlaying.com is the result of my search for toys and products that are beautiful, environmentally friendly, and purposeful. As a stay-at-home mother for more than 6 years now, I've spent a lot of time playing with my children and their friends and cousins. Somewhere along the line between diaper changes and toilet training, I noticed something: the toys with lots of bells and whistles lost their luster pretty quick. Children always go back to the open-ended, creative toys that let them use their imaginations: unit blocks, play silks, dolls, wooden trucks, wagons, puzzles. Slowly I began to weed out the plastic toys (thank you www.freecycle.org) and substitute them with largely unstructured, beautiful wooden and classic ones.
As my children grew and one entered a Montessori school, I noticed something else: they now like to "help" with household chores. In the Montessori curriculum, practical, everyday tasks are folded into classroom learning. For children learning to "do it myself," sweeping the floor or folding laundry is just fun--and it makes them feel good to contribute. Miniature mops, brooms and dustpans, as well as apple slicers, crinkle-cut knives, and child-sized pitchers soon made their appearance in our family's home.
Classrooms offer something else to children that we don't always find at home: tools to help master emerging skills and regulate their behavior. Pencil grips, adaptive scissors, and weighted lap pads became useful tools to help my children write with a proper grip, cut with chubby hands, and feel settled when needed. I thought: Why limit these tools to just school when they are so useful at home as well?
With that thought, LivingPlaying.com was born.
What we offer
LivingPlaying.com is an online store providing high-quality educational and developmental toys, products, and publications that enable parents to teach, guide and inspire their children through creative play. We offer brand names and unique, hard-to-find products that align with a proactive and aware parenting philosophy. From baby toys to Montessori materials to yoga mats, we provide products with three guiding principles in mind: social and cultural inclusiveness, environmental awareness, and respect and care for our bodies and minds. We offer products that develop young children's emerging skills and build their confidence and independence.
Why we are different
We want to make finding appropriate toys and educational tools a simple, convenient and enjoyable experience. Here are three things that set us apart from other online stores:
First, we offer unique and innovative products with developmental benefits. One of the things that make many of our games, toys, puzzles, and other items truly unique is that they typically are available only to teachers and child specialists. These toys and games are not only fun to play with, but also promote the development of all children's emerging skills.
Second, LivingPlaying uses a developmental skills system to identify the cognitive, sensory, social, and fine and gross motor skill benefits of each and every toy, game, or product. In addition to a developmental rating, we, wherever possible, source products for sustainability or environmental friendliness.
Third, everything LivingPlaying carries, whether for parental skills-building or children's development is arranged to enable shopping by age, price, product category, and developmental benefit category.
There's one other thing as well: We believe you know your child best. What we're all about is giving you the information you need to make an informed choice and letting you take it from there!
Enjoy our site--and have fun!
Sincerely,
Jen Grinnell
Owner
LivingPlaying LLC
