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If you found your way to this site, I’m guessing that like me, you’ve discovered that things in your house are a bit to, well, loud. I know our house is often that way. The kids are playing, the TV is invariably on for one kid or another (or in those very rare occasions – for you), and then someone starts to play with a toy that is just too unnaturally loud, and it just sets everything over the top.
Why do all of today’s toys seem to be so loud? Why should stacking blocks need music? Does a toy train really need to sing to you? Aren’t driving toys and airplanes just as fun when you are providing the sound effects?
I started this site because after living with two boys for the past six years, I’ve come across plenty of alternatives to loud toys, and frankly many “noisy” toys that aren’t that bad. I wanted a way to share what I’ve found, to pass on tips and tricks, and importantly to see what advice you, my good readers, might have to share back with the community.
So please have a look around, subscribe via those RSS links on the top right, and most of all leave your comments, recommendations, and suggestions. You can leave them right in a comment to a particular review or post, or drop me a note with your own favorite (or most reviled) products at adam@toys-without-noise.com.
Like anything else with a picture of a train on it, N, our little Thomas the Tank Engine groupie, went nuts when he opened this gift (one that we had on his wish list, I think)
Thomas Making Tracks Game actually a pretty clever board game, although to truly play it according to its rules, I’m guessing you really need to be at 6 or so. It’s recommended for 4 or up, so even by those standards N would have another year.
The game play is divided into two parts. In the first part, you spin a spinner to see what kind of track (curve or straight combined with one of three colors) you get to place on your section of the board. Then, once you’ve built track that connects the starting line to the finish line, each spin determines how far to move your game piece. (Candyland style).
The game is very well constructed; the tiles are thick, solid plastic and have a little button (more like a square nipple, actually – not quite sure what to call it) on top that fits into a hole on the game board, so that the tiles actually stay where you place them. Other than the spinner pointer coming out of the box broken (which I’m going to guess is a fluke), this seems to be very solidly put together.
Right now, N is simply happy to place the tiles on the board, and after a day or two playing with it, he’s starting to make patterns with the tracks (big brother J is helping, too). We’ll have to see if he progresses to the point where he can make a long enough connected path of tracks to follow the game rules, but in the mean time, he’s enjoying placing the tiles and driving the character pieces along it (although humorously, he keeps taking them out of their plastic ‘feet’ and instead drives them in the slots formed between the rows of tiles.)
Overall, I’d recommend this for your older Thomas fans – at least 5 or 6 years old – unless they’ve shown they can sit through games like Candyland and you can picture them doing that and more.
(But, of course, it has no noise – always a plus!)
It turns out that the Connect 4 game we bought for J isn’t “new and improved” as much as “completely different” than the Connect Four game we played as kids. Apparently whether you use the numeral or spell it out makes a big difference.
While the game we bought may be the “original Connect 4,” as it proudly exclaims on the box, it is not the “original Vertical four-in-a-row checkers game,” which in fact is still sold as Connect Four by Hasbro.
(Just, it seems, not at Target or Walmart.)
That said, I’m not sure I can come down hard on one side or the other in terms of what I’d recommend, other than Connect 4 at $7-8 is about half the price of Connect Four at $15.
Glinda over at Teeny Manolo lists her favorite classic toys. While not all of these qualify as being “without noise” (I haven’t played Operation in – oh – 25 (cough! cough!) years and I can still hear the buzzer clear as day), they certainly are a far cry better than much of what’s produced today (The good people at Cranium being a notable exception.)
I have to say, I don’t think there’s anything on her list that I would object to (although, like someone commented on over there, I do think Monopoly - and I’d add Risk (although admittedly for an older audience) – definitely deserves to be on there.
One thing we discovered quite by accident is that many of these classic toys have been
“improved” since we were all kids – and improved is in quotes for a reason – updated might be more accurate, since in many cases the new version is far from superior to the original.
For example, our son J a “new, improved” Easy Bake Oven when he was 2-3 years old. At the time, they had tried to get rid of the light bulb and replaced it with toaster-oven style heating coils.
J really liked playing with it as a standalone toy (not plugged in) – just sliding in pretend food on one side and scooping it out on the other, we were dismayed to discover upon trying to cook with it that the cardboard pretend mac & cheese and pizza he’d been playing with probably would have tasted a lot better than the real product.
I guess that’s why the folks at Hasbro have come to their senses and replaced it with the a “new” lightbulb-fueled oven and snack center.
And maybe we’re idealizing our memories of just how good cooking over a light bulb could be, but it had to be better than what we ended up with with their last iteration of things.
Don’t tell J, but we ended up hiding it in the back of a closet for a while, and then gave it to goodwill at the end of the year. Maybe we’ll try again with the “classic” version soon.
Candyland is another example. We actually went out and repurchased the “classic edition” of Candyland for the boys, also relegating the “new and improved” version to the goodwill pile. It’s well worth the extra couple of bucks to get the original, even if you have to buy it in a special “collector’s edition” tin like we did. The board was just so much less cluttered in the original; even as adults we found it hard to follow the game board of the modern version, and we knew what it was we were supposed to be doing in the game.
I’m reserving judgement on the new Monopoly Electronic Banker Edition (especially at – gulp – $80!!!), but I can’t imagine it improving that much on the original to be worth it. (Unless it comes with a special “hide-your-money-under-the-board-so-people-think-you-are-broke-when-doing-a-deal-with-you” function).
I just came across this post on About.com listing some top science toys.
I need to remember that “toys” doesn’t have to mean legos, Matchbox cars and Barbies.
Link: Top Science Toys
This was too funny not to share.
My wife had a doctor’s appointment this morning, and I went along to watch our 2 1/2 yr old during her appointment.
Fortunately, the office had a little basket of kid toys – some children’s books, random action figures – that kind of thing. Of course, N heads straight for the Duplo train set and starts laying out the tracks, finds all the trains and blocks and builds a little train set. (Have I mentioned that he likes trains?)
He also pulls out the Godzilla doll. Now, as far as I know, he’s never seen Godzilla before. I taught him the word, and it was fun to watch him try to pick it up, using the word a few times to be sure he got it right.
Anyway, for the next 15 min. or so he just played with the train, restacking the blocks on the different cars, changing around the drivers. And then he picked up Godzilla again.
And started knocking over the train with him.
I’d reset the train on the tracks, and Godzilla would knock them down again. Again – N had never seen Godzilla before, and certainly had never seen him on TV or as far as I know seen other kids playing with one.
What is it about Godzilla that just demands that he start rampaging through whatever metropolis (or Doctor’s office) he’s in?
What a great concept: Take the Handmade Pledge.
They’re approaching 8000 signatures already.
More: http://www.buyhandmade.org/
(via Seth Godin)
OK, tell me you didn’t know exactly what this post was going to be about just from that title.
J returned some of his duplicate birthday gifts, and we suggested Connect Four as one of the replacements (and at something like $7, what I think is a real value). So far he and N are having more fun just dropping checkers in than actually playing it, but he’ll get there. I had picked up a knock-off travel version as a business trip gift last year, and they liked playing with that (N more than J, actually), although some of the tiny travel pieces did end up getting sacrificed to the heating vent gods, and it really isn’t the same as the real thing).
It was interesting to see that while the game is basically the same, they have made some improvements in the game in the last, oh, 25 years. For example, where previously the playing board (board?) was just held up in the air by the two side pieces, there are now pieces to connect all the way around, forming a circular base that does a pretty good job of keeping the “checkers” from rolling off the table and scattering all over the place at the end of the game. (“Checkers” is in quotes because they’re not really checkers any more, like I remember them being. Or were they never checkers?)
The one change that is taking a little getting used to is that you no longer end the game by flipping up the bottom bar. It now slides sideways. At first I was really nostalgic for the old way (probably largely because of the commercial), but the more I thought about it, I do seem to recall a fair amount of accidental (or purposeful, depending on who was playing) premature spilling of the checkers.
Regardless, nice, mostly quiet, fun for the family.
Link: Connect Four
It’s funny, but we discovered that one of the best ways to keep our house quiet was by introducing noise. Well, not so much “noise” as music.
When the kids start running wild, when they’re not able to focus on a toy for more than 10 seconds at a time, or when they start running into each other (literally, as well as figuratively), we found that turning on the stereo could really help. (Invariably, this situation occurs after dinner, when it’s not time for bed yet, when we’re trying to clean up and wrap things up from the day and so can’t sit with them to play or read.)
We’re not going to put on The Wiggles, of course, but we have a few kid CDs that we can run in the background and that can help take the tone down enough that the kids can function and we can get done what we need to before starting up the bedtime routine.
And what we found really surprising – and funny – was that while we first started intending this to be background sound, the kids often took it as an activity by itself. When I put on a CD, N (age 2 1/2) will often run over to the couch, scamper up, and plop himself down in the middle, as if he were watching TV! Hey, I’m not going to complain.
So remember, the next time things seem a little too loud, think controlled noise instead of no noise at all.
We were visiting family the past few days, and of course they graciously had toys waiting for our boys. I found the contrast between two toys that N (age 2 1/2) received too funny not to share. (And in our family’s defense, I’m still running this site in under-the-radar mode, and all gifts are graciously accepted.)
The first was a book whose title – I kid you not – was “Noisy Farm.” (And, no, I’m not including a link to it.) It was a large oversize book with little stuffed animals on the pages that, if you couldn’t guess by the name, made lots of noise when squeezed. Both N and J (age 6) seemed to enjoy the novelty of it, but seeing as how they both know their animal noises already (and are none too reluctant to share), was it really necessary to have a book to create “noisy farm” noises in the house?
The second gift was a completely different story. N received the Tumbling Curious George doll, which he immediately fell for. As we had opened the gifts right before heading back to the hotel for the night, we hadn’t yet taken it out of the box yet. When we got to the hotel, my wife pulled me aside and whispered for me to find a way to take the batteries out of the doll before bringing it upstairs, commenting that “it’s like a Tickle-Me-Elmo, just with George instead.” (Neither of us had seen this particular doll before.)
So, while she and the boys headed upstairs to the room, I went up to reception desk to try to borrow a screwdriver. As I’m standing there making the request, I’m feeling around the doll for the tell-tale hard plastic box that usually houses the batteries and whatever noise making gizmo they’ve embedded inside. Only I can’t find one.
So I look more closely at the box and my eyes light up on seeing in big print NO BATTERIES REQUIRED.
That’s right – an “interactive” doll that doesn’t require batteries. George has an oversize, weighted head, and so he tumbles by himself just by sitting him upright and letting go. Since tumbling is a very popular activity in our house, the doll was an instant hit. (And, humorously, due to his size and top-heavy nature, he ends up being carried around upside down a fair bit, just like in the box.)
It’s great to see that unlike his counterpart from Sesame Street, it is possible to have an interactive toy that doesn’t increase the overall noise level in our house.
Link: Tumbling Curious George
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