Gifts

Everyone likes playing that old classic, Hi, Ho Cherry-O. Once you’ve seen the tiny cherries, you’re hooked. But you spend the entire game chasing after the cherries as they roll off the board, leading to more frustration than the fun is ultimately worth.

The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game is like an updated version, with better artwork and minus the cherry-chasing. Players spin the spinner to see if they get an acorn, lose an acorn, or must “steal” an acorn from someone else’s log. Whatever the spinner says, players use a special pair of tweezers to move the acorns from one place to another. There you have it: Fine motor control practice and extreme cuteness, all in one.

Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game, $20

Kids can learn through song, through drama, through dance. Why not learn through gum and candy? Shoppers at Whole Foods and other natural foods stores may already be familiar with Glee Gum, made with sustainably sourced chicle. Glee carries its environmental aim a few steps further with the Make Your Own Kits, fascinating little candy factories in a box.

Each kit is aimed at teaching kids about where ingredients come from. The cocoa butter in the Make Your Own Chocolate kit? It’s from Costa Rica. The chicle in the Make Your Own Gum kit? Sourced from the rainforest, which, by the way, is endangered. The thickening agent for the gummies the Make Your Own Gummies kit makes? Carrageenan, made by boiling seaweed from the ocean.

While making their own treats, kids will also learn about measurements, chemistry, nutrition, and environmental issues. A lesson that comes with a treat at the end, pretty sweet.

Make Your Own kits, $13 each

School is (almost) in again, and with it comes sleepover season. You can buy any old sleeping bag at your local discount store. But why would you want any old sleeping bag?

Unlike clothing and shoes, sleeping bags last a while. Kids don’t outgrow them for a long, long time, and if you have a child that has a lot of sleepovers or camps, you’ll be seeing it a lot. So splash out a little with Chasing Fireflies’ ballet sleeping bag, a once-in-a-lifetime cool sleeping bag that will be treasured for years. Shaped like a ballet slipper and made of slippery/shiny ballet-pink polyester satin, this is a sleeping bag that will surely make for sweet dreams.

Chasing Fireflies Ballet Sleeping Bag, $238

To you, mopping the floor is work. To your child, it’s play. Particularly if you buy him or her child-sized, real tools that are a pleasure to touch and stand up to years of hard use.

Montessori classrooms are always stocked with child-sized versions of scrubbers, squeegees, brushes, and the like. But you needn’t be a Montessori adherent to buy the same tools the classrooms use. The Montessori Services Store has a wide and carefully curated variety of small-size tools to use in the kitchen, bathroom, and living room, at family-friendly prices.

Window-washing kits (stocked with spray bottles, polishing cloths, and squeegees), and tiny broom-and-dustpan sets are classics. Something different to consider: the Economy Shoe/Leather Polishing kit, with natural (non-toxic) polish, brushes to remove dirt, and a buffing brush that should keep kids plenty busy, all contained in a little wicker basket. Next rainy day, haul this one out of the closet and let your kids turn transform scuffed shoes into mellow and gleaming ones.

Economy Shoe/Leather Polishing kit, $39

“Mama, is it time to get up yet?” No! No! A thousand times no! But explaining to a small child that it’s 4:30 a.m. is just too many words to use at that ungodly hour. Zazoo Kids nifty Photo Clock has a couple of features that go a long way towards keeping sleepy kids quiet. For little kids, the clock is set with night or day images: a sun to say “Go ahead and bug Mom,” a moon to say “Stay in bed or you’re in for it.” Parents can even use the accompanying remote control to set the clock for naptime, i.e., “No, naptime is not over.”

As your child grows, those babyish settings can be abandoned for big-boy features: the clock can be loaded with photos that it displays one after another, or MP3s of favorite songs or audio books. They can even plug in their ear buds and listen silently. Now that’s a feature.

Zazoo Photo Clock, $90

Lockets are, of course, classic mom-wear. A double-faced locket with two tiny pictures of your babies sure is cute, but only when you’ve opened it up to show them off. And once you’ve put those pictures in, you’re done: usually you never change them out for the life of the necklace. The Glass Memory Locket, on the other hand, is clear and open to scrutiny, making the thought of turning it into a tiny art gallery with revolving shows right there on your neck.

Pictures of your kids, sure: they’d look great in here. Or you could snap the thing open and shut twenty times in a day, putting in (or taking out) little trinkets found around the house, a special tiny flower, the prettiest shell you found on the beach, the love note your three year old left on your pillow. The locket closes with a strong magnet, so it’s easy to open, yet firmly encloses each of your teensy treasures. Boy, are the kids going to have fun filling up Mommy’s necklace.

Glass Memory Locket, $54

Nothing thrills a kid more than a little private space: a closet they can crawl into with a flashlight, a secret room in the basement, a little playhouse in the back yard. But the GardenFort, a grow-your-own bower for the garden, has an even more mesmerizing feature: it’s a green and living private space! Buy the kit and you get the bower’s metal framework, and quick-growing vine seeds: black-eyed Susans, asparagus beans, and cypress.

Plant them along the bower’s bottom and wait: in just a few short weeks, green shoots will appear. When they get long enough to dangle, train them to twine along and up the bower. Within a few months you’ll have a green, growing play space, the very thing for fairy games and sylvan imaginings.

GardenFort, $70

Even the most eco-conscious parent can get an occasional surprise about the toxic dangers that lurk in ordinary objects. Case in point: markers. Many ordinary brands contain worrisome chemicals like toluene, cresol, n-butane, and other chemical nasties that should not be put on skin, inhaled, and most definitely not eaten. Yet who doesn’t want to give a green marker an experimental lick to make sure it’s not minty?

The solution: Stock your house with non-toxic markers like Clementine Art’s Natural Markers. The four-pack of vibrant colors (yellow, orange, purple, and pink) are made with natural coloring (like beet juice) instead of weird chemical pigments with an FDA number attached to them. Suck them with abandon, toddlers. Suck with abandon.

If you like Clementine’s markers, the company has a whole line of natural art products. Paint, modeling clay, crayons, even natural glue made from wheat, not hooves. You can buy a gift box with all their products for $49.

Clementine Art Natural Markers, $5.99

Children adore having little set-off bits of private space: play tents, forts, little “houses” constructed of sheets draped over chairs. The Joki Hanging Crow’s Nest performs this function admirably, but it has an added bonus: it swings. The movement, the privacy, and the comforting feeling of material wrapping all around the skin comforts and quiets children who are edgy, and gives you a break, too.

Hang the nest swing from the ceiling or a doorway with a hook and eye (not included), and kids are irresistibly drawn to it. Some want to bring a book inside, some to bring special toys to play with, and some want to use the sling to jump and swing like a monkey. They can do it all, because the 100 percent cotton swing holds up to 175 pounds.

The Crow’s Nest comes with a removable cushion for those cuddly times. Send your child in with it, and a blanket, and don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from him for a long, long time.

Joki Hanging Crow’s Nest, $120

Choosing the right gifts for friends and family takes time, consideration, and dough. Competing with electronic gadgets and fancy kids toys and accessories seems an impossible and fruitless task. But, when the wrapping is long gone, and the hype has subsided, the right book can stay with a child for a lifetime.

If you’re giving books this holiday season, you can rely on the numerous Best of 2010 lists that have popped up online for assistance. We’ve also added some of our favorites as well. Happy December.

NYTimes Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2010

Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Books of 2010

Kirkus Review 2010 Best Children’s Books: The Complete List

Our Choices for Great Gift Books:

For the Girls: A Song for a Princess by Rachel Mortimer and Maddy McClellan. (Ages 4-8) What gift will win the princesses attention so that she might smile again? Shared words, collected and cherished by a thoughtful bird. Available at Amazon.com

For the Boys: Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys by Bob Raczka and Peter Reynolds. (Ages 4-8) Introduce poetry to the messy outdoorsy boy in your family with these simple poems of fun. Available at Amazon.com

For Mom: 5 Ingredient Fix: Easy, Elegant, and Irrestible Recipes by Claire Robinson. The host of two Food Network shows shares recipes that are simple yet sophisticated we well as menu ideas. Available at Amazon.com

For Dad: Mad Men: The Illustrated World by Dyna Moe. The first officially licensed tie-in to AMC’s Emmy Award-winning show Mad Men. Available at Amazon.com

For Bedtime: The Sea of Sleep by Warren Hanson and Jim Lamarche. (Ages 4-8) A drifting to sleep sort of tale with dream like illustrations.Available at Amazon.com

For the Young Artist: Charley Harper Coloring Book of Birds. 32 black-and-white line drawings of illustrations from artist Charley Harper’s classic book Birds and Words. Available at Amazon.com