The Counselor Mom: Time to Play

Toys, toys toys! As a play therapist, I have been talking, talking and talking about the benefits of play- how children learn through play, communicate through play and basically how their daily lives revolve around play.

So when I was invited to a blogger luncheon by Time To Play at the Dallas World Trade Center on Tuesday, I was super excited! AND....they even told us we did not have to blog about the site or the event if we didn't want to- they just wanted us to learn about their site and enjoy our time there- but of course I was super impressed and just had to spread the word to all the parents out there (and aunts/uncles and grandparents too).

What is Time to Play? It's a website (click here) about everything toys (including children's books and video games too). Kind of like the Kelly Blue Book for toys.

What does the website offer?

-The Top 'Most Wanted' Toy List for this 2011 Holiday Season

-The Toy Advisor: A cool feature where you enter info about the kind of toy you are looking for, age of child, gender and your price range and it gives you a list of ideas!

-Daily Toy Giveaways

-Your own personal Wishlist for your children

-Movie and video game Reviews

-And the best one of all, Toy Reviews!

Yep, the Toy Reviews they have are real, honest reviews from the staff at Time to Play. Have you ever noticed on Amazon and Toys R Us websites that the reviews seem scripted? That's because most of the time they are marketers that work for the toy company writing the reviews. They try to make it sound real, but not so much.

When you click on a toy on the timetoplaymag website, it gives you a video demonstration of how it works, a description, what age it is recommended for, why it's fun and what to be aware of like that it needs 10 batteries that will need to be replaced constantly. There is also a place where you as a reader can write your own comments about the toys.

Here is an example:

AND, one other review feature they have on their site is a Parent Review section. Yep, real parents write their own reviews of a toy and are placed in this section here.

See what they're getting at? They are trying to give us parents as much honest feedback as possible, so as a consumer, we are armed with good information in this super overwhelming world of toys!

And I walked away after the luncheon with a sweet goody bag that my daughter was all smiles about diving into when I got home. They gave us some of their hottest toys- the ones that are really trending right now. (As soon as my child saw the toys she wanted them out of the packaging asap, so excuse the poor photos). Check out the goods: