Setup and installing the track to the wall was easy and “parent friendly”. The track comes with 3M Command stickers that are used to tape the track to the wall. That means no holes or drilling and it will be easy to take the track down later. The track has brackets that get stuck to the wall and then the track pieces stick into the brackets. This means that even if kids play rough with the track, the track just pops out from the bracket (no wall damage and easy to just pop the track back into the bracket which is still secure on the wall).

This track has a high fun factor. There are multiple diverters that can be adjusted to make the race car take a different path.

Here’s a video of our 5 year old playing with this track.

Overall this is a great toy and fun race track.

Last year we wrote about Compassion International. Compassion is an organization that allows you to commit to monthly giving to support a specific child in need. My family has supported two kids through Compassion for a few years now. You can read what I wrote about Compassion last year here.

Some of you may not want to commit to monthly giving, but would be willing to make a one time donation. Compassion has provided a list of real needs that can be met for a specific dollar amount. So it’s not just giving a dollar amount into a fund and you never know what it goes towards. You can give $10 toward garden seeds to help a family grow their own food. Or $30 towards school supplies.

Or my favorite, give a Chicken for $16. That’s right, a chicken is more than a meal to a family living in poverty. It can provide a source of income, manure for a vegetable garden, and a steady supply of eggs. This gift helps a family to put food on their table and provides them with earnings.

If you would like to make a one time donation and see the full list of gifts, you can do that here.

The article makes the case that young kids have too much “screen time” and not enough outdoors time. That may be true as a trend in the US, but to me, that’s really a parenting issue more than a problem with a certain type of toy or technology.

One of the hottest new “screen toys” this year is the LeapPad by LeapFrog. I listed it in my list of the 20 Top Toys of 2011. Every time I’ve been at a store and browsing the toy aisle this holiday season, the LeapPad is sold out, so I know demand has been high for this toy.

I’ve also written previously about my kids experience with the Fisher Price iXL vs. the LeapFrog Explorer. These are great electronic learning toys for young kids.

The LeapPad is suggested for Kids 4 years old up to around 9 year old. So it really isn’t a toddler toy. I’d have to agree with that. My Pre-school age kids love their LeapFrog Explorer and Fisher Price iXL — but our 1 year old don’t play with these toys much if at all.

Personally, I think that these educational toys are great. My young kids also certainly love to spend time with my iPad and playing games on my iPhone. Many of the games we let them play have an educational value, while some are “just for fun”. As parents, we make sure to limit “game time” or “screen time” (including tv) so that our young kids are getting enough exercise and “real world”, not just “virtual world” play time.

So overall, I have to disagree with the USA Today article and I think that these “computer toys” are great for young kids. But just like everything else, it’s most important for parents to monitor what their kids are doing and provide boundaries and guidance all along the way.

We had really purchase the set as a “child safe” nativity set that our young kids couldn’t break — we didn’t really consider it to be a play toy — but that is exactly what it has turned out to be.

Just like all the Fisher-Price “Little People” toys, it’s high quality and safe for toddlers and young kids. The star above the manger lights up and plays the song, “Away in a Manger”. This set is a cute and fun way to teach your young children about the story of Christmas.

Our boys have spent more time playing with this toy than our girl, but she still loves to hammer also. Right now, our 1 year old boy is in love with this toy and just hammers all the time. You can’t go wrong with this classic toy for toddlers.

The kids love to bake and serve these cookies. They are made of wood and all the cookie “dough” sticks together with velcro and allows kids to “slice” the cookies with the included wooden knife. Then the dough is place on the cookie sheet, again, sticking with velcro. After “baking”, kids can add frosting which again, sticks on with velcro.

This toy is suggested for kids age 3 year old up to around 9 year old. Our kids enjoyed this toy from around age 2 year old and up. This cookie set makes a nice addition to our play kitchen. Who doesn’t love cookies?

This game has the fun factor of a video game, but it does really teach you how to play guitar — on a REAL guitar. In addition to the 50 songs that you can learn and play along with, there are also “mini-games” within the game that help to re-enforce guitar player skills such as scales, harmonics, etc.

This game is great for beginners who have never played guitar before all the way up to advanced players. No one is promising that you will become a all star guitar player over night here, but if you want to learn and improve your skills, this is sure a fun way to go about it.

Check out this video which is the video games official launch video.

We bought this for our 5 year old boy who LOVES anything with the characters from the Disney “Cars” movie. He loved it as expected. What surprised me is how much his younger sister and our 1 year old enjoy this toy.

Older kids will play with this toy the “correct” way by shaking up the cars, hearing the engine sound effects “vroom – vroom”, and then race the cars on the track. The cars can be raced on any hard surface, not just the track, so this gives some variety in playing with the toy. Disney also sells the “shake and go” cars individually, but I found this set which includes the race track and two cars to be a great deal.

Our one year old enjoys watch the older kids race the cars around the track. Since the cars have an on/off switch on the bottom, when the cars are “off”, he enjoys just pushing the cars around with his hand and making his own “vroom – vroom” sound effects!

This is a simple race track that older kids would probably get bored with quickly, but for younger kids up to around age 7 years old, this toy is a winner!

The trend started a couple years ago and the YBike has emerged as one of the best and most popular among the balance bikes. It rates extremely highly on Amazon by customers.

Of course kids think it’s great fun to scoot around on the balance bike! It has large wheels that make it easy and safe to ride on pavement or grass.

Some parents have observed that after riding a balance bike for a few months, their kids seemed to do better when transitioning to their first “big kid” bike with training wheels. The YBike is designed for kids from 18 months up to around 3 and a half years old.