CLEVELAND — 3News went to Marianne Symanski, president of Toy Tips, for help finding unique gift ideas.
Symanski has been researching toys for nearly three decades. She says when picking the perfect toy, consider these three things:
- Your child's age, for safety reasons.
- The skills they currently have, to make sure they can play with the toy correctly.
- What they're enjoying or interested in learning.
Symanski has some great, unique gift ideas, outside of this year’s typical ‘hot toys.‘
First up are some of her toy recommendations for younger kids.
She suggests allowing children to tap into their creative side.
“This is an activity kit where you're actually using your artistic abilities but doing it with pom-poms,” says Symanski.
“They have different themes but this is a fun activity and one thing I like about it, is you can buy it for more than one child to do together.”
She also has a great idea for a very inexpensive gift that would be a hit with any kid, but especially those who like science.
“It's made by Mr. Bubble, the bubble bath company we all remember,” says Symanski. “It's a great little activity that you can do, whether you take it in the bath or just play with it in water.”
She also has some really great ideas to help keep kids active this winter.
“There's a football that I found that I think is really interesting,” Symanski says.
”It's called Passback and the idea behind it, is if you take your football and you throw it against a surface, let's just say you have a brick garage, it'll come back to you.
The next idea is great for those learning how to play golf.
“This is called In Shape Golf and what it is, is a bunch of shapes that come inside,” says Symanski.
“You take a golf ball, you need to putter, you can do this in the house. You set the shapes up and you play the game, but the idea is to learn and practice.”
She says one of her favorite gift ideas is to help create a reading corner.
The best place to start, it to find books that match your kids interests.
Symanski says, “For example, Soul Riders is very popular with teenagers right now. It's about horses, imagination.”
She says, if the book is part of a series, buy more then one.
“As they're reading it, then they'll have anticipation of what the story will be about for later.”
Creating a reading corner can easily be personalized to the child’s age and interests.
Symanski says purchase items to help make it comfortable, like a beanbag chair. You can also include some of their favorite snacks and juice boxes.
She also really likes to personalize the area with glow-in-the-dark stickers.
“They come in many different categories, you can put them on your ceiling, they light up at night.”
All of Symanski’s research -- even though it's on toys -- is focused on intellectual, social, physical, and personality development.
You can learn more here.