show them the world
Filed Under Going Green, Stuff | July 6, 2009
In this age of staycations and belt-tightening you may not be traveling as far afield with your tots as you’d like. But with the award-winning Hugg-A-Planet, a soft globe, you can still bring the world to your children in three dimensions.
Peace Toys, the company behind the Hugg-A-Planet, created it in the ’80s during the Cold War with the goal of encouraging peace, cooperation and socio-environmental responsibility. It’s labeled with more than 600 place names and the exterior is printed with non-toxic ink on sturdy fabric while the interior is stuffed with recycled fibers whenever possible. Talk about early adaptors to the eco-friendly toy movement!
We like that the Hugg-A-Planet grows with your child. Kids as young as one like to catch, carry and cuddle it, while two-year-olds can start learning geography. Preschoolers on up to grade schoolers – for whom geographical references become more common-place – find it a fun and easy to look up unknown places and far-flung rellies as well as plan holidays. And they’re fond of tossing it around too. Giving a whole new meaning to having the whole world in your hands.
For ages we’ve been trying to teach our five-year-old where Australia – home of her cousins – is, using an atlas, but it wasn’t until we showed her on the Hugg-A-Planet that she “got” how far away it was. And the whole “the earth is round” thing.
And you can get a Hugg-A-Moon too, marked with more than100 of the moon’s mysterious craters and seas. And it’s in proportion to the Hugg-A-Planet Earth. Hugg-A-Moon lends itself to lessons on the solar system.
And while we can’t speak to it encouraging peace and cooperation in a venue larger than our own backyard, it did get our tiny testers cooperating in an effort to have the moon to orbit the earth. Which meant a few minutes of peace for us.
Hugg-A-Planet: www.peacetoys.com
Please note: Peace Toys are newish to Canada so if you have any questions about their products feel free to email mark@peacetoys.ca. You can currently find Hugg-A-Planets in Vancouver at Science World and Kaboodles.
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