Our youngest fan

October 2007:   While their roof was being reshingled, everything on the walls had to be taken down. In baby Daniel's nursery, decorated with colorful puzzles and pictures, our Hexmozaix is usually admired only from afar by the eager little explorer. His mom sent us a photo of this rare moment when he could get a closer look. It will be a few short years yet before he's ready to play with it for real, and in the meantime the beauty of the set adds to Daniel's stimulating environment. Wise mom. We're thrilled to watch this young mind growing, and we'll post progress reports here and here.   December 2007:   And here's Daniel getting his first close look at the Bear Hugs Jr. set that decorates his nursery:   May 2008:   At 14 months, Daniel is getting mileage out of the bears. His mom writes, "We have been playing with our Bear Hugs set by placing the pieces in the circles on the back—labelling colors, counting each color, mentioning which color bear is in relation to another (the red bear is above or beside the green bear, etc.), pointing to the bears' arms, tummy and legs and then to Daniel's or our body parts. Pretty cool stuff to a 14-month-old! Daniel also enjoys stacking a couple bears on top of each other, hearing the click-clack when they fall on each other, and of course that first flip of the board to remove the bears! "We plan on mimicking the poses, discussing a little color theory (red and blue make purple and such), talking about what is the same or different, sorting the bears by traits and playing bear pose bingo :). "Bear hugs are definitely a very versatile learning tool for us."

August 2008:   At 18 months, Daniel asks often to play with his bears. Here he is filling the circles and sorting the colors. We're fascinated to see his perceptions develop, and curious how he'll fit in those extra bears (orange and purple) that were not part of the original set. Stay tuned.   Daniel meets Quintillions December 2008:   Daniel at 21 months was very excited to play with the Quintillions blocks and even recognized some as letters. His favorites are the ones he calls I, X and C. February 2009:   At almost two years of age, Daniel has caught on to fitting the bears by shape into their cut-outs, a much more demanding task. And he's got the hang of turning them over when necessary. We're happy his mom keeps a camera close at hand to capture these special learning moments. May 2009:   Into the 3rd dimension — Now sporting glasses, Daniel is discovering so many things with the Quintillions set—he realizes that they can be pushed together to make shapes and that they can be used to build 3D structures. October 2009:   The quints here are being used to make castle walls (for his griffin). Note his precision and steady hand at age two and a half!   Daniel and Triangoes Jr. Daniel loves tangrams. His mom is amazed at what he is discovering with the pieces on his own. At age 26 months, he had a blast with Triangoes Jr. — he made squares, stacked the squares (square subs, as in the sandwiches, was what he called them). He did work at putting all the pieces in the board, and with a little help from mommy and no attention to color or order, Daniel did a good job of getting the pieces to all fit in the tray. [Editor's note: Triangoes Jr. is rated for ages 8 and up!]     More about our youngest fan At Daniel's and his mom's request in 2008 for something like train tracks, we designed a brand new set of curvy puzzle pieces, released in August 2009. See photos of Daniel's delight with "beta-testing" our ChooChooLoops. (Link opens in new window.) Daniel adds Hexdominoes and Mini-Iamond Ring to his repertoire. New baby sister likes puzzles, too. (Link opens in new window.)

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