Who Says You Can't Play Ball Indoors?

Now that the weather is getting cooler and maybe a little rainier, playing outside sometimes isn't possible. So why not grab this Mini Golf Set from Starting Time and set up an indoor Putt-Putt course!?

See what these Moms (and kids!) have to say about this challenging and durable German-made professional-quality set!

Your Chance to Help a Small Toy Company Succeed!

Here at Maukilo.com, we love quirky, unique and fun toys. That's why we're so excited about up-and-coming Toy company WOD Toys. "WOD" is a CrossFit term and stands for "Workout of the Day". These are items modeled after the real things and are toys children can use to mimic their parents and engage in pretend play. (There's that word "pretend" again - we just love it around here don't we?)

The toy business is huge and it's challenging to break into the market. Even more daunting is the cost of researching, developing, producing, testing, packaging, transporting, advertising, distributing, etc. WOD Toys wants to get their unique and fun products out to the masses and they're asking for your help!

Our Objective:

Setting the right example for kids is very important. The values set at an early age will ultimately determine the choices they make later on in life. I hope with these WOD toys (Work Out of the Day) those choices can lean towards a healthy one. 

With the childhood obesity rate tripling in the past 30 years, I think it's time those stats take a downward trend. Our fitness inspired toys is only part of solution. Active parents will equal active kids so whatever your fitness routine maybe, hopefully WOD toys will get both parents and kids moving towards a more active & healthy lifestyle. 

Current Progress

Recently we were featured on CNN Money, Komo 4 news, & numerous blogs and review sites. We now have a few distribution channels across the US as well as in Australia and have sold nearly 2,000 units. Our fan base is growing by the day and now nearing 4,000 Facebook fans.

Product Specifications

The toys are non weight bearing and are intended for role playing only. What weight they do have are comprised of the plastic & rubber materials. For more sizing, material, and weight specifications please click here to see our brochure.

How will the money be used and what you will get in return.

• We will proceed to the mass production stage and be able to leverage volume and pass on potential savings to our customers.
• Transition to retail boxes so that our products can finally be in retail stores.
• By helping you are then able to receive our toys at the mass production rates

Head on over to their IndieGoGo Fundraising page and donate. Depending on which level you choose, you will receive a set of corresponding WOD Toys. How cool is that!?

Even cooler is that in the middle of their promo video, we spotted 3 HABA games! See if you can spot them too! Then click on the link below the screen shot to see if you are correct.

Click to reveal the 3 HABA games we spotted. Did you spot more? Let us know in the comments!

(Hint: They're Sleepy Princess, Animal Upon Animal and Chaos on the Kids Room!)

HeidiKlum.aol.com - Summer Travel Toys for Kids

An award-winning HABA toy - Fliffix Catch Game was mentioned on Heidi Klum's AOL blog as one of the top summer travel toys for kids. Check it out!

Taking a trip with the whole family this summer? Before you get anxiety about keeping the kids occupied in the car ride or while you're at the hotel, sift through this list of summer travel toys.

These toys fit easily into travel bags, don't take up a ton of room, and best of all, they provide hours of entertainment, whether you're traveling or not!

Click here to read the full article Summer Travel Toys for Kids.

Get Those Creative Juices Flowing!

Not only does Maukilo.com strive to feature some of the coolest and most durable toys on the planet, but we've also been stocking up on unique and hard to find arts & crafts sets.  While we believe that playing is about dress-up, pretend store and house, board games and outdoor adventures, it's also about creating and using the imagination! Unlock your child's artistic potential -  Browse our Arts & Crafts section, featuring sticker books, all-natural crayons and paints, model construction sets, paint and design kits, modeling clay, stencils and more!

We've handpicked some favorites of our own below!

HABA Terra Kids - Musical Gears Construction Set - $35.09

Make beautiful music with the Terra Kids - Construction Set Musical Gears! Once assembled, this crank gear musical model will create varying musical sequences with three bells. Perfect for curious kids, the Terra Kids - Construction Set Musical Gears combines physics, music, and fun in one awesome model! This set comes with over 80 pieces to glue together, developing your child's building skills. Once assembled, use the hand crank to create varying musical sequences with the three bells. The set is made of durable plywood that lasts!


Seedling - Design Your Own Shield - $39.98

Creativity and adventure collide with this DIY Wooden Shield kit from Seedling. A blank wooden shield is included, along with acrylic paints and brushes. Now your little Picasso can show off their artistic talents and protect the family coat of arms!







Glob - Natural Art Bundle - $44.99

Grab this set for everything you need to create colorful nature scenes. Instead of purchasing each product separately, you will save $9 when you buy this bundle! Includes 4 garden prints on handmade seed papers made from 100% natural, biodegradable and recycled fibers, seeds and plant material, the Bamboo Brush Set and the Natural Paint Set made from 100% natural non toxic ingredients.

GLOB arts and crafts products are sourced from natural, recyclable and biodegradable materials. The vibrant pigments in GLOB have been used by different cultures throughout the ages in food, artists' paints and body products. From the garden to the studio, GLOB handcrafted paints naturally inspire. Go ahead, GLOB it on.

Chalk City - Road Maker - $14.99

The Chalk City Road Maker holds 2 pieces of sidewalk chalk and allows kids to easily create cities, raceways, and obstacle courses right in their own driveway. A fun way to make designs for classic games like hop scotch and tic tac toe. You get the maker and two pieces of sidewalk chalk. Easily cleans up with just water. Spin it and swirl it and make geometric patterns and shapes.






Aladine - Farm Modeling Dough Set- $14.95

Get rollin' on the farm with this wonderful modeling clay set from Aladine. The soft, non toxic modeling dough will not stain or stick. Dough will air dry without cracks, so the animals created can be played with over and over! Comes with color directions to follow, or use your imagination to create the wildest creatures imaginable! Five colors (red, blue, yellow, white, and black) are included as well as a play mat with colorful outdoor scene for extra fun down on the farm! Encourages sensory awareness, creativity, fine motor skills, and imaginative play.


 HABA - Stickerworld Safari- $11.24

Lion or little monkey? Who is supposed to zip across the page? Oops, the giraffe stickers want to join in. No problem! Here creative children can let their imagination run wild and, as the stickers can be peeled off, design their own picture book over and over again. Includes 6 sheets with stickers of 3 different motifs.

HABA USA Launches New Website!

Maukilo LOVES HABA toys, which is why we couldn't help but share HABA's brand new website with our customers!

Just launched and chock full of lots of information! From company history and toy safety practices, to their product development process and environmental philosophies, this new site is a treasure trove for the toy-lover.  Check out the complete catalog of products and library of informational videos, so you can learn all there is to know about HABA!

Shop Maukilo's HABA selection, offering some of the best prices on the web!

The Importance of Pretend Play

We ran across a very interesting journal article titled: The Role of Pretend Play in Children's Cognitive Development. Obviously, children love doing it because it is fun, but it is interesting to read about why they enjoy it so much, and how beneficial it really is.  Some excerpts of the article that really caught our attention are included below.

"The relationship of pretend play (especially socially interactive pretense) to cognitive development has long been a topic of research interest among educators and psychologists, and a number of studies conducted in the late 1970s and early 1980s supported hypotheses about this relationship. For example, early studies linked play to young children's mathematics readiness (Yawkey, 1981), linguistic/literacy abilities (Pellegrini, 1980), cognitive functioning and impulse control (Saltz, Dixon, & Johnson, 1977), representational competence (Pederson, Rook-Green, & Elder, 1981), and problem-solving skills (Smith & Dutton, 1979). Recent research has explored some cognitive components hypothesized to be strongly related to pretense, such as mental representation ability (i.e., theory of mind), problem solving and other cognitive strategies, social and linguistic competence, and academic skill development."

"Lillard suggests that younger children probably see pretend as an action not a mental representation. However, she recently has suggested that pretend play may function for children as a way to create a "Twin Earth" that allows them to participate in and reason about nonactual situations (Lillard, 2001). Most TOM studies have been conducted in laboratory settings, and some researchers have noted that younger children often show understanding of others' thinking and beliefs in their naturally occurring pretend play. Other researchers have used adapted experimental methods to clarify what aspects of TOM younger children may have."

It is also believed that naturally, children participate in pretend play in order to "practice" for real life.  We find this especially interesting! Now we know why we loved to play store, house, post office, pirates, circus, doctor, teacher, etc.  I don't know about you, but I would have went bananas over some of the play food and costumes from HABA, play cash register and vacuum from Wonderworld Toys, and the play kitchen and accessories from Janod.

Encourage and cultivate your child's cognitive, linguistic, problem solving, and academic skills from an early age - check out our complete collection of pretend play products!

As if the HABA play food isn't cute, interesting and just plain fun-looking enough, watch this adorable video of a child and her father. We betcha a million bucks it'll make you smile!

Summer Time & the Livin's FUN with HABA!

Starter Set with Water Seesaw - $44.99

Little ones are sure to have tons of fun in the sun, as they construct their very own mini Water Park in the back yard. Maukilo absolutely loves these sets from HABA, and you and your family will too!  Check them out over in our store and even better, enter to WIN the Water Park Starter Set at Tales From the Nursery!


Simply ingenious - The seesaw controls the flow of water. Introduces movement to water games. Ideal for experiments: first the water gathers in the water seesaw. Then, when it fills up, the seesaw topples downwards and the water drains out. Contents: 4 tracks, 2 big struts, 4 medium sized struts, 1 sand water trowel, 1 water seesaw.

Check out the video below, demonstrating how much fun this these sets can be!!

Go, Go, Domino!

Who doesn't enjoy watching a crazy pattern of dominoes fall??  Check out this video from a store in Finland! They literally line every single aisle of the store with objects, including pallets, cereal boxes, shelving, cases of drinks and many other products found throughout the store. How fun, but could you imagine the clean up process when it's all over!??



That was neat, right?? How about creating your own domino rally at home with these cool domino and ball track sets from HABA! It's super fun and the clean up is a cinch!

LIKE us on Facebook & Enter to Win a Mother's Day Prize pack!

Can you believe it is MAY already? In just over a week, it will be Mother's Day 2012!  To show our appreciation to all of the hardworking mothers out there, we'd like to do a few giveaways!

Mothers and Grandmothers, share a picture of you and your Children and/or Grandchildren on our facebook page and you will be entered to win a prize pack valued at $40 with select item(s) from HABA, Dabbwalla, GLOB Natural Paints and more! Contest begins 5/4/12 and ends 5/13/12. Winners will be notified through facebook!

So head on over to our facebook page and flaunt your pride and joy with us. We can't wait to see all of the beautiful faces of our customers and their amazing children!

Pretend Building, But For Real!

This just might be one of the coolest additions to our store here at Maukilo!  We've all built with building blocks, but this takes it to a whole new and more importantly, exciting level.  It almost reminds us of building a gingerbread house, but instead uses real bricks and mortar, plus it won't attract ants!

This is great fun for the whole family, especially for budding architects, engineers and builders.  The Teifoc building sets will not only help children learn how to follow directions, but it also gives them the opportunity to use their imagination to create real, tangible four-dimensional buildings.  In an age where most creating is done on a computer, children will really love the chance to physically spread the mortar, lay the bricks and hold in their hands what they created. The best part is, the mortar is made of a sand/corn mixture that is water soluble so creations when dried are study, but can be soaked with water, taken a part and built again.  This is definitely much more than a toy, and something that is sure to last!

Teifoc is a unique build and play system that uses real reusable bricks to create fun and elaborate structures and creations. Use the real clay bricks and cement mortar to create this large house and garage, follow one of the 5 other plans included or design one from scratch. When it is time to have another go simply soak the model in water, dry the bricks and start again.

Check out this time-lapse video we found on pinterest of a house being built. How cool!?

View our selection of Teifoc sets here

Three, Two, One...Race to the Treasure!

Congratulations to Peaceable Kingdom's Race to the Treasure Game for being awarded the 2012 Oppenheim Gold Seal!  We are so proud to carry this fantastic cooperative board game on Maukilo.com, and hope that it brings lots and lots of educational fun to the families that shop with us!

This challenging and fun strategy board game builds cooperation and problem solving skills! Cooperation board games encourage players to work together as a team, not against each other, emphasizing play, not competition.

The object is to get to the end of the path before the Orge does. To do this, players must work together to collect the keys to open treasures along the way and create the path as they go. Race to the Treasure! Fosters non-stressful play situations, emotional development, shared decision-making, creative problem solving, a sense of community, and positive self esteem.

Includes: 1 game board, 1 pair of dice, 37 game cards, 4 key tokens and 1 Ogre snack. For 2-4 players, ages 5 and Up.

All Peaceable Kingdom Press cooperative games are printed with soy-based inks on FSC paper and include parts made only with recycled plastics. Games that are good for our planet and good for our kids!

Purchase this game in our online store!

Check out Caine's Arcade!

9 year old Caine Monroy, who built an elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad’s used auto parts store, is about to have the best day of his life.

We ran across this feel-good story this weekend. It's a great example of how important it is to encourage pretend play. Children have so many thoughts and ideas going through their heads, providing them a way to create and solve problems independently will unlock their greatest potentials!

Check out the short film about Caine and learn about how you can donate to the foundation here!

It warms our hearts here at Maukilo to know that Caine and other children who will benefit from Caine's foundation will have the opportunity to go to college. We can't wait to see what Caine comes up with next!

Zoom into Spring on a New Push Bike!

The birds are chirping, the trees are starting to blossom, the days are getting longer - you know what that means... Spring is in the air! The weather is perfect for zooming around on one of the many wooden push bikes we offer. If you have never seen one, at first glance it might look like something is missing. And you're right; push bikes are pedal-less and are propelled as your child pushes and coasts. (Check out the video below of an example.) Doesn't it look like fun? Push bikes are a great tool for beginners, and will help develop balance and coordination even better than training wheels.

Check out our full selection of Push Bikes here!

Put on a show with HABA Little Miss Fidget!

Check out this brand new video demo of HABA's Little Miss Fidget hand puppet toy! Bet you didn't know it has so many fun little ways to occupy your little one.

Like what you see? Purchase it!

NEW Spring Arrivals!

We just added a bunch of new stuff! Including items from HABA and Lilliputiens, as well as some really unique items by companies brand new to Maukilo.com! If your kids are into playing with their food, they'll LOVE the quirky Food Face plates from Fred. Our favorite addition is The Digasaurus Sand Station which might be one of the COOLEST things you've likely never heard of (until now)! It will bring the educational excitement of the pre-historic era right to your very own backyard. Made to look just like real rock and includes hand-molded "dinosaur bones" created by Master sculptor Timothy P. Schmalz that kids can excavate and learn about. We also adore the Spring Fever wooden Push Bike - this balance bike is sure to dazzle as your little one zooms around the neighborhood!

There are a lot more toys on the way, so keep checking back soon!

Visit Maukilo.com

HABA Biofino Fabric Food

HABA Biofino Fabric Play Food

We just love all the HABA play foods including the Biofino line that came out only a few years ago. Now they have fruits and vegetables, fish, chicken, sandwiches, hamburger, German sausage and pretzel, cold cuts, cheese, cookies, sweets, ice cream and so much more. These play food items are nothing like you've ever seen before and are sure to be a hit with your little chefs!

Click here so view all the HABA Biofino play foods.

NEW Green Toys Gardening Kit - just in time for spring

Spring is just around the corner and it may still be raining where you are, but that does not mean you can's already get started on your garden. Check out Green Toys' Gardening Kit: 

Young plant lovers can watch nature at work by growing a beautiful flower garden and fresh herbs in just days with the world’s most earth-happy gardening set. Like all Green Toys products, this Indoor Gardening Kit is made from advanced environmentally friendly materials, helping to reduce fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions, all in the name of Good Green Fun!

And the packaging is, of course, made of 100% recycled and 100% recyclable cardboard - cool!

Included in the Gardening Kit are:

• Peapod-shaped Planter Tray
• 3 Planting Pots 
• Trowel 
• Soil 
• 3 Packs Organic seeds (Teddy Bear Sunflower, Basil, Zinnia) 
• Easy-to-follow planting instructions 

more info/buy

Green Toys Play Dishes: Tea Set, Dining Set, NEW Chef's Set

Green Toys are one of our favorite brands: made from 100% recycled materials (milk jugs) right here in the US and packaged in 100% recycled cardboard is truly setting an example. Check out this great video of kids playing with the Green Toys Tea Set:

NEW - Green Toys Chef's Set
Reducing fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions is part of the recipe for aspiring gourmets who use the Green Toys™ Chef Set.
Includes: Stock Pot with Lid, Skillet, Ladle, Spatula
more info/buy

Green Toys Cookware/Dining Set
Young chefs can concoct and serve make-believe culinary treats that have real benefits for the earth with the world’s greenest cookware set. Dishwasher safe.
Includes: 4 plates, 4 bowls, 4 cups, 4 place settings, stock pot, and skillet. 
more info/buy

Green Toys Tea Set
Talk about green tea! Young hosts can serve up a pot of tea while doing something really good for the earth.
Includes: teapot and lid, sugar bowl and lid, creamer, 4 tea cups, 4 saucers, and 4 teaspoons.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Stage is Set Game by HABA reviewed by Hayden

Check this out - another great game review by Hayden. This time it's 'The Stage is Set' by HABA. Take a look:

Check out the Product Videos for Many of our Toys

I am so excited to share with your that we now have product videos for many of the items sold on Maukilo.com and we are adding many more.

Videos are now available for many of our products.

The videos can be found below the product images and 'add to cart' button and above the product description. Take a look - we put a lot of care into producing our own videos. You'll be able to recognize them by the 'maukilo title'.

Have fun watching them and a big thanks to Lea, Brooke, the kids and every one else doing such a great job.