At Toy Fair this year, Stefanie and I found a lot of great new products that we are adding to GIFT HERO.  One of my favorites is Yamslam by Blue Orange Games. The folks at Blue Orange really love their games – and at Toy Fair they invite you to play their games – literally. So I spent a decent amount of time playing their games (and enjoying myself!)

Not satisfied with that, when my friends at Blue Orange heard that I had an 8 year old son, they insisted that I take Yamslam home with me for him to try out – with spectacular results.

Josh loves Yamslam – and commented to me that it was “kind of  like Yahtzee only better”. He loves that he can play it by himself or with a friend. Very few games are designed this way – most are either single player or for two or more players. He told me we “definitely” need to sell it on GIFT HERO.  And now we do.

I think that Yamslam is going to be our new “go to” birthday gift for Josh’s 8 and 9 year old buddies.

Kids love Legos. Period. I grew up with Legos, but when I was a kid there weren’t as many Lego kits where you follow the step by step instructions to make specific things like airplanes or action figures. We were forced to be creative and come up with our own unique designs.

Times have certainly changed. There are hundreds and hundreds of different Lego kits to choose from. So how do you know which one to pick for a birthday gift for that special birthday boy?

We love Lego Crazy Action Contraptions.  It is a small, compact kit that contains a small carton of pieces and instructions to make 16 different vehicles. It is definitely challenging,  even for the most Lego-experienced child, so we recommend it for boys 7 or older. My 8 year old son Josh received it as a gift, and loves it because he thinks it is cool that he can make so many different things with a relatively small number of pieces.  It is definitely compact enough to take it with us on our next trip!

Building sets make great birthday gifts for kids of all ages. In our house, these really are the gifts that have stood the test of time. My kids keep coming back to them over and over. They are a playdate staple – a source of inspiration for creative play. It is so much fun to  watch my daughter Maya and Stefanie’s son Benjamin play their own creative version of ”Star Wars” with her pink Superstructs Lillies building set (pictured left).  And it is adorable to watch Maya construct bugs using my son Josh’s Exobonz Deluxe set, and then chase Josh around the apartment with them. Priceless.

Because we think building sets are great birthday gifts, we sell a lot of different types for each age group at GIFT HERO. While we only sell the sets we think are fabulous, I do have a few personal favorites by age.

For two year olds, I love the soft blocks made by EduShape. The thing is, two year olds are better at knocking things down than they are at building, so these soft blocks are perfect – no need to “duck and cover” to avoid the inevitable projectile blocks.

Fine motor skill capabilities vary widely among three year olds, and I have found that many of the sets that say 3 and up are far too challenging for most. Stick with something that has large pieces and is specifically created for small hands – I love Zoob JR because the large pieces are specifically designed for toddlers hands, and the pieces actually stay together very well once they are snapped together. In addition to the basic Zoob JR set, we also carry the delightful Zoob JR Zoomer Car Set- which lets kids make their own moving vehicles with the same Zoob pieces plus wheels!

For 4 year olds, my favorite sets are from Superstructs. I love how they make sets that appeal specifically to girls – Superstructs Pinklets and Superstructs Lilies have girl-friendly pieces to make flowers, fairies and lots of other fun stuff. It really feels like the folks at Superstructs sat down and thoughtfully designed a unique  building set with girls in mind (not just changing the color of the pieces like many other building sets).

Exobonz Deluxe is my favorite for 5 year olds- I love watching the kids create unique types of creepy crawlers and then chase each other around!

For six and seven year olds, I really love Zolo-a-Go-Go. This set is great for children who like to create artful sculptures – no set pieces to create here – kids just use their own imagination to create their own three dimensional works of art.

Eight year olds will be challenged by Lego Crazy Action Contraptions - a Klutz book and lego set in one that includes instructions to build 16 different vehicles using the exact same pieces. Even the most experienced Lego savant will find this challenging!

To view all of our building sets, visit our building set gift category.

My son Josh turned eight years old recently. While the volume of birthday party invitations has certainly diminished since he was in nursery school or Kindergarten, nonetheless we still get invited to our fair share of birthday parties.

My favorite gift for his 8 year old boy friends is the Young Scientist Series: Minerals, Crystals & Fossils. In my opinion, you can’t go wrong with a high quality science kit for a birthday gift. After giving this present to a few of his friends, Josh begged for one for his birthday. I happily obliged, and Josh keeps coming back to it – in school last year they began to study rocks and minerals, and this kit has built upon that foundation.  One of the best features about the kit is that it is designed with easy-to-follow instructions so kids older than 8 can follow along on their own.

For boys younger than 8, the same company makes the Magic School Bus Science Kit series. My personal favorite is the Journey into the Human Body, which lets kids learn about their bodies through fun experiments.

With all of the pink and hearts floating around on Valentine’s Day, it can be challenging to find an appropriate Valentine’s Day gift for a boy.  Here are some very boy-friendly Valentine’s Day gifts  we sell at GIFT HERO.

For two and three year old boys, try the Gingerbread Sort N Snap Cookies. This colorful set teaches fine motor coordination and sorting skills – all in the guise of sweet gingerbread people.

For four and five year olds, you can’t go wrong with the Milk & Cookies Game. This is a really fun matching and counting game that is perfect for those late preschool/Kindergarten years. I love the sturdy construction of the box, board and play tiles. We have had it for a couple of years and played with it many, many times and it still looks brand new.

For eight to ten year olds, try Chocolate Fix, a challenging single player game that is based on the concept of Sudoku.  It is made by ThinkFun, maker of Rush Hour and other mind-challenging single player games.

You can check out our full selection of Valentine’s Day gifts and select your very own.

Last summer, when Stefanie and I first met Miss Brittany, a NYC preschool teacher, and ”discovered” her product, we knew that it was going to be a huge success. It is no surprise to us that Miss Brittany’s Organic Fun Dough has become a national sensation, appearing in In Touch Magazine, the Today Show and now in People magazine. 

GIFT HERO customers have really responded  well to Miss Brittany’s Gift Set,  which inclues 3 packs of organic dough, an organic apron, wooden stampers and a wooden rolling pin. We recently added the Fun Packs, which each include two packs of organic dough – one set is Green/Purple and one is Orange/Pink.

Either of these Miss Brittany’s Fun Dough products make a great birthday gift for a 3, 4 or 5 year old boy or girl. They also make great gifts for Valentine’s Day!

Growing up, on Valentine’s Day my parents would give me one of those huge Hershey’s kisses wrapped in red foil in a cute box. I would do my best to gnaw at the waxy chocolate, starting at the top. Usually, after a couple of days I grew tired of trying to get a decent bite. When I got a little older, my parents switched to those Russell Stover boxed sets, with the chocolates with fillings in them. The only problem was I really only liked the ones with caramel inside so most wound up in the trash.

Alas, perhaps my parents would have been better off giving me something like Chocolate Fix, a fun strategy game by ThinkFun (makers of Rush Hour) that is based on the Sudoku concept. It looks like a box of chocolates so it makes a perfect Valentine’s Day gift for kids 8 years old and up. (It is also great for adults too.)

For the younger set, we also offer some alternatives to real candy for Valentine’s Day. For ages 4 through 6, try the sweet-themed Milk and Cookies game, a favorite in our household.  For two to three year olds, the ABC lacing sweets make a great choice – kids love to make “candy necklaces”. These “candies” include letters so kids can make necklaces with their names on it.

My six year old daughter Maya has a lot of girl friends turning 7 lately.  Maya is quite a precocious child, and has very strong opinions on many things – most notably, fashion. Maya describes herself as having “good taste” and describes her clothes as “very fashionable.” She definitely has a preference for the loud, colorful, hippie type style typefied by Flowers by Zoe, So Nikki and other similar type labels.

So it is really not a surprise to me that this year Maya told me that she wants to select her friends birthday gifts.  Currently her favorite gifts are the charm bracelet gift sets by Charm It! We sell three different kinds on GIFT HERO – Peace & Love (shown here), I Love Sweets and Friends. Maya usually chooses the right set based on her friends’ interests and sense of style.

Each set comes with a bracelet and either 5 charms or 3 charms in a beautiful decorative box  that really provides the “wow” factor.  Also, while these boxed gift sets are hard to find in stores, the individual charms are sold in many children’s clothing stores nationwide. So the birthday girl can buy more charms to add to her bracelet and truly make it her own.  These boxed sets make a delightful birthday gift for a 7 or 8 year old girl.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, these Charm It! sets also make a fantastic Valentine’s Day gift for that special girl on your list.

We love Pairs in Pears and Appletters, two brand new word games from the makers of Bananagrams! And good news, they are appropriate for slightly younger kids – ages 6 and up. The folks at Bananagrams have developed these games with the Kindergarten-2nd grade set in mind. They make great birthday gifts because they are so visually appealling and the games are entirely educational yet fun.

We also sell Bananagrams for the slightly older set - 8 and up – although you can never really outgrow Bananagrams!

I had the great privilege of working for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, for eight years.  I know firsthand that UNICEF is uniquely poised to respond quickly and effectively to the critical needs of children in Haiti – UNICEF workers are already there – every day of the year, working to save children’s lives. UNICEF has already airlifted critical supplies such as water-purification tablets, tents, and oral rehydration packets (which are critical to reversing the effects of severe dehydration in children), and is working as fast as it can to deliver the supplies to as many children as possible.

I know that there are many worthy organizations that are helping out, but please consider making a donation to UNICEF – 100% of your donation will go directly to help the people of Haiti.