Let’s Pretend! Buttons, Batteries and Beeps Not Included!

In a world full of tablets, phones, movies, and toys that light up and make music, it’s important to allow moments for your children to use their mind for imagination and self directed play. I’m excited to share a new line of imagination toys with you! Manhattan Toy has created a new line of toys to encourage imagination and free play with their Imagine i CAN series. The Imagine i CAN series is a set of 28 arts and crafts, role playing, do it yourself, puppet kits and exciting games for children ages 3 and up–all priced from $5-$20. Conveniently, the items in this series almost all come in tin boxes, making them perfect for travel and easy to clean up.

My son was thrilled to try out the Imagine i Can Pirate Treasures from the Role Play Kits. This kit comes with a pirate bandana, belt, sword (which I called a digger for treasure since my son doesn’t know what swords are yet), treasure map, pirate treasure and a compass. He quickly wanted to wear the hat and patch, not quite covering his eye. He had fun counting the coins, taking them in and out of the pouch and using the map. His favorite feature was the map. He would line up the compass on the map and pretend to search for treasure around the living room. It was fun to see his imagination taking off!

A second item we received from the Imagine i Can series was the Shape Stack game, recommended for ages 3 and up. This game is very simple. You have a wobbly bottom, a die with colors on each side, and different colored pieces of various shapes. One player rolls the die, then attempts to balance that color shape on the wobble bottom. My son thinks this is hilarious! Every time the shapes would fall off, he yelled, “Wibble, wobble!” One thing I especially like about this game is that it’s small and easy to travel with. It is the perfect game to take out to eat with your preschooler. Quiet and entertaining, it doesn’t disturb people around you and is the perfect way to pass time spent waiting for food. I’m eager to try out the other Imagine iCan Games and use them as restaurant games.

Manhattan Toy Company has a video that gives parents an idea behind more of the 28 products in the Imagine i Can series. You can also visit their website and follow them on Facebook and Twitter for more information about these great products.

I received these products to review but the opinions stated are my own.