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In 2006, 16 products were honored in four categories including audio, furniture and play equipment, toys and games and
teachers' resources and children's books. Items were evaluated based on the following criteria: appropriateness for use in a
child care setting, safety, durability, age appropriateness, effectiveness for intended use and value.
Information About our Judges
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Quiet Time • Rounder Records
With a familiar voice and soothing melodies, Raffi’s slow, quiet songs bring welcome calm to the day.
www.rounder.com
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Smart Moves 3 • Russ Invision Company
These action-packed fine and gross motor songs for young children can be used with props or to promote imaginative play. Using movement and engaging lyrics, children learn specific concepts as they shake their boom booms, act like zoo animals, walk, follow the leader, move through the days of the week, toss and catch, rock and roll, play charades, and more. The activities focus on listening skills, physical coordination, motor skills, team work, body identification, and following instructions.
www.abridgeclub.com
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| Start Smart Songs for 1's, 2's & 3's • Kimbo Educational
These action songs are fun, short and simple so they are entirely appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers. Each song has been carefully designed and selected to reinforce important early skills development from one of four crucial areas of early brain development wiring: physical, social-emotional, cognitive and language learning. The activities in the guide provide plenty of “practice” opportunities for children to reinforce the skills they need to learn at the most optimal time in their development.
www.kimboed.com
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Help Yourself Trolley Art Cart • Community Playthings
If you share classroom space with other programs or simply don't have room for an art center, consider this Art Cart. It can travel from the storage closet to the classroom, carrying everything your young artists will need. With generous storage space and totes for every possible craft material, this Art Cart makes up for the three or four pieces of furniture you wish you had room for.
www.communityplaythings.com
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And the Cow Jumped Over the Moon • Gryphon House, Inc.
With more than 250 songs, rhymes, and chants, this book is a fun way to enrich toddlers’ language experiences. By incorporating songs, chants, and rhymes into the classroom, teachers provide opportunities for children to develop every aspect of reading readiness and literacy. While the selections themselves are a great way to enhance the development of literacy skills, the follow-up suggestions for story time, outdoor play, music and movement, and literacy extension activities will be a sure-fire hit with this age group.
www.gryphonhouse.com
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Creating Clever Castles and Cars from Boxes • Ideals Publications
What a way to learn! Kids imagine it, then create it - learning to move from an idea to making it happen. Kids learn to improvise by creating something out of "nothing." Kids develop valuable social skills - cooperation, problem-solving, and respect for new ideas. Kids learn to stretch their minds and "think on their feet." Kids explore life in various kinds of self-made "structures," including a spider web, pyramid, igloo, nest, and general store.
wwww.idealspublications.com
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Great Games for Young Children • Gryphon House, Inc.
Get ready for fun! These new and classic games, each with a noncompetitive twist, are sure to get children up and moving. You’ll find everything you need to know to play over 100 great games, including outside games, musical games, circle games, concept games, and cooperative games. Every game provides benefits for the whole child by supporting cognitive, social/emotional, and physical development. Perfect for rainy days, sunny days, and every day, each game in this book offers heart rate raising, team-building, friend-filled fun!
wwww.gryphonhouse.com
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KIDEX Practicing Competent Child Care • Thomson Delmar Learning
The Kidex series is a group of five resources that help you to practice competent child care by serving as an in-depth and robust record keeping system. The series covers children from infancy through preschool and promotes a consistent and successful means for communication with children. This series is a must have to properly organize your daily activities for the children in your care. In it you will establish the daily routines, planned activities and a very concise individual profile for each child.
www.delmarlearning.com
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Lola at the Library • Charlesbridge Publishing
Lola has her library card. She has her backpack full of borrowed books. And most important of all, she has a big smile on her face. Why? Because it’s Tuesday – and on Tuesdays Lola and her mommy go to the library.
www.charlesbridge.com
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Smart Art Ideas 2 • Discount School Supply
Smart Arts Ideas 2 is a unique collection of exciting art activities using BioColor® and Colorations® Liquid Watercolor that helps children meet important developmental goals, while helping adults understand the learning that takes place through art. Developmental outcomes are clearly outlined in each lesson, describing the cognitive, emotional, social, physical and language benefits provided by the activities.
www.discountschoolsupply.com
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The Theme Series • Gryphon House, Inc.
Best-selling author Pam Schiller brings music and learning together with songs to sing, dance, and explore children’s imaginations. Each of the eight CD/book combinations will provide hours of learning fun. The complete set includes one copy of each theme: School Days Bugs, Bugs, Bugs Critters & Company Me, My Family and Friends Honk, Honk, Rattle, Rattle Bountiful Earth Fabulous Food and Wild, Wild West.
www.gryphonhouse.com
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The Tod Squad Board Books with Game Cards • HighReach Learning
Share the adventures of these adorable toddlers as they explore, play with bugs, and learn about pets. Each tale encourages social and emotional development while developing pre-literacy skills. The interactive game in the back of the book provides a foundation for early math skills and advances cognitive development through simple problem solving.
www.highreach.com
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Preschool Observation Checklist & Evaluation Tool (POCET) • Discount School Supply
POCETTM was created to assist early childhood educators in organizing and maintaining an assessment system to monitor each child's development and to guide instructional practices. This individualization tool is organized to support any preschool curriculum and is divided into six easy steps. POCETTM also includes a scope and sequence of 68 Preschool DAP Guidelines across eight domains and a formal assessment in reading and mathematics to help you chart the children’s progress in these critical areas.
www.discountschoolsupply.com
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Baffle Gab • Baffle Gab, LLC
Baffle Gab™ was invented by a word-lover who knows learning can be fun, and that kids should be rewarded for their creativity with language. Players are given words to make silly sentences and stories and earn Bone Bucks from the game’s word-loving dog, Gabby. Use the words to earn Bone Bucks from the game’s word-loving dog, Gabby. As kids read their tales to each other, the laughs keep comin’.
www.bafflegab.com
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Get Up and Go! Dice • Discount School Supply
Children will be up and moving in no time with these two large vinyl-covered foam dice. Pockets on all six sides hold both activity and number cards. Great for enhancing gross motor skills while reinforcing language, math and social/emotional skills. Comes with 20 different movement cards for children ages three and up, 24 number cards, and 10 blank cards to create your own activities. Activity Guide included.
www.discountschoolsupply.com
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The Sand Studio • Discount School Supply
Children delight in the clean, soft fine sand, and will love to "write" in it with fingers or tools, stamp out designs and math patterns, roll out patterns with the rollers, or just explore and create. The Sand Studio comes with sand, wooden stencils, stampers, rollers, patterned dowels, sand scraper and brushes. Activity guide included.
www.discountschoolsupply.com
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