The fine folks at Mrs. Goodbee sent me this cute talking dollhouse a couple of weeks ago and my kids have played with it every day since. Now, we have a perfectly good doll house. It's wood and comes with sturdy wooden furniture. It also hasn't been played with in over a year. Mrs. Goodbee, though plastic and coated with sticker decorations, gets at least an hour's worth of lovin' every day thus proving my husband's point that wooden toys are for show-offy parents and kids love playing with anything, especially if it's made of plastic. Especially if it talks to them. Here are the details:
Welcome to Caring Corners, where caring kids live and grow! Using helpful hints, playful prompts, silly songs, and sound, Mrs. Goodbee Talking Dollhouse nurtures and inspires positive behavior every day. With twelve adorable rooms to explore and plenty of interactive surprises, there are endless opportunities to practice caring, sharing, and preparing for important, age-appropriate responsibilities.
Two children can play together, as the house unfolds to six rooms on each side--and then folds back for easy storage! Over 400 activities, songs, words, and sounds! Includes girl, baby and doggy. Requires 3 AA batteries, included.
What I like about it: I love that the dollhouse encourages simple social responsibilities of caring (rocking the baby), sharing (taking turns), and preparing (brushing teeth, setting the table etc.). The Good Deeds Garden on the back of the dollhouse is a place where those values can be reinforced. Flower stickers are placed in the garden every time a good deed is done. My girls (ages 6 and 4) absolutely LOVE the dollhouse. It's the first thing they run to play with when we arrive home afterschool. Also, Mrs. Goodbee has partnered with Goodwill to encourage the joy of giving. Kids are encouraged to fill the large carton that the dollhouse came in with gently used toys and laundered clothes to donate. Which is exactly what we did. Highly recommended. What I don't like about it: Like all toys nowadays, there is an online component. We carefully control our girls' computer time (it's very limited) and are not fans of addictive social networking sites for kids. Cost to you: around $85 Cost to me: FREE, but wait! There's more! The Mrs. Goodbee people gave me two dollhouses, one to keep and one to give away. If you know of a worthy children's program please let me know in the comments below and we will get them their own Mrs. Goodbee dollhouse right away. I'd love for it to be in the San Francisco Bay Area so my girls can come with me when we donate it. After we donate it, I'll write up our experience. UPDATED TO ADD: We donated the dollhouse to Toys for Tots. Hope it makes a family happy this holiday season!
There are so many worthy organizations/schools in the southbay that would love it:
Sinai Nursery School (it's the Jewish high holy days in October)
Woodhaven Preschool at the United Methodist Church in Willow Glen
The nursery at Campbell United Methodist Church
St. Elizabeth's Day Home in San Jose
Gemini Crickets, Parents of Multiples (who donate to needy twins families)
Sacred Heart Community Center in San Jose (day workers, immigrants)
...any of those would be so grateful and are so worthy. :)
Posted by: samantha | October 14, 2008 at 07:46 PM
Edgewood Center for Children and Families (Edgewood) today announced that its short-term residential program serving severely abused, neglected, and mentally ill children will remain open to San Francisco kids thanks to the City of San Francisco and a heroic response by the community.
http://www.edgewood.org/news/sffunding.html
Operation Kids
http://www.operationkids.com/
janetfaye (at) gmail (dot) com
Posted by: Janet F | October 19, 2008 at 10:14 PM
Stefania.
You should give this to the Clara Mateo Alliance Shelter in Menlo Park. Or the OPPORTUNITY Center in Palo Alto. Both are run by InnVision... and both have families with young children.
Very cool giveaway.. and very generous.
Jill
Posted by: Jill Asher | October 19, 2008 at 10:16 PM
I'm not from the area, so I can't help ... but what a GREAT way to offer a giveaway!
Posted by: Naomi in Ohio | October 21, 2008 at 02:22 AM
What a beautiful dollhouse!
Posted by: how to make dollhouse furniture | March 01, 2009 at 03:50 AM