ChildTrek Blog

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IR2 Media Group Inc.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Please join us for Green Play: A Toy Safety Fair
At ChildTrek, located in Tacoma’s historic Freighthouse Square
430 East 25th St., #3
Tacoma, WA 98421
December 6, 2008 from 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

On December 6, 2008 from 10 am – 6 pm, ChildTrek (www.childtrek.com) will be hosting Green Play: A Toy Safety Fair.  This informative safety fair is designed to provide parents and child-care providers information about various harmful elements and chemical in toys, and to help them become proactive consumers.

A number of activities are scheduled for the fair, including: 

–Test Your Toys:  Hosted by Essco Safety Check, our customers can bring their children’s toys to our store to test them for harmful elements and chemicals, with state of the art equipment.  You can use this FREE service to find out what, if any, toxic metals or chemicals are present in your kids’ toys, including lead, cadmium, or mercury.

–Green Initiatives:  Learn about current and prospective policies and initiatives designed to protect you and your family against toxic pollution.  Highly informative.

–School-Readiness Advice:  Talk with preschool and elementary teachers to get practical school-readiness advice for your child.

–Test for Lead:  Designed specifically for pregnant and breastfeeding women, we are offering a service that allows you to test for lead levels in your own body.

All of these activities are FREE to the public.  There will also be great toy giveaways and specials, available especially for this informative event. More at http://www.childtrek.com/toy-safety-fair-2008.html.

What is ChildTrek?

ChildTrek is South Sound’s newest eco-friendly toy store, located at Tacoma’s historic Freighthouse Square. In its very first year in business, ChildTrek was recently voted by King 5 Evening Magazine as a Top 5 Winner in the Children’s Gift category.   ChildTrek features unique, fun, green toys and books for children, babies and toddlers.  All toys sold at ChildTrek are child-safe and non-toxic, finished with beeswax, water- or vegetable-based dyes, or non-toxic paints.

For more information, please contact us, customercare@childtrek.com.  You can also visit the user-friendly and highly-informative website at www.childtrek.com.

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By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

ChildTrek carries a large selection of the multi-award winning Plan Toys at competitive prices. They are green, smart, and safe.

As a former teacher, I am impressed by the educational themes and thoughtfulness with which Plan Toys are designed to promote open-ended play, creative role playing, as well as stimulate intellectual and emotional development. These are truly amazing natural toys.

In upcoming blogs, I will review individual Plan Toys like the Solid Wooden Drum, Xylophone, Activity Clock, Shape & Sort it Out, Geometric Sorting Board, and others to explore benefits of specific toys. For now, let me begin by sharing adapted statements made by Plan Toys.

Plan Toys are Green
All Plan Toys are made with clean, natural rubberwood recycled from rubber trees that would otherwise be cut and burned. This process emits carbon emissions, creating carbon gasses that contribute to global warming. Plan Toys breaks this cycle by making high-quality toys with this beautiful hardwood. If that were not enough, Plan Toys takes the time to stabilize the wood using a chemical-free kiln-drying process instead of chemical preservatives.

Plan Toys is also one of the few toy companies that have gained environmental certifications. Here are examples:

1) Environmental Management (ISO 14001), which reflects the Plan Toys’ company’s commitment to environmental awareness and activities.

2) OHSAS 18001, which certifies Plan Toys as a company that provides a safe and healthy working environment.

3) Social Accountability Management (SA 8000), which recognizes the Plan Toys company’s policy to provide full and equal opportunity to all of its workers.

Plan Toys are Safe
Plan Toys assembles toys using a proprietary non-formaldehyde glue instead of traditional toxic wood glue. The glue emits no formaldehyde fumes and is rated E-Zero.

Plan Toys uses water-based dyes to color its toys. The colors are environmentally-friendly and non-toxic to children.

Plan Toys produces all of its toys in its own factory, which ensures complete control of materials and workmanship.

Plan Toys also has achieved the following safety certifications:

1) Quality Management (ISO 9001) for world-class product quality and service standards.

2) Toy Safety Standards (ASTM & EN71, — otherwise known as North American & European Safety Standards, respectively) for EXCEEDING international toy safety standards.

Plan Toys are Smart
Plan Toys makes toys with strong educational themes. From building blocks, to shape sorters, to games, puzzles and pounding toys, Plan Toys offers age-appropriate challenges for intellectual and physical development. Plan Toys offers open-ended play, creating a setting for hours of role-playing, creative play and emotional development. Plan Toys promotes the importance of play in a child’s development by combining design, age-appropriate challenges, and open-ended play to empower children, encourage social interaction, and reward discovery.

Check out our selection of Plan Toys.

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

Old is New Again
There’s great satisfaction in giving old things new life. A bit of sanding here, a fresh coat of paint or stain there, (a lot of patience), and voila! Great pieces!

In the last few days, ChildTrek’s new storefront in Tacoma’s historic Freighthouse Square got a fresh coat of low VOC paint. (Make that several coats of paint.) New cabinets were made and staged. True to our green mission, we found old wooden bookcases, display units, and an iron baker’s rack. They were in great shape and worked well together. They received face lifts and look terrific! Two counters that look like they came from the ’80s were joined and recrafted by a master carpenter to become ChildTrek’s new checkout counter. Not much of the ’80s is left (that’s a good thing), and it looks absolutely wonderful!

New Baby & Toddler Toys & More
New natural and wooden toys also arrived. Some like Under the Nile organic toys are already on the site. You should see be able to view the rest soon.

By the end of this week, the storefront should have internet and working phones.

There are still about a buzzilion other things to check off the ever growing list before ChildTrek quietly opens its doors on July 1 or 2. At that time, we will do a dry run and work out the kinks that will doubtless come. ChildTrek’s grand opening will be later in the month or early in August.

Below are some shots from the last week:

Come back and see the finished store next week!

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

This Week’s Progress
Watching your dream come alive is a bit surreal. First it’s in your head. Then it’s on paper. Then it starts to take shape right before your eyes. If it were not for all the logistics that keep me firmly on the ground, I would be on cloud nine. Let there be no mistake about it: Opening a toy store is a lot of work. But seeing the pieces come together is really its own energy.

Below are pictures from earlier this week. Much has already happened since. The walls are no longer blue (at least most of them, and not this blue). As soon as more pictures are available, I’ll post them here.

More about this process will be in How ChildTrek Was Born: The 3rd Trimester - the last installation of the series (read 1st Trimester, 2nd Trimester). I promise, it’s coming.

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

In June, you will find that more and more of ChildTrek’s natural toys will be “Temporarily Sold Out.” There are two very good reasons for this: 1) They are being sold (thank you!), and 2) they are not being restocked until we open ChildTrek’s first storefront on July 1. Let me explain why.

Limiting the Carbon Footprint of Moving Toys
ChildTrek currently has its inventory in a warehouse in Kansas City, Missouri. Now that ChildTrek is opening a storefront in Tacoma, the toys will be moved to Washington. This will centralize operations and ensure top-notch customer service.

Not surprisingly, such a move across six states will result in significant fuel emmissions. There’s a lot of toys. In order to limit the carbon footprint of ChildTrek’s move, the inventory in Kansas City is being sold down while we stock up in Tacoma. This will significantly reduce the use of gas and its impact to the atmosphere. I ask for your patience as ChildTrek transforms from virtual to reality.

More Natural Toys in July
On July 1, you will see a fully stocked store again. At that time, you will also see more new toy arrivals from new manufacturers that are in keeping with ChildTrek’s green living and worldwide prosperity philosophy.

Word of Mouse
My deep gratitude to all of you who are passing ChildTrek on to family and friends by word of mouse.  Thank you for your kind emails. It’s truly great to reach kindred spirits who are lining up their love of children and planet with their consumer behavior.

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

From Virtual to Reality
ChildTrek will soon open a “real” store in Tacoma, Washington’s historic Freighthouse Square. In the next few weeks, I will chronicle the store’s transformation. For now, here are some before pictures. First thing: Goodbye to all that blue. Hello green!

Grand Opening
ChildTrek opens its doors on July 1 and holds its grand opening sometime after. ChildTrek is located just to the right of the Sound Transit ticket terminals and under what I fondly call “the little engine that could.” Go to ChildTrek.com to view a selection of high-quality, unique, natural toys for babies and toddlers.

By Miebeth Bustillo-Booth, ChildTrek Founder

Thank You for Your Support!
Thank you to all of you who came to see us at the Green Power Baby Shower Expo in Seattle. It was a wonderful success! I can’t tell you enough how much Stacey and I enjoyed meeting you. We especially loved meeting the children! They are such an inspiration and reminded me why I started ChildTrek in the first place.

The Most Frequently Asked Question
You asked many child development related questions at the Expo. Let me share the most frequently asked one and recap my answer.

What kinds of toys do I give my baby who is 6 to 11 months old, sitting up or standing up, but not yet walking?

For the first few months, babies don’t do much. They sleep, pee, poop, and coo. Then one day, they add to their developmental repertoire by sitting up, crawling, rolling, and reaching out. Now what do you give them to play with?

Developmentally, babies can vary quite a bit. Since you see your infant everyday, you are the foremost expert at what your newborn is able to handle physically. So it’s good to start with your own knowledge of your baby. Nevertheless, here are some guidelines to keep in mind as you choose toys that are developmentally appropriate.

a) At this age, babies naturally want to grab and pull. It’s their way of interacting with their surrounding. The best grabbing or pulling toys are chunky and rounded so as to be easy for little, uncoordinated hands to handle. They have textures, sounds and visual feedback to give your baby important multi-sensory stimulation. Through these early multi-sensory experiences, your infant will begin to make sense of her immediate world. She will begin to synthesize information through repeat experiences and organize these in her developing brain. (This is smooth, rough, bumpy, crinkly; this makes this kind of sound, that kind of sound; this one has different colors (babies don’t actually understand colors; but varying contrasts help them differentiate one from another), etc.)

Be careful, however, from giving your child toys that are loud or over-stimulating. Keep it gentle and soothing. Babies are naturally disorganized. Their brains cannot handle information overload. And we don’t want to give them any reason to be upset (and lose the little sleep they give us in return), do we?

b) Rattles and teethers are also grabbing toys per se. However, if you are looking specifically to help your baby soothe tender gums choose ones that are made of unfinished, beeswax-finished, or non-toxic painted wood. Since wood is a natural anti-bacterial material, it is ideal for your infant. It is also safer.

With growing concerns over the possible harmful effects of phthalates - family of chemicals used to make plastic pliable - present in many children’s toys, it’s best to avoid plastic toys altogether. Choose only natural and wooden toys until there is conclusive evidence these chemicals do not disrupt hormonal development, among other things, in young children.

c) Towel dolls and stuffed animals are particularly good for babies and toddlers. They are soft, comforting, and designed to be easy to handle. As a regular companion, soft dolls and stuffed animals help young children to self soothe while in car rides, strollers, or just being a baby.

Note: Do not to put toys, pillows, blankets, or other objects in your baby’s crib. Childhood experts say that infants are safest when they sleep on their back and without things that may disrupt their breathing.

Upcoming Exhibits
We will let you know of other exhibits where ChildTrek will have a booth. If you are in the area, please do stop by. We would love to meet you and your family!

Thank you again for the for the opportunity to meet you at the Green Power Baby Shower Expo. We are also grateful that you chose natural baby, toddler, or preschooler toys from ChildTrek. We truly appreciate your business.