Wow, now I know who's been bidding against me for the vintage Creative Playthings stuff on eBay. Pottery Barn Kids has launched Learning Toys, a collection of really simple, classic-looking wooden toys designed and color-coded for age-appropriate play.
There's a set of number blocks [which are similar to, but better looking than, some old Hello Kitty blocks I got the kid a while back], and there's a nice triangle tray puzzle, too.
But like Jenna at Babygadget, I have to vote for the Color Wheel puzzle as most near-awesome toy in the bunch. The only real drawback, design-wise, is the inclusion of little white text captions on all the color blocks. Stick to your design guns and be confident knowing there's plenty of time for the kid to learn how to spell "magenta."
Maybe someone who's bought these can tell us if the letters scratch off. And speaking of inspiration, I wonder what Eric Pfeiffer and Offi think of that chalkboard playtable with the cutout in the middle that PBK used in the photoshoot.
Color Wheel, from the PBK Learning Toys collection, $29 [potterybarnkids.com via babygadget]
what are the bottom of the pieces like? couldn't you turn them all upside down for a label-free puzzle? they all look pretty symmetrical, i think it would work. i think i also need to look up how to spell "symetrical" because for some reason, how i spelled it doesn't look right...
[no sweat, I just corrected it. left the other one in for effect, tho -ed.]
If you look at the directory of that page, it says:
home>playroom & toys>toys for girls>color wheel
to which I say, as the mother of a 1 year old non color blind baby boy that might enjoy such a toy: wtf?
[actually, it looks like if you don't specify, they default to the "toys for girls" navigation. But if you look back at "playroom & toys," and the go to "toys for boys," they have all the same merch. Plus, the splash page shows a boy playing with the Color Wheel. I can tell he's a boy because he's wearing blue; all the girls in the PBK catalogue are wearing pink or purple. Meanwhile, if you want a toy vacuum cleaner for your son, you're SOL; they're only for girls. -ed.]
Too bad they are 3 and up, but I thought so seeing those small parts. Ah well, 1.6 years to go.