KidBean.com Product Review and Giveaway

This month I've been posting about Toxins In Toys and talking about some of the choices our family is making regarding toys. With our switch to natural safe toys, we've found some wonderful toy companies that have great high quality products. One of the stores that I've been impressed with is KidBean. They thoroughly research every company and product they sell, and will even tell you why they don't carry certain products. Here is a quote from their about us page:

"You can find natural, organic, earth-friendly children's products, like wooden toys and organic cotton baby clothes at hundreds of online retailers and an increasing number of local stores. However, you may notice that most of these products are made overseas from foreign components (such as organic cotton clothing made in India from Indian-grown organic cotton or wooden toys made in China or Germany). Were the workers who made them treated fairly? Which organic certification do they have (GOTS, CU, or..?)? What is the impact of their packaging? Are all the ingredients really safe?"

I love the questions they are asking! KidBean is a vegan company and very concerned about being green in every way they can. Just looking at the list of green things that they do at their office is inspiring. Also inspiring is the story of how the company started - a passionate mom wanting to stay home with her new baby girl, determined to start a business that sold earth-friendly, labor-friendly, vegan products. Today they are a thriving business with well over 750 products in numerous categories.

KidBean's toy selection consists of all wooden toys made here in the US. They focus on simple, open-ended toys that feed your child's imagination. The toys are all guaranteed to be lead free. Lucy and Julia had the chance to review the Uncle Goose Antics Ant Blocks recently.

Uncle Goose blocks are handcrafted in Michigan from basswood. They use child safe non-toxic ink on the blocks. The Antics Ant Blocks set has 16 blocks with ant trails, a queen ant and her eggs, little ant hill entrances, and even a spider. We are going to be studying ants as part of our My Father's World homeschool curriculum in a few weeks, so I thought this would be a fun set to have. I like the open-endedness of being able to create unique ant trails each time. It was actually not as challenging as I thought it would be since all of the pieces fit together in any way. Ross did point out that the ants were headed in certain directions and Lucy and I had them crashing into each other because we hadn't noticed that detail.

The girls both enjoyed playing with the blocks. Julia pointed to a couple of ants and said "maybe these are the friends and these are the mommy and daddy." In the photo she's yelling something about her king falling off the steps. Lucy had fun making a trail of ants running away from the spider and into one of the ant hill openings. The blocks are a nice big size - 1 3/4". We also received a sturdy canvas drawstring bag perfect for storing the blocks in. I'm not sure why, but they actually liked putting the blocks away in the bag - they normally don't do well cleaning up. Lucy and Julia give this toy two thumbs up for sure. The next morning after we had been playing with the blocks, Julia went straight to the closet and pulled them out again.

KidBean is giving away one set of Uncle Goose Blocks, your choice! (excluding the wagon) Uncle Goose makes a great selection of blocks including many other languages, bugs, and more. Visit KidBean and tell me what set you would choose. While you're there, check out their other great categories - bedding, clothing, diapers, and more. Leave a comment on this post being sure to include your email address. I'll close the giveaway on Dec 11 at midnight and use random.org to select a winner.

**The giveaway is now closed and a winner has been contacted. Thanks for your interest!**