We recently spent a great weekend at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, having already been to the London Toy Fair last month - our heads are buzzing and we have great ideas for new additions to www.Mimitoys.ie. It’s inspiring to meet so many people so enthusiastic about their products (and, yes, I know most of them are sales professionals!). We met our fair share of eccentric inventors, Gepetto-type toymakers and entrepreneurs on the look-out for the next big thing.
The array of toys at Nuremberg was vast, but we went armed with very specific criteria (quality, ethical production and innovation being the most important) and with an exciting brief to find something to appeal to the older child (7+).
This is a difficult age group to cater for, as I have found with my older children. Once they’ve been in school a few years, children really pay heed to what their peers play with and it can be difficult to prise them away from their computer games. I was particularly keen on finding good quality construction toys that would be intricate enough to keep them busy, but accessible enough to give them a sense of achievement. You can guess that Meccano ticks all the right boxes, but is targeted mainly at boys. Finding something similar for girls is more challenging.
I also think it’s important to keep them active as they get older, as well as doing my fair share of ferrying the older kids around to football, camogie and swimming I also keep plenty of outdoor toys at the house to make sure they are outside, running or pedalling around as much as possible. I was therefore also on the lookout for go-karts and other outdoor toys robust enough to cope with sturdy 8-12 year olds.
I am currently working on this new range and hope to include it on our website in the next few weeks. In the meantime, if you have any ideas for toys for this age group, please get in touch and you might find your recommendations on www.mimitoys.ie