Read on if your kids have a plethora of toys, but all they play with is the cardboard box from your last online shopping order.
Also read on if you’d love to get your child that shiny firetruck or that beautiful doll whose eyes open and close, but new toys are just not in your budget.
Toybrary Austin may just be just right for you.
What is Toybrary Austin?
Toybrary is quite literally a toy library, filled with over one thousand toys waiting to be played with. Toys can be checked-out a few at a time or enjoyed in the store.
In addition, Toybrary also offers many educational events for children, fun classes, birthday parties, and workshops for parents and small business owners.
Happy Kids
Notice how kids play better at their friends’ houses? It’s because other kids have materials that your kids don’t have or have never seen before. These are new toys to your children!
Kids are happiest when their minds are stimulated. You can keep them interested by coming back as often as you like, and replacing old toys with new ones when they are ready to move on. Children are able to explore their own areas of interest, including concepts of literacy, art, movement, math, pretend play, culture, and scientific thinking.
Happy Wallets
It’s impossible for parents to keep up with how fast children learn without breaking the bank. What’s the solution? Borrow and try before you buy!
Toybrary Austin has over 1200 toys for kids from 6 months to 5 years old. Your child can borrow a toy to play with it for a while or you can have them try out a toy to see if they like it, before you decide whether to buy it or not. Cost-prohibitive toys you might not otherwise buy are fully available to your children.
Most families will save around $400/year if they borrow toys rather than buy them. For example if you’re a member and come once a week and check out 3 toys each time, your children will have played with 12 different toys per month without the high cost of purchasing those toys (average toy price here is $35).
The Toybrary also has a wide assortment of high quality, educational toys for sale, which is handy for kids' friends birthday parties as well as the upcoming holidays.
Less clutter
Borrowing toys–rather than buying them–helps you maintain a more orderly home, free of toy clutter. Your child may select and return toys on a regular basis, eliminating stacks of toys to get rid of later. If you don’t have room for larger toys in your home, your child can still enjoy our bigger toys temporarily without you having to worry about where to keep them long-term.
Less waste
The unique concept of exchanging and borrowing toys gives parents an alternative to purchasing dozens of toys that their child will outgrow. This sharing model prevents wasted resources in many ways, from materials used in production, to the money you spend on toys, to the disposal of used toys.
Teaching values
Toybrary Austin helps you teach your kids about sharing, honesty, patience, courtesy, promptness, cooperation and responsibility.
Kids know the toys are not theirs, that they need to share them with other kids, that they have to keep all of the pieces together, neat and clean, and return them at a certain point.
Sanitation guaranteed
Every Toybrary Austin toy is carefully prepared for checkout. Each one is examined, cleaned, and disinfected between borrowers. These precautions reduce your child’s exposure to germs and safety issues resulting from damage and wear.
Drop-off child care
Need to run some errands, get some work done or just want to enjoy some me-time?
Toybrary Austin offers drop-off child care by appointment, a private room with free coffee and free WiFi for you to work while a trained staff member watches your child, as well as Parents Night Out.
For details, visit the Toybrary calendar.
Birthday parties
Toybrary offers parties for kids in Kindergarten and younger. Party rental includes use of the Toybrary space and enough toys and activities to keep everyone happy.
You supply the food, Toybrary provides colorful reusable plastic cups, plates, and washcloths.
Events
Toybrary Austin hosts a variety of events on a regular basis, including:
- Kids activities, such as sign language for babies, art and music activities for children, reading readiness and number awareness, storytime, and more.
- Parenting classes, such as parents as children’s first teachers, managing your child’s behavior, choosing a pre-school, and more.
- Special events, such as holiday parties, Lego play, fairy play, and more.
Don't miss the upcoming family event “Let’s make a turkey puppet” on November 13, 2018, 10:30am-12pm.
The event is sponsored by us and free for members, $7/child for non-members.
Giveaway
We are giving a $35 Toybrary punch card to one lucky reader.
How to enter: Like our Facebook page AND tag a friend on our Toybrary Facebook post AND like Toybrary's Facebook page (all three actions required!). The giveaway ends at noon on Monday, November 12, 2018.
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