Dread Pirate
A great new board game we have put on our website in the Indoor Games Catagory

Click on Image for more information!

Buried treasure, desert islands, hungry sharks, treacherous seas and, of course, pirate battles all await you in Dread Pirate®. Choose a ship, a port of call and set sail in search of treasure – gold doubloons, diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires. Trade in a foreign port or sail broadside to another captain and take your best shot. A unique coffee table game, Dread Pirate® comes in an authentic wooden treasure chest and is played on a wonderfully illustrated and aged cloth treasure map with cast metal playing pieces. Journey back with your family for a high seas treasure hunting, pirate adventure!

Since our trips to the various toy fairs ealier this year, we have found some delightful new products to add to the shop.

We will be updating the website www.bramblecorner.com with these new traditional and contemporary toys.

One of these items is "Mike's Auto Garage". This is a wooden, 3 story garage and car park and includes: 2 vehicles, petrol pump, traffic lights, a car lift, and various bollards. Click on the picture below to go straight to the Mike's Auto Garage page.

The base is:

W 72cm H 41cm D 48cm

The first known building block construction set for children was introduced by a German educator, Friedrich Froeblel in about 1838. He started with a wooden cube as his basic shape, and added various other wooden blocks.

Kapla blocks or planks have been a mainstay of my son and his friend’s toys ever since I bought them for him three years ago. He uses them for all manner of different games, from making roads for his toy cars to building castles, houses aero planes catapults for his toy soldiers to lay siege to the enemies fortresses.

At Bramble Corner we have a great selection of Kapla, from a basic set off 200 through the 280 piece set with an ideas book included to the large 1000 piece set. There are also a range of coloured blocks and books that cover varying degrees of difficulty. They are also available on our online shop in the "Construction Toys" section.

200 piece starter set.Click Here.   

280 piece set with ideas book.Click Here  

1000 piece set. Click Here.

40 piece coloured Kapla set.ClickHere

Books;

Vol: 1 Various Animals & Architecture 6yrs+.  Click Here 

Vol: 2 Various Constructions for Advanced Builder 6yrs+.  Click Here     

Vol: 3 Simple Architecture.  Click Here        

Vol: 4 Easy Fun Animals.  Click Here  

New!

100 Piece Kapla

Now Available!

Another great construction toy from Kapla is TomTec T which still uses the highly machined wooden planks (although of thinner and longer length) but this construction ssystem also uses plastic grip hinges, also of high quality, so you can make even more incredible sculptures.

TomTec T

Born in Holland, Tom van der Bruggen is the creator of KAPLA. While making the scale drawings of a castle he wanted to build, he played with wooden blocks to see what the structure would look like. Soon he discovered that the blocks were not at all well adapted to building certain elements like floors, roofs and lintels.
Unsatisfied with the possibilities of these blocks Tom van der Bruggen invented a plank based on the progressions of the uneven numbers 1:3:5. 3 thickness for one width and five widths for one length. This ratio between bricks and stones and beams and planks now opens a whole new way of building. With these identical planks the builder can construct with the precision of artwork and the stability of stones.
Tom van der Bruggen named his planks KAPLA.
This is an abbreviation of “Kabouter Plankjes” which means gnome planks in Dutch. With the KAPLA planks kids as well as adults can now build and create all kinds of different architectural constructions, animals, extraordinary creations...( Source: Kapla.com).

  The idea behind Kapla developed around 1985, when the Netherlands art historian and antique dealer Tom van der Bruggen moved to France and went looking for a building block form to design a castle. The name Kapla comes from the Netherland term for "small planks", Kabouter Plankjes.

Contrary to other wood blocks Kapla are precisely sized and come in only one form. This is box in the ratio 5:3:1, i.e. that a component is five times longer than wide, and three times wider than tall. The length of the longest side is twelve centimeters (just under five inches). The blocks are from pine wood and normally have a natural color, however colored blocks are available in six hues. The precision allows larger buildings to be constructed The toy does not require any system of assembly; it is enough to start stacking the small planks to reveal all kinds of even complex constructions.

When I discovered like bike it was too late for me to get one for my children, I’d had to go through the whole training wheels thing and the running after my son holding onto the back of the seat stooped over like the hunchback of Notre Dame. Having come across it via a friend and their child who had had a LIKEaBIKE from 2 years old and was on a normal bike by 3, not a stabilizer in sight. We thought this is something we had to have.

At Bramble Corner we have a selection of LIKEaBIKEs and accessories like Saddle Bags and Hoppers in our “Ride On” section in our online shop.

The model shown is the Like a Bike "Mountain" with Blue saddle and handle bar grips.

To see the Like a Bike Forest model Click Here

A brief history of LIKEaBIKE

LIKEaBIKE are designed and manufactured by Kokua Holzspielzeug GmbH in Roetgen, Germany. The word Kokua is a Hawai'ian word meaning 'in harmony'. Rolf Merten came up with the original concept of making a wooden bike without pedals for small children. Rolf realised what we have come to accept as normal childrens bicycles, with pedals and stabilisers, obstruct children learning to ride. Stabilisers give children a false sense of security and you often see bent stabilisers as a result of children leaning over on them and not learning to balance. I often tell people you can see how to pedal but not how to balance. Using a LIKEaBIKE will help your child to find balance within themselves. "No stabilisers, No Confusion!" Once they are let loose on a normal bike, using all the skills learned through playing on their LIKEaBIKE and with a little tutoring on pedalling they will be flying along, active and very very happy. Ask any of the many happy customers who have already realised the potential of LIKEaBIKE. Parents and children all over the globe will tell you and even show you just how good the LIKEaBIKE actually is.

History of wooden bikes

In 1817, Baron Von Drais invented a "walking machine" that supported his body weight whilst enabling him to get around the Royal Gardens faster: Two, same-size in-line wheels, the front one steerable, mounted into a frame which he could straddle. The device was propelled by pushing the feet against the ground to create forward motion in the form of a gliding walk. The machine became known as the Draisienne or "hobby horse" and was made entirely of wood.

The Hobby Horse enjoyed a short-lived popularity as a fad, not being overly practical for anything other than use on smooth and well-maintained pathways such as those in parks and gardens.

Had pneumatic tyres been available at the time, it is likely that the invention would have been adopted by a much greater number of riders.

LIKEaBIKE utilises this pioneering idea. With LIKEaBIKE, children playfully acquire a sense of equilibrium and learn to play whilst acquiring a sense of balance and will not need a bike with stabiliser wheels later on. LIKEaBIKE teaches balance and control at a much earlier age than with traditional pedal bicycles with training aids.

Welcome to the Bramble Corner Blog.

We will be posting information and our thoughts about toys, telling you about new toys we’ve added to the shop and special offers we have in the Online Shop.

Your ideas and comments are always welcome, you can email us at toys@bramblecorner.com