Charlies Playhouse: Blog, Toy Store, Resource

You are, of course, interested in teaching your kids about evolution. But how? They don’t cover it in schools much lately. You can’t find any toys that are based on it in toy stores. And when was the last time you saw a children’s book about it? So what is a good, rational parent to do??

Why, it’s simple! Go to Charlie’s Playhouse! They have an online toy store that sells games and toys inspired by Darwin. They have compiled a very helpful pdf  list of children’s books about evolution and Darwin, most of which are available on Amazon. And they have started a blog, aimed at giving us parents info on interesting evolution-themed topics, that we can pass on to our families. Your one-stop evolution shop!

Founder Kate Miller, Ph.D., is a mother and a scientist who started Charlie’s Playhouse to provide evolution-themed toys because, the website states, “there aren’t any. Our children deserve to know about the dazzling history of life on this planet.”

They currently offer three toys (teaching aids) in their product line-up. Their flagship product is the the 18-foot-long Giant Timeline that allows kids to skip and jump through the 600-million-year history of life. Alternatively, they offer the smaller Giant Timeline Poster, which has a similar graphic of 67 animals in the fossil record, but is sized to hang on a wall. Finally, they offer the Ancient Creature flash cards, each with an illustration and fun facts about a fossil from the Giant Timeline. Besides toys, they also offer some cool cafe press junk, including kids’ shirts that say “Product of Natural Selection”.

I haven’t ordered anything from the site yet, but I think a Giant Timeline is definitely in our future. And I plan to show it to Little Skeptic Girl’s second-grade teacher to see if she’d like to borrow it to use in her class. (I won’t bother offering it to Little Skeptic Boy’s preschool teacher, though.) I also will use the book list to help me find some evolution-themed books for my kids, since we don’t have any in our house. (Which is shocking and distressing, since we have a huge collection of children’s books.)

I’m really enjoying the blog, and have added it to my feed-reader. I’ve learned about all sorts of fossil animals, including a turtle with no top shell, and a cat-sized frog called “Beelzebufo”. Fun stuff!

But don’t take my word for it. Check out Charlie’s Playhouse yourself.