What are the most-wanted toys on kids’ holiday gift lists for 2011? Best to ask the experts — the kids themselves!

And that’s just what The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis does to produce its annual Top 10 list of kid-tested, kid-approved toys.

Each fall, the museum store invites children to test the newest toys, then vote on their favourites for the upcoming holiday season.

Can you begin to imagine how much fun that would be for the staff? I’m so jealous. :)

Here is the list of this year’s winners — I’ve sorted them by recommended age group — all available from The Children’s Museum Store or online:

• Barbie “Jam with Me” Rock Star Guitar (Ages 3+)
  Jam with Barbie with this toy electric guitar. Connect your MP3 player to jam along with your own tunes, take the guitar challenge and play along with Barbie, or just freeplay to create your own awesome songs!
  $39.95

• Water Wizard (Ages 3+)
  The water wizard lets you draw and create over and over again using only water! As the screen dries the images disappear leaving it ready for another amazing creation.
  $19.95

• Barbie Giant Activity Floor Pad (Ages 3+)
  This complete activity set includes crayons, marker, paints, paintbrush, scissors and gluestick along with 40 fun fashion activities!
  $14.95

• Flying Turtle (Ages 3-12)
  The best toy for active play, kids have a blast zipping around on the flying turtle! But since it is entirely kid powered, they get a ton of great exercise at the same time!
  $79.95

• Playmobil Pirates Prison with Ship (Ages 4+)
  This fun Pirate themed set from Playmobil includes large pirate ship, small row boat, island, prison, and all the people and accessories you need to create an amazing imaginary world.
  $59.95

• Darda Fireball Climb (Ages 4+)
  The World’s Fastest Motorized Cars! This race car and track set is completely kid powered! No batteries or electricity required. Just wind the car and watch it zip through the loops and twists!
  $39.95

• OgoBild Pod (Ages 6+)
  A brilliant combination of active and constructive play. Ogo Bild Pods lets your child build giant structures like bouncing balls and forts.
  $39.95

• Perplexus Original (Ages 6+)
  Perplexus Original is a bendy, trendy, can’t put it down challenge! With plenty of twists, turns, and barriers between start and finish, this puzzle ball will leave you perplexed!
  $24.95

• Laser Pegs 3D Lite Board (Ages 7+)
  This is the Ultimate Laser Pegs Kit – the world’s only lighted construction set! The 3D Lite Board gives you 40 power connectors on one board so you can build anything you can imagine.
  $85.95

• FyrFlyz (Ages 8+)
  Create amazing light shows by spinning, swinging and twirling your FyrFlyz.
  $11.95

Adults in need of holiday gift ideas for the children in their lives can make purchases from the Kid-Tested, Kid-Approved list and The Museum Store holiday toy catalogue both in the store or online at www.childrensmuseum.org/kid-tested.

What I like about most of the toys on this list — and most of the toys you’ll find carried by most museum gift shops, come to that — is that they’re both fun and educational, and especially good for stimulating the creativity of young minds. And most of the toys on this list would be fun for siblings to play with together, even where there are a couple of years between the kids in age.

Also very cool for parents’ on-going expenses, a number of these items are totally kid-powered and run on imagination — no batteries required — like that awesome Darda Fireball Climb race track!

Of course I’d love to see a most-wanted toy list where and fewer of the toys that are pointed at a particular gender (I’m looking at you, Barbie!). A losing battle, there, do you think? Okay, okay, the politically-correct Grinch is moving on…

Stay tuned for more great out of the ordinary gift ideas for kids — and for us big kids, too!

Angry Birds were all the rage at SXSW this year, I hear, with oodles of hip geeks spotted in the venue with an armload of plush toy characters from the popular (and highly addictive) game app.

A few lucky friends who got to go to SXSW (which I did not, pout!) came away without their own softies, and came to regret it later. Especially those with kids at home who were expecting to get cool souvenirs from Daddy’s trip!

No room in a suitcase?

Pshaw, you can always find room for an adorable stuffed bird with a hostile attitude…

And, fortunately, all of you late adopters, guilt-ridden parents, and miscellaneous game fans can now snag your own trendy plush at shop.angrybirds.com – three sizes: 5-inch, 8-inch, or 16 inches, with prices starting at US$11.99 (plus shipping) as of this writing. More good news, the official Angry Birds shop will deliver their toys worldwide.

(Not that I have ever played Angry Birds for a single second, or would ever want such a toy squatting on my desk.)

p.s. And yes, you can also get Pigs!

If someone on your “social obligations” Christmas gift list has a little girl… and that little girl is a fan of Hannah Montana… but, truth be told, you really don’t like her parents all that much… here’s the perfect (slightly evil) gift.

For about ten bucks, you can pick up a singing Hannah Montana collector doll.

She comes with a snazzy outfit that the kid can put on and take off her until it falls apart, a doll display stand that someone’s bound to step on, and a delightfully tacky Hannah Montana “keepsake” in a convincing gift box.

Apparently, batteries actually are included, too!

But don’t let that fool you — this toy has genuine potential to ruin a parent’s holiday.

Because the Hannah Montana doll only knows one tune — she’ll sing Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree until every adult in the house wants to smash the doll with a case of Tylenol bottles.

How perfect is that?

Delight the child.
Annoy the parents.
And most likely get yourself off the hook for giving anything to that particular family next year!

Really, it’s the next best thing to giving the kid a drum kit for Christmas…

You’d think that the Museum of Modern Art’s online shop (MOMA) would be all tasteful leather desk accessories and reprints of Old Masters, right?

Not so!

Clockwise from top left:

• Curved glasses in a rainbow of colours. Maybe not the best thing for your restorative orange juice on New Year’s Day morning, but a cheery sight in the winter kitchen.
• The essential wall clock for peeking around corners at fridge-raiding roommates and mischievous children — the Spy Clock is a convex glass mirror with sleek metal hands that tell you how long you’ve been obsessing about what other people are doing in the house, instead of minding your own business.
• How could a Color Spectrum umbrella not perk up a dreary wet day?
• So, Broadway’s on strike, and you can’t afford a weekend in New York anyway, even if the shows are flowing? No worries — MUJI’s New York in a Bag has it covered, with all the important architecural icons made in miniature of sustainable wood.
• And finally — my personal favourite — a cuddly Pig Finger Puppet that can double as a fridge magnet if you feel the need to pretend that you don’t really play with soft toys… (Six bucks for a flying pig! Who could resist?)

Is there a more adorable mascot anywhere in the computer world than the goofy, cuddley, splay-footed penguin named Tux, who flies the Linux banner?

We think not.

And a plushie Tux can be yours…

Grab the free Tux sewing pattern from Free-Penguin.org, see the creative penguins that others have made, and haul out your sewing gear…

What better gift could there be, for the Linux fanatic in your life?

Furniture for kids… or ride-on toys?

Danish design firm bObles does geometric animal forms in child-safe firm foam, suitable for children’s furniture but “designed for creative play” in happy colours and friendly sturdy shapes to climb and roll and romp all over.

Easy to see how those Romping Animals give free rein to a child’s imagination… they should be made in adult size, too!

[via coochicoos]

Let’s blame a childhood of reading those Curious George books — who can resist a fresh clutch of giggly monkeys?

Clockwise from upper left:

• The Chimp is an archival quality print by Shannon Brady at BlueFlip Art (h/t emma).
• S-shaped monkey hooks, set of 3 in brushed stainless steel, are by Bodie and Fou, found in their kitchen section.
• Multi-imprinting, iron-on Monkey Love embroidery pattern, an 8½ x 11″ sheet with full instructions for getting started in embroidery, by Sublime Stitching.
• Crochet monkey toys, designed by ohsewpretty, appeared last fall in Crochet Today magazine.
• “Stackable, desktop, magnetically appendaged Bender Monkeys ” twist and bend to amuse any cubicle dweller. (They come in a set of four bright primary colours, packaged in a metallic embossed banana-shaped tin, with their own storybooks full of “illustrative poses” — where else, but at Think Geek?)
• Kay Bojesen’s teak monkey is a well-known wildlife mascot in Denmark — this one is found at Fitzsu.

I’d forgotten all about this until just now, but I had a very similar wooden monkey as a teenager. I remember how comforting and smooth it felt in my hands, and how it seemed to take on different facial expressions from sympathetic to cheeky to downright evil… Somewhere along the line, in one household move or another, my wooden monkey went missing… but maybe that explains this secret affinity for monkeys!