Search Results

Fast, frolicking fun from Gamewright! Setup takes mere seconds, after which players begin launching colored lifesavers in the direction of the elevated game board. The goal is to have your lifesavers land so that they encircle the 3-dimensional Flamingo figures on the board, sparing them from the imminent threat of leering alligators while scoring points for you. Each player's lifeboat acts as their life-saver launch-pad, and the product design is such that it is quite easy to get lift and distance with your shots. Aim, however, is the skill here, and with just a bit of practice, you should be saving flamingoes left and right!

Polar Derby is beautifully made, with 25 wooden Polar Bear playing pieces on skates (in 5 different colors) and a pair of high quality special dice. Each Polar Bear is marked with a point value, and players pull them off the board on their turn based on rolls of the dice. The skill is rooted in quick decision-making, as many rolls of the dice result in choices to be made by the roller, not the least of which is whether to end the turn and take the winnings or keep rolling but risk losing everything won thus far on the turn. The player with the most points once all Polar Bears are off the board is the winner!

It's time to get dressed for the royal ball - did we mention that you're the guest of honor? Fortunately, there's no shortage of finery at your disposal with Pretty Princess, one of a series of felt storyboards from Babalu Inc. that act as a springboard for your child's imagination. The felt board itself contains a colorful background, the canvas on which children build their stories, arranging and overlapping deliciously soft, colorfully detailed felt pieces in endless variations. Pretty Princess comes with more than 20 such pieces, allowing for a high level of detail as the story builds, and an easy storage pouch for the pieces when playtime is over for the moment.

Magnetic Match Rings is the fun way to learn about magnetism, help develop visual matching skills, and improve eye-hand coordination. Players select one of 50 pattern matching challenges and attempts to stack the magnetic rings in the exact same color order as shown on the card. If a card shows rings that are floating (magnetic opposites) your rings must also be floating.

Sphere XYZ is brain teaser puzzle with a new twist! This sphere contains different colored rotating hemispheres as well as colored squares that slide along two different tracks surrounding the sphere. The object is to have each hemisphere contain only squares of a single color, the exception being the two white squares, each of which must wind up at the north and south poles in order for the puzzle to be considered solved. Our testers, ranging in age from 8 to 50, became quite absorbed in manipulating the sphere, to such an extent that each wanted to take it home when the evening was over. Wonderfully tactile brain stimulation to get those synapses firing!

This puzzle and game is very cleverly designed, and promotes spatial awareness and problem solving skills in all ages. The instructions booklets, after a brief introduction, consist of 303 distinct game setups for players to solve, ranging in difficulty from easy to very advanced. The progressive difficulty of the problems allows for an apt starting place for every level of skill. The 2-dimensional problems involve first filling in areas of a grid in an exact imitation of the problem set-up shown in the booklet, then filling the remaining empty areas of the rectangle with the balance of the multi-colored, multi-shaped game pieces. The 3-dimensional pyramid problems are very challenging, and thankfully, the instructions make clear exactly what level of 2-D problem solving experience a player should have before attempting them.

Based on the popular children's books created by Michael and Betty Paraskevas, Maggie and the Ferocious Beast highlights the relationship between our five-year-old heroine Maggie and her best friends. Maggie loves her favorite stuffed toys Beast and Hamilton so much that she has created a whole world Nowhere Land for them to explore!

In the kingdom of Kippernium, girls are typically raised to be ladies-in-waiting . . . but Jane isn?t exactly a typical 12-year-old girl. When Jane rescues Prince Cuthbert from a dragon who turns out to be not so ferocious after all she is granted special permission by the king to begin training as a knight?s apprentice..

Written by award-winning author and registered dietician Kathleen Stefancin M. S., R. D., this beautifully illustrated tale tells the story of Theo, a fruit-hungry fish whose dreams comes true. This hard cover book does a wonderful job of creating a sense of excitement, fun, and anticipation around a multitude of colorfully gorgeous, tasty-looking fruits. The book includes a very nice CD audio version of the story. And, on the book's final pages, after the tale ends, you'll find some fruit and vegetable facts, games, and some Green Smoothie recipes.

Fruit & Veggie Color Bingo is not just fun - it also teaches players to name 95 fruits and veggies by color! A chart at the bottom of each playing card helps players become familiar with the health benefits associated with eating each of the various colors of fruits and vegetables. Includes a highly educational nutrition Information Sheet, charts, and a coloring activity sheet, all geared towards expanding the players' awareness and knowledge of fruits, vegetables, and nutrition!

The Alphabotz program is designed to reinforce beginning reading skills. Oh, and did we mention that it's also quite fun for kids and parents alike? One of the great things about the program, and there are many, is the level of easy-to-follow and highly engaging structure provided throughout. That sense of structure is embedded in each of the 46 wonderfully illustrated Character Cards. Just as importantly, a few minutes spent reading the Game & Activity Cards will equip parents to help children explore and contextualize vowels, consonants, and letter combinations in highly imaginative and entertaining ways.

Get to know the coolest creatures that ever roamed the planet with Ancient Creature Cards! They're educational, entertaining, and very hard to put down once you pick them up. Everyone knows T-Rex, but do you know what a Dimorphodon looks like? Hint: enormous head, giant beak filled with two kinds of teeth, 4-1/2 foot wingspan, and a long tail for steering during flight. Each of the 67 cards is 8-1/2" by 5-1/2", printed on heavy duty stock, and bears a large full color illustration along with a variety of fun facts about the creature shown, including its size, description, and when and where it lived. Kids of all ages will find these brain treats captivating, and, yes, amazing!

This toe-tappin', partner-swingin', selection of fun sing-a-long songs is perfect as either an introduction to country music or as an addition to your existing country collection. Young'uns will love it. Even those of us who aren't big country fans found ourselves singing and moving along with these upbeat tunes. The CD comes with a 24-page booklet containing lyrics, actions and dance music!

This kit combines several elements - touch, sight, sound, movement, and storytelling - to actively engage children in the processes of exploring colors, enhancing motor control abilities, and actively using their imaginations. The kit includes Dr. Seuss' My Many Colored Days board book, 10 different colored sheer nylon scarves, a CD with many beautiful well-known music selections chosen for the moods they convey, and a velcro strip for hanging the scarves. These elements can be combined and explored by parents and children in an almost endless variety of ways. The soft, flowing, 27-inch square scarves, when moved through the air to the accompanying music, create a mesmerizing attraction for the eyes and the spirit.

As with all the CitiBlocs wooden building sets, part of the beauty of the new Green & Turquoise blocks stems from the way they kick-start a child's imagination. Kids' hands seem to start flying at the mere sight of them, and the speed with which they can be used to construct an almost limitless variety of structures is at times stunning. Made with the same precision cut, high quality wood as in the past, these new blocks come colored with a non-toxic water-based stain, expanding the creative palette by allowing for color in all the right places. The perfect add on to the other CitiBlocs sets, and, as always, no fuss, no muss - just wildly creative fun!

This cleverly designed 108-card deck comes with instructions for six excellent games. Each card contains an image of either a bead or pendant that comes in various shapes, colors and patterns. Each of the six quick, easy-to-learn games involves using your bead and/or pendant cards to create strings, by using pairs (two cards that share 2 of the 3 bead qualities), or perfect pairs (two identical cards). Our testers had a great time with all six games, but our personal favorite was Beadominoes, which had a habit of surprising players who thought they were about to win by getting rid of their last card, only to suddenly find their hand growing fat with cards again to their opponents' pleasure.

Created by two mothers, both of whom are educators, Air Play fits easily over most airplane tray tables and provides ample means to engage and entertain a young child, reducing travel time stress for everyone. Loaded with fun activities and designed in bright, eye-catching colors, Air Play immediately drew the attention of any child placed in the same room with it during testing. The abundance of activities, (quiet) sounds, buttons, pockets, zipper, and soft, velcro-detachable shapes make Air Play a veritable tactile-and-auditory wonderland that can keep your child happy and absorbed in most any situation. An added nice touch is that Air Play is reversible (putting all the goodies on the inside) with cloth carrying handles, making it a snap to bring along anywhere at a moment's notice.

For ages 4 and up (with adult supervision), this kit contains everything you need for hours of creative fun and artistic expression. It comes with 3 stretched silk hoops, 3 primary color Dye-Na-Flow paints (which you can mix to create a broad spectrum of colors), and supplies and instructions for four splendid techniques. The Watercolor technique allows colors to blend freely on the silk, creating a look similar to a watercolor painting. The Resist technique involves applying a water-based substance (provided) to the silk to act as a boundary between colors, allowing for a fair amount of intricacy in your artwork. The Salt technique uses Silk Salt (provided) to create starbursts of color, and the Sunprinting technique enables the use of small objects and sunlight to create interesting impressions on your artwork. These four techniques can be easily combined to inspire and create truly dazzling art!

This highly energetic disc contains a diverse set of songs by the wonderful Rebecca Frezza & Big Truck, music that will get just about anyone up on their feet, boppin' and groovin' and singin' along. Our personal favorite was Hey-O, an irresistible song with call-and-response listener participation, sung with special guest Roscoe Orman (Gordon from Sesame Street). Big Truck, Rock Like This, and Motorcycle Boy provide rock-solid rock 'n roll, with great guitar work by Ivan Max, while the acoustic guitar and lovely melody on the slower paced Smiling Moon allow Rebecca Frezza's beautiful voice to shine through with crystal clarity. The rest of the disc, which includes colorful instrumentation, great backing vocals, and a bonus music video, is excellent as well.

In addition to being outstandingly educational, the EarthBox Snow Pea Kit provides your child the unique pleasure and satisfaction of initiating and sustaining a garden project and watching nature do the rest. That the yield is an edible crop of food is an invaluable part of the experience. Imagine the excited sense of pride and self-sufficiency your child feels as the family sits down to a dinner that includes food he or she has personally grown and nurtured. And it is so easy. The reusable garden kit & staking system sets up quickly, and planting and maintenance instructions are simple to understand and follow. The EarthBox system, in conjunction with the splendid array of activities provided in the activity guide, teaches applied science, horticulture & nutrition, and is uniquely designed to facilitate the production of quality produce in most any setting.

Even the pizza-box style packaging on this wonderful family game makes players laugh. Pizza Night comes with 150 pizza-slice shaped game cards separated according to six different colors that match the colored die players roll to determine which card to play next. Each card has super-simple instructions to a lightning quick game (e. g., Everyone take a big sip of their drink and see who has the biggest drink mustache). Take a turn, play a game, pass the die - there are no losers, only winners, laughter, and happy Pizza Night Family Dinner Game players.

We can't say enough about what a great game this is - it's quick-moving, enormously fun, engages everyone from start to finish, and cultivates some fundamental skills including simple strategic decision-making. Just a few seconds (literally) of looking at instructions, and we were ready to go. Each player receives a hexagonal game board containing 61 spaces marked with images (a button, a tiger, an airplane . . .). Players take turns calling out objects while everyone marks off that image on their board using the nifty plastic markers provided. A player wins by being the first to create a continuous line that connects one colored border on their board with the same-colored border on the opposite side. For 2 to 4 players. Fantastic fun!

Another great game from Gamewright! Fine motor skills, as well as shape and color recognition, figure prominently in the game play. Fill the sprinkle shaker with the colored wooden shapes (stars, cubes, triangles, etc.), place the cupcake cards on the table, and you're ready to go. On your turn, roll the die and shake the sprinkle shaker the number of times shown on the die. Any shapes that pour out can be placed on the face-up cupcake cards if they match both a shape and color found there. Cover all the shapes on a given card and you get to collect it and the shapes on it. Once the sprinkle shaker contains no more shapes, the player with the most cards wins. Take the Cake is simple, delicious, fun!

HABA is masterful at providing food for your child's imagination, and their new Biofino Fish is no exception. Beautifully designed and executed, soft, colorful and creatively detailed, this fun fabric fish is sure to wind up in the play kitchens of little chefs everywhere. The belly of the fish opens to reveal a pink dotted interior and a removable plastic fish bone (the tip of which is just visible through the fish's puckered mouth). The kids in our group loved inventing games, playing before and after by serving up the fish whole and then revealing the bones picked clean after they were done 'eating'! They also couldn't resist hiding little treasures in the resealable belly for later discovery. This tasty morsel provides a smorgasbord for the imagination!

This wonderfully illustrated book and read-a-long, sing-a-long CD will get your kids up on their feet, singing, dancing, wiggling, and laughing, as the hit children's song, Tony Chestnut, is brought to vivid, colorful, activity-inspiring life. The story begins with Tony and his little sister Eileen on their first day of school in a new neighborhood. Sitting on the playground surrounded by kids playing, Eileen's sadness over leaving old friends behind brings her to tears, BIG tears! After failing to cheer up Eileen with his usual tricks, Tony breaks through his shyness and performs a bold, brave, song and dance that engages all the kids, spreading smiles and laughter everywhere. The dance, illustrated in the book, follows the lyrics of the Tony Chestnut song (on the CD), in which children's names double as movement instructions (Pat - pat your shoulders, Neil - kneel, Skip . . .). A fantastic multi-sensory experience for all!

You've got to love instructions that are written both clearly and with a sense of humor. The box cover claim that Triviathon is a game for smart AND stupid people is true in that you can pretty much lack any trivia sense at all and still do a pretty good job of pretending you know what you're doing. After all, the only questions you'll be asked are 'How many spaces do you want to move?' and 'To what colored space do you want to move?' You then are given four options, for example, 'The number of toes on an ostrich.' Your job is to try to pick the option whose number (or color), when revealed, gets you furthest along on the board. Very simple, clever, social fun, and the facts you learn along the way (Papa Smurf wore red pants and hat!) you'll surely carry to your grave. Each player also receives a 'character card' that can be used at will (usually only once) to throw humorous curve balls and reversals into the action. For 2 to 12 players.

This enjoyable game has just the right amount of intricacy. It's a game that can be played very lightly, or with great intensity. The strategies are easy to understand and employ, and the stealing and defending, two main components of game play, are gratifying as all get out. Each of the five types of cards in the deck has a designated function or functions. Throughout five rounds of play, you'll use cards from your hand to defend your rice (markers) and to attack and plunder your opponents' rice and cards. A round ends when a player has accumulated seven Samurai cards of the same or two different colors, at which point rice markers are worth one point apiece, and the seven Samurai cards have a point value determined by their color distribution. Highest cumulative score at the end of five rounds is the winner. For 2 to 8 players.

This two-player game from Mindtwister is great fun. Start playing after eyeballing the instructions for just 30 seconds or so, then gain a deeper understanding as you go. The concept is simple, and very clever. Be the first player to get five same-colored marbles in a row. The twist is, in this case, literally a twist: Each move consists of placing a marble (one player is black, the other white) on one of the four quadrants of the brilliantly designed board and then twisting any of the four quadrants ninety degrees. This means players have two direct ways to disrupt their opponent's progress and advance their own - marble placement and quadrant rotation. And the latter can make it challenging to see just what curve ball is coming your way, including hearing the words, 'I won,' just as you were planning your victory dance.

In what year did Barbie get a belly button? The answers to this and other burning questions are the stuff of which Wits & Wagers Family game is made. The super-good news is that you needn't know the answers to play and even win this fast, fun family game! On each turn a question is asked and players write their best guess on a little dry erase board. The answers are always numeric, and players, after seeing all the written guesses, select which answers they think are closest to correct (without going over) by placing wooden pieces on them. The pieces are called Meeples, and each player gets two, one large (2 points), one small (1 point). You can split your Meeples between different players' answers, and needn't choose your own. You'll still score if your answer wins, even if you didn't place a Meeple on it. Plenty of ways to strategize, score, laugh, and win!

Stimulate the brain and the senses with these unique, brightly colored, highly squeezable, soft rubber foam balls. Their already substantial tactile nature is enhanced by the fact that each ball has plenty of numerals, shapes, or letters on them, raised three-dimensionally so that they can be 'seen' by the fingers as well as the eyes. Ball play does so much for hand-eye coordination development. Bounce them, roll them, dribble them, have a game of toss. And given their variety, collect them. Excellent for both indoor and outdoor play.

This set contains 9 squishy, velvety-soft blocks, each of which is brightly colored, durable, and very fun to touch. The blocks come with equally squishy cylindrical connecters that fit snugly into openings in each of the blocks' sides. This design allows a variety of sturdy formations to be quickly created, disassembled, and repeatedly varied. Both the blocks and connectors are soft and bouncy enough that they make for a pretty good game of toss, and bounce in fun and unpredictable ways. This is a great set for building creative and critical thinking skills, color sense, and just all out fabulous tactile stimulation.

This is a fun, creativity-inspiring toy. These 16 velvety-soft, brightly colored foam triangles provide a tactile and visual playground for eager hands and eyes. Put them together to form new shapes and designs, invent games, or simply play catch. See who can build the tallest tower of triangles (fear not - if they tumble, there will be no damage and nary a sound, so soft are they). Their shape and foam rubber design means they also have a pretty good bounce, and a resilience such that, when squeezed, is sufficient to promote hand strength.

Unlike older children and adults, young kids have the capacity to learn multiple languages as easily and fluently as they can their primary spoken language. This fantastic deluxe set is designed to let you take full advantage of your child's window of opportunity, and consists of two 70 minute DVDs, two CDs, and a 48 page full color booklet. In the Hear Say DVD, children hear a Spanish word while seeing the written word on screen, with animation and sound effects reinforcing the word's meaning. The Lyric Language DVD contains 21 bilingual music videos with lyrics displayed and spoken in both Spanish and English. Both DVDs are organized topically so that each section exposes your child to related words, increasing learning and retention. The CDs and 48 page color booklet allow your child to learn and reinforce while on the go, and the Hear Say CD includes printable flash cards. This program is exceptionally well-conceived and executed.

A great, playful concept and wonderful learning tool, these 6 specially constructed board books are designed to keep your child's hands and mind actively engaged, thus reinforcing and anchoring the learning process. The books are divided into groups of familiar objects from around the home and garden - Kitchen, Bedroom, Bathroom, Home, Garden, Play. Each colored page contains a word in large, bold print and has a tab at the edge which, when pulled, extends the page outward, exposing a colorful photograph showing the item named. An engaging sentence or two appears below the word, incorporating it and often asking questions for maximum involvement. The tactile, peek-a-boo quality of books keeps the hands, eyes, and mind coming back for more, and their size and durability makes them perfect for in the house, outdoors, or on the road.

Unlike older children and adults, young kids have the capacity to learn multiple languages as easily and fluently as they can their primary spoken language. This fantastic deluxe set is designed to let you take full advantage of your child's window of opportunity, and consists of two 70 minute DVDs, two CDs, and a 48 page full color booklet. In the Hear Say DVD, children hear a French word while seeing the written word on screen, with animation and sound effects reinforcing the word's meaning. The Lyric Language DVD contains 21 bilingual music videos with lyrics displayed and spoken in both French and English. Both DVDs are organized topically so that each section exposes your child to related words, increasing learning and retention. The CDs and 48 page color booklet allow your child to learn and reinforce while on the go, and the Hear Say CD includes printable flash cards. This program is exceptionally well-conceived and executed.

Each of the five books in this program covers a different topic - Colors, Numbers, Patterns, Shapes, and Prepositions, but the excellent multi-sensory methodology and techniques remain the same. The pages are specially designed with a large flap so that your child can first be introduced to a word or concept before opening the flap to expand on and enrich the concept through vivid, brightly colored photographs and captions. The inside cover of each book outlines the process to be followed for that particular book. No mistake about it, these books are fun, engaging, educational, and carefully designed for maximum fun and learning.

When a child lays eyes on the bold, colorful Zillio Mini Mountain, their natural impulse is to immediately lay hands on it. Making math hands-on and fun is precisely what Zillio does so well, with a series of 20 math-based games that do a beautiful job of incorporating creativity, imagination, and fun into math-play. The Mini Mountain's structure is comprised of 12 brilliantly colored removable staircases, with individual steps representing numbers and multiples. Numbered foam tokens that fit snugly into spaces on steps are key components of game play. The accompanying booklet organizes games so as to allow you to easily pick the right skill level for any given players, with some games being competitive, some collaborative in nature. A treasure trove well in the top of the mountain allows components to be easily stored. A mountain of fun!

The Zipfy Mini Luge Snow Sled's solid, lightweight, compact design makes it easy to store and port around. It's speed, and the uniqueness of its look, will have you turning heads on the slope as you zip down the hill. The rider sits feet first, steering with a center lever by leaning into the turn. The Zipfy gives a the rider great control, and, despite it's speed, never feels risky - you're quite low to the ground, so it's easy to roll off in a pinch. The Zipfy comes in several bright colors and has a 250 lb. weight capacity. Fast, furious, fun!

Never have we had so much fun while gaining so much invaluable knowledge about ourselves. In a spectacular mix of fun and brains, My Silly Body provides all you need to know about your body - its design, functions, processes, needs, a breakdown of the skeleton, muscles and organs. Billed as a user's manual for boys and girls, it also does a bang-up job of conveying why we need to be good to our bodies, and provides great ways to care for and feed them. The kid-size, life-size figure that accompanies the book is loaded with information and enlightening illustrations (including awesome lift-and-learn flaps) and flips over to reveal an x-ray perfect skeleton, fully labeled. Cleverly designed, brilliantly packaged, and a treat for the eyes, brain cells and funny bone!

This book-plus-journal provides a wondrous glimpse into the constructively creative minds of second-graders while inspiring and motivating young readers to explore their own solutions to real life problems. Air pollution, broken hearts, shyness, getting enough exercise . . . each of the 24 problems presented includes a written solution by a real second-grader accompanied by fun, colorful artwork and followed by pages on which the reader will verbally and artistically express his or her own solution. The given solutions are charming and whimsical (How would you make your school better? 'Put chocolate milk in the water fountains.'), and the interactive journaling pages are irresistibly inviting. The Observation Log and Action Plan sections encourage the reader to solve problems in their own lives, and guides the process of making an action plan for solving them.

As you turn the pages of WADDLE!, the animal images on them really move, using a special process called scanimation that allows them to hop, prance, stomp, slither, flap, scamper, leap, and of course, waddle, right before your eyes. It's like having a nifty little movie screen on every page. By toggling the pages back and forth, you can keep the creatures in motion (frogs, pigs, elephants, snakes . . .) and witness the type of movement described by the text. Even without scanimation, this book would be a find due to its hearty, colorful construction and exciting, playful feel that draw the hands and eyes to it over and over again. Ingenious!

This is the heartwarming tale of a young boy named Nico who is asked by his aunt if he would 'be so kind' as to take care of her dog Lola for the weekend. Before Lola, an adorable black pug, arrives, Nico asks himself, 'How will I be so kind?' He needn't have worried, as he proves himself a loving and considerate caretaker. The images in this beautiful photographic book include many shots of Nico and Lola in lush outdoor settings, as the instantly inseparable companions go exploring and make new friends together. The writing is well crafted, and the kindnesses demonstrated in the storyline and images are encapsulated in a series of 'Being kind is . . .' statements highlighted on every other page. Being a good listener, taking turns, sharing, treating others the way you want to be treated - these are just some of the kindnesses Nico and Lola show one another, and the reader, in this lovely tale.

The wonderfully diverse set of activities presented on these cards stimulates the brain in a multitude of fun and exciting ways while helping kids develop fine motor, writing, and other essential skills. Each card features a different activity. The cards are grommeted together, maintaining the order of the cards and preventing individual cards from being lost or damaged. The dry-erase marker has a built-in eraser, making it a snap to wipe the cards clean and start over. Activities use sorting, matching, sequencing, patterns, and tracing to teach preschool concepts and promote abstract thinking. Several cards have illustrations in which you are instructed to find as many objects of a particular shape as possible. The second half of the deck incorporates writing words for the objects and colors illustrated. Give your kids a head start on mastering vital preschool concepts!

This colorful, inviting set helps kids develop early reading and writing skills using simple phonics words. The set's fun and effectiveness is further enhanced by the ease and simplicity of its use. Each card has two or three words on it. Kids work their way from card to card, filling in missing letters representing a specific sound (short a, hard g, etc.). Each word has a playful illustration above it of the object represented by the word, and the top of each card tells you the type of sounds with which you'll be working. Cards are grommeted together at one end, and the accompanying non-toxic dry-erase marker comes with an eraser, making it quick and easy to start over when practicing. The set is compact and easy to bring along when on the go, making it perfect for frequent fun practice sessions.

Get your child off to a great start writing uppercase and lowercase letters with this fantastic set. Kids progress by first tracing, then writing freehand, typically working on one letter per card. Every card shows the proper starting point for each letter stroke, with arrows indicating the direction of the stroke. Captions and illustrations at the top and right-hand sides of the cards give examples of words and objects that utilize the letters and invite your child to come up with some of their own. The set comes with everything you need. The cards are grommeted together at one end, preventing the loss or damage of individual cards, and the dry-erase marker has its own built-in eraser, making it a snap to wipe a card clean and start over. The set is easy to use and compact, making it perfect for carrying anywhere and keeping young minds active and happy!

This enchanting, imaginative collection of 40 fun indoor and outdoor activities and games is a fantastic way to engage your child in nature and gardening. Beautifully packaged and illustrated, Kids' Garden contains 40 easy-to-follow activity cards grouped into five color-coded categories - Exploring The Garden, Planting and Growing, Fun with Plants, Discovering Creatures, and Creating Garden Art. Among these, one favorite activity was Squirmin' Worm Inn, whereby kids create a habitat in which worms thrive and produce composting materials. Another, Planting a Rainbow, creates a bed of flowers divided into seven sections according to color, providing a beacon for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. An eight-page booklet contains information on garden tools, plant care, and garden safety. Kids' Garden is fertile fun that can produce a lifetime of pleasure for your child.

A great tool for getting preschoolers ready for school, this card deck is designed to help master the correct way to write numerals and the corresponding number words. Every card shows the proper starting points for writing a numeral and is designed as a practice space for both tracing and writing them. Cards also show how to write the corresponding number words, again starting with tracing and moving on to writing free hand. One of the great things about the card deck is its ease of use. The cards are grommeted together at one end, so they don't get lost or damaged. The non-toxic dry-erase marker comes with an eraser, making it quick and easy to start over when practicing. And while each card has plenty of work room, the deck is compact enough to bring along anywhere, allowing for an active learning mind in what would otherwise be idle moments. The deck covers numbers 1 to 38.

Young ones will love this wooden stacking pull-around toy. The brightly colored designs and varied shapes of its smooth, wooden pieces make it a happiness-inducing magnet for hands and eyes. This finely made developmental toy will grab your young child's attention and keep their brain stimulated and delighted. Stack and rearrange the pieces every which way before proudly parading it through the house on its four bright blue wheels. Bear, Gator, and Rhino look oh so happy no matter where you put them in the stacks, and the playful, eye-catching design will brighten any child's room.

This unique clock makes telling time easy for children. The design is such that the more traditional face of the clock faces upwards, and is covered by a clear plastic dome. The hour and minute hands each have a playful character attached to the end (in this case a little girl with a wand and a swan with a crown), standing upright. The side of the clock shows numbers 1 through 12 brightly printed, with lines marking the half hours. Kids can see the passage of time as the characters move along the edge of the clock, and illustrated cards showing key events of the day can be placed so as to allow your child to know exactly when it's time for snack, meal, bath, bed, or rise and shine! The clock can be placed on any surface, and will add color and playfulness to the room. It's time to make telling time easy and fun!

The Bobo Glove, with its bright colors, patterns, varied textures, and attachments (teether, rattle, reflector, pull toy, and more) turns your hand into baby's favorite toy. There's something exceptionally freeing and rewarding about slipping this mini-adventureland onto your hand and interacting with baby. Whether wiggling a red-and-white polka dotted index finger, curling your hand into a flower-eyed puppet, or simply waving and shimmying your hand through the air, you'll find yourself and baby happily engaged by your improvisations. The Glove also has a velcro-detachable book with different animals and their sounds printed on the cloth pages. Hours of precious fun for both parent and child!

A phenomenal way to further your child's interest in cooking and kitchen fun, this highly attractive, durable set of cooking utensils and accessories is designed specifically with the little chef in mind. From the colorful, kid-sized oven mitts, chef's hat, and apron, to the mixing bowl and array of utensils, this set is of the highest quality, designed to be both functional and extremely attractive to children and parents alike. The measuring cups and spoons, grouped and attached by plastic rings to avoid losses, are a boon to any kitchen. The rolling pin is a marvel of style and functionality, and the 3-quart mixing bowl is lightweight and easy to clean, with a non-slip bottom. Appearance-wise, the designs are playful without being too child-like - any chef would be proud to use them, regardless of age or gender. Bon Appetit!

Anyone who's ever spent time patiently unraveling a knotted ball of string will appreciate the challenge and brilliant design of this highly entertaining brainteaser. The clear, plastic sphere-like object has 12 elastic strings stretching across its interior, crossing paths with one another. The strings are colored (red, orange, purple, yellow - three of each) and have plastic nodes at either end holding them in place from the outside. The player manipulates the strings by moving the nodes along tracks, the object being to finish with a specified number of same-color nodes along each side, but with no entangled strings on the inside. Kids and adults alike thoroughly enjoyed Brainstring, which requires a keen mind and deep concentration. The process is so fun and absorbing that the desired outcome becomes almost secondary, although we give huge bragging rights to those who master Brainstring!

Feel the sweet satisfaction of solving the Mind Jewel puzzle - and the maddening frustration when things go awry along the way! The Mind Jewel comes out of its package as a three-dimensional ball you can hold in the palm of your hand. With a quick tug it unravels into a series of colored gems connected by an elastic string. The challenge is to reassemble it to its original shape by twisting, turning, and fitting the pieces together (they have little nodes along the edges that allow them to snap into place). Our testers really enjoyed the fact that the challenge was doable, even for kids of a relatively young age. Having two or three on hand only enhances the fun by allowing races to see who can finish first!

Kids will love this beautifully constructed, exceptionally well-designed game. Parents will adore that it's easy to set up, fun to play, and teaches colors, counting, matching, movement, objects, money sense, and a balanced approach to food. The goal is to be the first player to fill your shopping cart with six items (from five different food groups plus one treat). Players store purchases in brightly colored little shopping carts they wheel around the board on rolls of the die, seeking items from their shopping list. A vibrant, two-sided stand holds items available for purchase, separated according to food group. Payment slots for coins are located below each food group, and if a player forgets to pay, he or she must return the item. For 2 to 4 players.

Dizios is a fun, fast-moving game in which players take turns playing a tile from their hand by matching its edge with the edge of one of the tiles already on the table. Your score on a move is determined by the number of dots on the tile you play yours next to on the table. Highest score once there are no more tiles to draw and no further possible moves is the winner. The cleverly designed tiles are extremely colorful, with dizzying swirl-like patterns that add to the fun and the challenge. This is a great all-ages game in which younger kids can compete well with older players. Includes 1 starter tile and 70 playing tiles - for 2 to 4 players.

Imagination and intellect blend seamlessly when using this building set to explore and create during fun and play. Morphun Education construction bricks have a patented side joining system that makes it easy to construct a stunning array of models and shapes using their square and triangle bricks. The set comes with 3 instruction sheets showing a multitude of examples ranging from simple to surprisingly intricate. Additional instruction sheets can be downloaded from the company website. The set comes nicely packed in an attractive plastic tub with a carrying handle for building at home or on the go. The tub contains 200 square and triangle construction bricks in 6 different colors, and 4 joiners for connecting the bricks in new and unusual ways.

Here is everything you need for startlingly creative fun - 42 extraordinarily well-crafted wooden block magnets in a carrying case that folds open to become the canvas on which they stick, along with 50 full color illustrations to replicate. The variety of shapes, sizes, and vibrant colors of the Imaginets allows for a stunning variety of self-expressive play. Make animals, faces, crabs, cranes, monsters, houses, entire worlds of your own invention! The white interior also acts as a dry-erase board, allowing for the mingling of magnetic and hand drawn art. When finished, fold it up, Imaginets inside, no fuss. You're ready to take the fun on the road!

Young children will love this fun, highly engaging pull toy. Beginning walkers will want to keep leading Henrietta across the floor - so much stimulation! She clucks, flaps her wings, and lays eggs one by one as you pull her along. Hear a chick peep each time an egg is released. The eggs are marvelously well-designed - a happy chick's head peeking over the top of half an egg shell, weighted at the bottom so that the egg rocks, rolls, but always returns to an upright position. Her bright colors, irresistibly playful design, and high quality durable construction make Henrietta a must-have for the toddling crowd!

Who knew an elephant could pack this much fun? Place this ultra-cuddly toy within reach of a young child and watch their face light up and hands and eyes leap into exploration mode. Ample colors and patterns stimulate visual activity. Numerous textures and shapes paired with crinkly and squeaky sounds invite fingers to squeeze and probe. Multiple compartments housing delightful surprises of various shapes and sizes keep the mind actively engaged. A built-in cloth handle makes this the perfect toy to take with infants and toddlers anywhere and everywhere!

Young kids will love the large, easy to snap together pieces and vivid, playful illustrations in these durable puzzles from HABA. Each box contains six different puzzles, a wooden figure, and six stand-alone pieces (each of which shares background color and motif with one of the puzzles). The puzzles hold together well, are easily maneuverable on table or floor, and, along with the wooden figure and stand-alone pieces, inspire imaginative storytelling. Assembling the puzzles builds fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and close observation skills, while matching the stand-alone pieces to their like-themed puzzle promotes cognitive associative development. There are three styles available - Farm, Animals, and Construction - each of which contains all of the components described above.

Imaginations will run wild with this 62-piece set of brightly-colored wooden shapes. The 'I' and 'L' shaped pieces make it easy for fingers and minds to quickly create patterns and structures of surprising beauty and playfulness. The child-safe wooden pieces can be laid out flat or built up into vertical structures, and the set comes with several easy-to-copy examples, ranging from simple to elaborate. Whether you're building pre-planned designs or improvising your way to a surprise ending, these ingenious pieces will keep your fingers nimble and your creativity flowing!

Find it is a highly engaging game that is equally suited to solo or group play. The clear plastic cylinder contains numerous small toys hidden amongst colorful plastic pellets. The object is to hunt for and find these hidden treasures (48 of them in all), checking them off a list as they are found. Since the treasures are on the inside, manipulating the container from the outside is the only way to bring them into sight - jostling, rotating, shaking, and inverting. Some of the objects seem stubbornly intent on staying hidden, but focus, persistence, and a keen eye will go a long way towards revealing every last one of them.

This fabulously entertaining toy creates exciting visual effects and animation at the flick of a switch. Just spin the Strobotop and aim your hand-held LightPhaser at it, adjusting the dial until the images spring into motion. The results are often dazzling, sometimes strange, but always fun! There are 18 different Strobodisks included, each with something different - ants crawl, pigs gallop, wildly colorful patterns jump between order and chaos. Included are disks that allow you to create your own colors, patterns, and drawings. For even more fun, additional Strobodisks are available in booster packs.

The Snowcase - a suitcase for Elves that doubles as a mobile playhouse - enhances the already considerable fun to be had with Elf Magic Elves. The Snowcase contains everything an Elf needs to ensure a happy stay in your home, and opens into a playhouse for your visiting elf. The inside looks just like the Elf's bedroom back at the North Pole, with a built-in window bench that looks out onto a colorfully rendered winter wonderland. There's also a 'Claus-it' for hanging 'Elfits,' a sliding drawer, and lots of goodies - a mini-passport, magic snowflakes, stickers for decorating the suitcase and passport, and more! Whether you already have an Elf Magic Elf in your home or are just starting out, the Snowcase will add to your child's fun, excitement, and the indelible memories being created as part of a lifelong tradition.

These little robots are as cute as a batch of speckled pups, and twice as much fun! This kit gives you five walking wind-up bases along with all the bits and pieces you need to design and assemble the kookiest, craziest robot gang in the universe. Use the colorful cardboard cutouts, stickers, wiggly eyes, mini-markers, and more - putting together your creative vision is half the fun! Then wind them up and watch your robot minions mingle and march. It's an art. It's a craft. It's a gang of hysterically funny little robots you put together with your own two hands!

Making friendship bracelets just got easier and more fun with this kit from Crorey Creations. The kit comes with 56 precut threads in 14 different colors, conveniently stored in a in a built-in thread organizing tray. The butterfly clip and string holder enable you to work easily with up to five different threads at a time, making it a snap to build wildly colorful bracelets without getting all tangled up. The instructions take you step by step through the process. When you're done, just slide the top back on the thread organizer and you're ready to hit the road - to friends' houses, the car, the backyard, you're ready to make friendship bracelets anytime, anywhere!

Kids and adults alike will find creating stories and artwork on the pages of their own hardcover books to be a fabulously fun and rewarding experience, not just for the pleasure and creative ease fostered by the kit, but also the timeless keepsakes that will be returned to again and again. With 3 blank hardcover books, colorful mini-markers, story starter ideas, and 100+ stickers, visual and verbal storytelling is such a breeze that even those not normally artistically inclined will find themselves inspired to new heights of creative self-expression. Includes bookplates for identifying the author as well as a perfectly sized book holder for the proud presentation of these treasures.

The great CitiBlocs wooden building sets just got even better, with two new varieties - Hot Colors and Cool Colors. Made with precision cut, high quality wood, these blocks come colored with a non-toxic water-based stain - blue, turquoise, dark green, and lime green for the Cool Colors, and red, yellow, orange, and pink for the Hot Colors. Natural unstained planks are included in both sets. With these new colors, build forests, oceans, sunsets, Aztecan cities of gold - the possibilities are endless! These light-weight, uniformly sized, impossibly smooth wooden planks are perfect building blocks - no glue, no nails, no tape, just eager hands fueled by the imagination. Kids' hands start flying at the sight of them, and the speed with which they can be used to construct a limitless variety of structures is stunning. Highly recommended!

Puzzle Blocks brings a new dimension of fun to puzzle play. Each of the nine blocks is illustrated on all six sides, meaning one set of blocks creates six different puzzles! Kids twist and turn the playfully illustrated cubes, searching for the side that fits the puzzle on which they're currently working. This highly tactile aspect of solving the smooth, light-weight block puzzles adds an element of fun not found in standard puzzles. From a developmental perspective, the contrasting and comparing required to find the correct side encourages eye-hand coordination, color-shape awareness, and associative development. Most important of all, kids have a wonderful time solving these simple, quick-moving puzzles. Puzzle Blocks are light-weight and compact, perfect for play during travel or at home. Available in three different themes - Fairies, Monsters, and Butterflies.

The HEXBUG Nano has to be seen to be believed. These tiny, collectible, robotic creatures scurry and explore, unpredictably wending their way across floors, tables, through mazes, and most amazingly, within their customizable habitats (see separate review of Habitat Set). HEXBUG Nanos use the physics of vibration to propel themselves forward in a surprisingly lifelike way. Trapped in an enclosed space, they hunt for an exit. Create even a small opening, and they will find it and escape. Place them on their backs, and they will flip back onto their feet. About an inch and a half in length, HEXBUG Nanos come in various colors and degrees of rareness, and each one comes with a unique serial code number and point value system that users register online at handandstars.com to play games, earn points, and learn about real scientists and their discoveries.

Swinxs is the first screen-free game console that plays games, talks, listens, and keeps children entertained for hours. Players each wear a colored wrist-band. Hold your wristband near the Swinxs console at the start of session to let it know you'll be playing, and it will identify you by color as you participate in the fun and games. Swinxs is verbally interactive and very easy to use, allowing you to choose from a series of fun, active games. 8 games come pre-loaded with the unit, and many more are available for free download from their website. Some are updated versions of old favorites like Hide and Seek and Musical Chairs, while others are creative new fare. Swinxs comes with 4 wrist-bands but can be used with up to 10. Rechargeable batteries are included, making it easy to play indoors or outdoors, come rain or shine!

Have you ever wanted to see a bug up close from every possible angle without, you know, touching it? Wild Creations has come out with Bug's World, a fantastic way to get up close and gain a high level of visual detail on bugs encased in crystal clear resin blocks. Each block (there are 6 in each pack) contains a single real and colorful insect specimen. And to enhance the experience, each block comes with a matching card that provides a detailed, scientific description of the insect. Our set of blocks included a wasp, a scorpion, a very unusual and spiky spider, a couple of rugged beetles, and a Heteroptera Pyrrhocoridae (don't ask). Bug's World is a great way to discover the peculiarities of each insect variety. The blocks really tend to attract attention (just put them out on a table while friends are over and watch people gravitate) and look surprisingly handsome just about anywhere. They're also nicely pocket-sized.

Here's a marvelous idea that will provide hours of creative fun AND a cherished keepsake. Create Your Own Puzzle comes with two large, blank puzzle boards and 18 colored pencils. Each 20-piece puzzle board becomes a canvas on which you create your masterpiece, as simple or elegant as the mood that strikes you. When you're finished, it's puzzle time. Take your work apart and put it back together, time and again gleefully watching your work of art come to life! The back of each puzzle board has a certificate circle for the artist's name and age, making it a perfect memento that will give pleasure for years to come!

This all-in-one drawing activity kit is perfect for spontaneous, creative fun - anywhere, anytime. With it's compact re-sealable packaging, Doodle Roll practically fits in the palm of your hand, yet yields countless hours of inspired entertainment. The E-Z tear edge allows kids to tear off a sheet any size they like (with a nice, even edge) ensuring that the canvas matches the inspiration, large or small. The children we played with couldn't get enough of it, writing stories, comic strips, inventing games, and of course lots and lots of drawing - everything from the most frivolous fun to inspired works of art. The kit comes with a set of different colored crayons and either a 30-foot roll of 6-inch wide paper or a 15-foot roll, 4 inches wide.

Juba is an extraordinarily well-designed online learning program that gives children age 3 and up an environment in which to explore, create, learn, and share. Juba combines over 2,000 photographs from around the world with sound effects, multisensory discovery and story-telling. Select an image you like, then open your artist's toolkit to creatively alter it in a variety of colorful ways. Save it to your wall where it can be opened later for further creative fun. Words and icons related to the picture speak or emit sound effects when clicked.There are hundreds of interactive activities, each of which promotes fundamental aspects of childhood development, from fine motor skills to vocabulary and conceptual thinking. Teachers and parents can log into the dashboard to review students' work and help guide their progress. Parents, teachers, and children will find Juba to be a perfect blend of engaging, educational fun! Price is $500.00 per classroom (individual subscription for home use is also available).

The shaped rubber bandz craze just got hotter! PiggyBack Bandz quite literally adds a whole new dimension to the fun by building a mini-version of the shape into each band bracelet. With band on wrist, the 'piggybacked' mini-shape stands straight up. This 'shape on top of a shape,' not only takes the guesswork out of what you're wearing once they're on, it also lets you create cool three-dimensional designs - simply add several bandz to each wrist and stagger the mini-shapes so that they form a highly visible multi-colored ring around each wrist. Create words, fashionable patterns, show your artistic flair! PiggBack Bandz currently come in 9 themes - Glam, Football, Sealife, Cool Rides, Baseball, Safari, Groovy, Alphabet, and Extra Letters - all in a wide variety of cool and funky colors. Collectible, tradable, mixable, matchable fun!

Pop open one of the dozen little bubble-like Sqwishland containers and you're in for a massive dose of fun. Inside, you'll find one of a number of adorable, quirky, squishy little collectible creatures that come in varying degrees of rareness AND a small slip of paper with a code on it. The code grants you access to the online world of Sqwishland, where your avatar will mingle with those of others and you can play many wonderfully clever and entertaining games. The games enable you to accumulate sqwash (rhymes with cash) which is bartered for treats and services for your avatar. Membership is free or choose one of the premium levels with more exciting features. The 12-pack includes 12 different Sqwishlanders, two of which are rare, two ultra-rare. These colorful creatures are loads of fun in and of themselves, but when you consider the hours of online play, it's easy to see why kids love their Sqwishlanders enough to catapult them into the latest toy craze!

This DVD, book, and CD set brings new meaning to the words 'fun' and 'learning'. The DVD, 'Crazy Adventures with Harry and Susy,' combines live action with animation as our two heroes magically transport themselves from place to place in pursuit of that rascally rodent, Raton Ramon. The performances are top notch and as entertaining as any children's show we've ever seen. Susy speaks Spanish throughout, while Harry often repeats her words before quickly puzzling out the English translation. This repetition and translation ping-ponging back and forth is both natural and extremely effective in reinforcing the words' meaning. Each scene includes a song by Susy, the lyrics incorporating many of the words from previous dialogue. The set's CD includes the songs, while their lyrics, along with English translation and colorful illustrations, can be found in the book. Even a single viewing of the DVD will leave your child retaining and correctly using Spanish words and phrases.

Children will love this DVD and book set because it's exciting and entertaining. Parents will love it because it so effectively teaches children essential early learning concepts such as colors, logic patterns, geometric shapes, numbers, prepositions and - in a bonus book and CD - music. Each of the six books covers a different topic using pages specially designed so your child can be introduced to a word or concept before opening the flap to expand on it. The 6 DVDs progressively expand and enrich those concepts further, incorporating many irresistibly engaging visual examples, talented performers, songs, animals, and some of the highest production values we've ever seen. Children will carry with them for many years to come the tools, concepts, connections, and love of learning they gain from this wonderful series. A true gift!

This fun and exciting series teaches children essential early learning concepts such as colors, logic patterns, geometric shapes, numbers, prepositions, and music. Each DVD expands and builds on the previous disc's concepts, incorporating many visual examples, talented performers, songs, animals, and some of the highest production values we've ever seen. The 50 activity cards included are perfect for reinforcing the learned concepts while away from the computer or DVD player. What's truly remarkable about the series is how effective the DVDs are at presenting material in such playful and interesting ways that they thoroughly hold a child's attention, making it possible for some of the topics (particularly geometric and musical concepts) to progress to what might be considered fairly advanced levels. Of course the children don't notice. They're too busy having fun and letting their minds do what they do best - drink it all in!

These slap bracelets from Base4 Group bring a whole new shade of fun to the fashion trend. This ultra-hip design comes in several cool colors. One of the things that sets SLAPlets apart from other slap bracelets is that they're fully customizable using SLAPlinx - collectible, tradable, colorful rings that slide right onto your SLAPlet. Personalize your SLAPlet with SLAPlinx numbers, letters, words, and many other designs. The variations are endless. SLAPlets are coated in 100% hypo-allergenic silicone that not only looks fantastic, but is also extraordinarily comfortable against your skin. Mix, match, and wear with a flair, SLAPlets will give you an awesome new look!

What's better than a great idea? Two great ideas that come together for double the fun! Now your favorite VeggieTales characters can be found in a new version of Find it, but only if you keep your hands moving and your eyes sharp! This is an extremely engaging game, equally suited to solo play or group fun, in which players race to bring hidden objects into sight. Hold the clear cylindrical container in both hands (it's filled with tiny brightly colored pellets), then jostle, rotate, shake, and invert it, shifting the pellets inside to spy the VeggieTales characters hidden within. One after another they come into view, and when they do, check them off your scorecard. Simple, quick, fun - but not necessarily easy - Find it Veggie Tales encourages focus, persistence, and a keen eye, all of which go a long way towards finding the hidden treasure you seek. The hunt is on!

Labradors, squirrels, and ducks, oh, my! This decidedly outdoorsy version of Find it not only contains dozens of miniature representations of things you would find on a hunt, the tiny pellets among which they are hidden extend the theme nicely with a blend of wood-tone and camouflage colors. Like all the Find it games, On a Hunt keeps your hands moving and your eyes sharp as you race (either solo or against other players) to bring hidden items into sight. Everything is contained within a clear plastic cylinder, and the goal is to find as many hidden objects as possible by jostling, rotating, shaking, and inverting the cylinder, shifting the pellets inside to reveal the treasures. A scorecard listing all the items enables players to keep track of found treasures by checking them off as they are discovered. And, as always, focus, persistence, and a keen eye will get you everywhere!

It's difficult to fully convey the charm of Pulling Figure Crab Calino without seeing it in motion, or seeing the light in a child's eyes when he or she puts it in motion. Like all pull toys, it has an attachment (string) that a child grasps in order to pull it along behind them. But that's where the similarity ends. Rather than having wheels as most pull toys do, the crab's body itself is a wheel of sorts (although it does not at all look like one). Most prominently, each side of the crab's body has four legs that flip, rotate, roll, and click with surprisingly fluid motion and speed as Crab rolls merrily along. The effect is quite enchanting and mesmerizing. Like all the Haba products we've seen, the quality here is extraordinarily high, the design colorful and brilliantly simple - in this case just wood and string. But put it in motion and it's pure magic!

The term 'Play Blocks' doesn't quite do justice to this beautifully made wooden set designed specifically for the hands and minds of young children. Not only is each individual piece a pleasure to touch, turn, hold, and inspect, but the seemingly simple designs fit easily together in a surprising number of ways. Just put a toddler within reach and watch. You'll see things materialize that you couldn't have imagined - houses, a tree-lined roof-top deck with a double stairway leading up to it, tunnels, towers, spires, bridges - and each wooden piece a brilliant, vivid color. A wheeled vehicle with a removable passenger brings added life and motion to the already highly animated experience of playing with Habaland Play Blocks!

Play Draw Create is an outstanding activity and creativity kit that has the added benefit of being one of Innovative Kids' green start products. This means it is printed using only eco-friendly inks and that all outer packaging is made from post-consumer recycled materials. The easy-carry kit is light and compact - about the size of a hardcover children's book - but comes packing an awful lot of fun and excitement. Open it up, and on your left, you have a magnetic dry erase board that comes with 35 magnetic pieces, 5 dry erase markers, and an eraser. On your right is a write & wipe activity book with more than a dozen pages of activities and games using shapes, colors, numbers, letters, and more. The layout and design ensure that it can be used over and over again, allowing for countless hours of fun, imagination, and learning!

There are so many fine touches to the My First Zoo set in addition to the LEGO bricks we've all come to know and love so well. The icy translucent blocks that suit the Polar Bear, the blue railings that allow for the creation of fenced-off areas, the pitchfork-type implement that fits perfectly into the baby elephant's mouth, the Zoo sign, the automobile, brightly colored flower pieces, and more. Most importantly, there are the many variously sized and brightly colored LEGO bricks that fit together in so many ways, encouraging your child's imagination and creativity. Specially designed for small hands, these DUPLO bricks are twice the size of the classic LEGO bricks. In addition to being fabulous fun, the My First Zoo set stimulates fine motor skill development, identification of shapes and colors, social interaction, and creativity. Wow!

Too few children's products in today's marketplace adequately encourage imaginative fun, so Tolo's Dinosaur Play Set is a welcome arrival. Its wonderful simplicity, colorful plants, creatures, and accessories, and stony backdrop set a stage that will ignite your child's imagination and keep it engaged for hours upon hours. There's as close to no assembly as conceivably possible - from box to full set-up took about a minute - and the glossy, highly durable components are of the highest quality. The arms, legs, heads, (and tails, where applicable), have a wide range of motion and make the signature Tolo clicking sound when moved. Comes with First Friends Trees and Flowers, Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, First Friends Cave Boy, and 4 sizable mountain pieces, enough to create worlds within worlds!

This is a very clever game - simple, but clever - that gives you 5 seconds to memorize the color on a color chip, then allows you to sift through 18 color wheels (each of which has 6 shades of a given color on it) in search of an exact match for that color. If it's a match, keep the color chip and slide it into one of the slots on your nifty palette. Players alternate taking turns, and the first to fill all seven slots in their palette wins! Part of what's exciting about this game is that it gets you thinking in new and different ways as you try various methods to 'lock' the color in your mind's eye. It's not an easy thing to do, given the fairly slight gradations between shades of, say, yellow. But as play went on, players improved at this, whether from becoming more familiar with the various shades or figuring out memory devices that fit the task. In any event, the game moves very quickly, is loads of fun, and plays extremely well across a broad range of ages. For 2 or more players.

Tote 'n Go Laptop looks like a toy, perfectly suited for young children to play with, but it is also a surprisingly powerful interactive tool that enables kids to stimulate their brains while having a blast! Its design emulates that of a real laptop, with a letter and number keyboard, working mouse, and a small monochrome screen that displays moving images and allows 20 word-, shape-, and logic-based learning activities to be enjoyed. Activities such as Number (or Shape) Learner, Add it Up, More or Less?, and Taller or Shorter? teach early math skills, while others, such as Letter Learner, Hide & Seek Letters, and I Spy, develop language skills. The logic-based activities develop logical thinking and visualization skills, while the mouse and keyboard build hand-eye coordination. Use the USB cable provided to connect to a computer and download additional content or upload your child's progress report. Tote 'n Go Laptop provides a delectable smorgasbord of food for your child's hungry brain!

This is something every household with a 5- to 8-year-old should have. It's really quite remarkable - an inexpensive, portable system that looks just like a notebook computer and provides 120 interactive skill-building activities for your child. From an educational standpoint, this is a very valuable tool. Kids naturally want to emulate mom and dad by using a computer, and the activities here are as highly engaging and entertaining as they are instructive. There are 5 invaluable categories - Story Book, Creativity Corner, Language World, Spanish Corner, Math Kingdom, Science Lab, Social Studies, Brain Booster - each of which contains several related activities. You can select the level of challenge manually, but most of the activities have an auto-leveling feature that increases or decreases the level of difficulty based on the success rate in previous rounds. There's a full keyboard, a functioning mouse and touch pad, and a 4.5 inch color LCD screen. Let the fun and learning begin!

This portable electronic musical mobile will keep baby engaged and happy at home and on the go, providing much-needed visual and auditory stimulation. It's lightweight design attaches easily to a wide variety of cribs, car seats, and strollers. The happy-faced cloth bee, tortoise, and frog that dangle from the slowly spinning three-pronged axis are multi-colored and patterned, swinging and moving in a way that catches baby's attention. The music starts playing automatically when the mobile is on, and four calming musical selections (Chopin, Mozart, Nature, Bach) can either be set so that one of the four plays for a 20 minute duration or so that all four play in succession over that time period. It can be turned on and off manually or using remote control (up to 15 feet), has variable volume (including mute), and a setting that produces light as well. While the dominant color is pink (it's Tiny Princess, after all) there's plenty of variety for either gender. A happy baby is a healthy baby!

Picture a full-blown playground, designed, sized, and well-suited to a baby's developmental stages, and you'll have some idea of the Gymini Move 'n Play. The mat, approximately 40 inches square, is colorful, soft, cozy, and playfully illustrated. Two brightly colored arches stretch up from the corners of the mat, crossing overhead. Hanging from these, on movable plastic connecters, are a variety of highly engaging activities for your child - plastic rings of assorted sizes and colors, soft monkey and elephant rattle toys, a mirror, and, at the center, an electronic music and lights toy. The music and flashing animal lights can be set to continuous play or so that they respond interactively to baby's touch. The arches are fully adjustable, which means you can position everything according to your baby's developmental stages. It all folds up for storage in about 30 seconds, and is very lightweight and portable, making this one invaluable addition to your baby's life!

The beloved Sqwishland family of colorful collectible rubbery characters is about to get bigger, and YOU just might be the creative genius behind it! DIY Sqwishland comes with a 5-inch blank Sqwishland character (Parrot or Frog, with more styles on the way), 6 acrylic paints, a brush, and a code to unlock the online gallery of kids' homemade designs. Paint the blank character in your own inimitable style, then upload pictures of it to the online gallery, where the Sqwishland community will vote and you might be one of the Grand Prize winners, having your design produced and made into the newest addition to the Sqwishland family! An artists' guide and instructions are included to help get your creative juices flowing. Plan your design in `advance or improvise as you go, work solo or with friends and family, or have your own competition at home before putting your work online. However you do it, you'll want to get in on this exciting, Sqwishtastically creative fun!

Toppletree brings loads of fun and excitement to the table. Starting at the base, players take turns adding colored branch pieces to a tree, expanding it upward and outward until someone gets four of their same-color pieces in a row and wins - or causes the tree to topple, losing the game! Pieces come in four different colors, and each player starts with 12 single pieces and 6 double pieces (double pieces are y-shaped, the fork at one end causing the tree's growth to change direction precariously). Pieces must be placed using one hand, steady as she goes. But steadiness will only get you so far - pesky old gravity makes sure of that. If someone doesn't get their 4-in-a-row, the tree will eventually fall, and often winning is primarily a matter of making sure that person isn't you! As the game progresses, the excitement builds, until cries of delight or frustration signal a winner or loser. But fret not. Another game - and more fun - is just moments away! For 2 to 4 players.

These nesting dolls, each of which acts as a canvas for children's colorful chalk artistic expressions - call them nesting 3-D blackboards, if you will - evoked a similar response from users un-nesting them for the first time, smaller and smaller, still - 'No way, another one!' Six in all - the smallest is quite tiny - their three-dimensionality allows artists to draw one or several images on each before moving on to colorfully adorn the next. Once the entire family of dolls has been artistically brought to life, nest and un-nest them, or wipe them clean and start anew. The pleasure of creative action followed by hiding and unveiling, fuels inspiration for each subsequent work of fun!

olelo is a highly social board game less about competing than about sharing yourself with others - who you are, where you've been, what you think - and having as much fun as possible doing so. A quick look at the instructions and you're off and playing. Players are dealt 12 Question Cards apiece, either Adult Cards, or, if age 10 or younger, Children's Cards. One at a time players roll a die, move their playing piece, and answer a question from a card they hold whose color matches the space they're on. The goal is to be the first player to answer all your question cards. If you don't have a card whose color matches the space you're on, you lose your turn, so it behooves you to know the colors you still hold and to try to move your piece so that it lands on one of those colors. The fun spikes whenever a player lands on a purple space and has to draw from the Silly Cards. olelo provides a nice low-key, no-pressure evening of fun for 2 to 6 players.

We dare you not to laugh when you flip up Little Red Riding Hood's dress to reveal Granny's smiling face, then flip up Granny's bonnet, revealing the snaggle-toothed Wolf. And yes, Wolf is wearing Granny's pink, flowered gown, his grey paws jutting out from the checkered sleeves. Fun details populate this three-way reversible soft doll, with the entire classic tale on display. The path through the woods is illustrated around the bottom of Red's dress, complete with Wolf on the prowl. A bag, which flips open and closed, bearing fruits and jams, is affixed to her dress. Granny's outfit has illustrations of her home along the bottom - tables and chairs, the infamous bed - while on the flipside, the Wolf in Granny's clothing has a red patch on the tummy, showing the Woodcutter. Flip open the patch, and you'll see Granny and Red together (remember, the Woodcutter liberates them in the end). This extraordinarily clever creation is sure to be a favorite in your household.

Mighty Mind Aquarium Adventure gets kids using their brains in so many ways - recognizing and manipulating shapes and colors, pattern recognition, puzzle and problem solving - all while having an immense amount of fun! The set includes 32 design tiles and 50 aquatic-themed puzzles to solve. The puzzles consist of large, sturdy, illustrated cards with outlines to be filled using the shapes. Doing so requires that a child perform 3 basic activities - FIND, MANIPULATE, BUILD - to complete a picture. The puzzles are ordered and become more complex as one progresses by providing fewer shape-specific outlines. Smaller tiles can be combined into larger shapes when solving, increasing the number of possible solutions and stimulating creative thinking. Mighty Mind will keep your child happily engaged while providing a tremendous foundation for the kinds of critical and abstract thinking essential to later academic success.

One of the many pleasures young children take in exploring these colorful, finely-crafted, solid wooden pieces stems from their smooth, cool, feel and the wonderfully tactile nature of the experience. Another stems from the variety of shapes and many ways in whch they easily mix to form new structures - steps, portals, doorways, bridges, pedestals, towers - so many options! These, and the extraordinarily bright colors, patterns, and illustrations on the pieces exert an almost magnetic pull on kids. Whether stacking, arranging pieces side by side, or creating countless puzzles, children will be engaged for hours on end of creative, stimulating, explorative play.

FlipOut is easy to learn, has a great balance of skill and luck, plays well across a broad range of ages, and is loads of fun! Players each have six cards arranged in an arc in a card-holder in front of them, so that they can only see one side of each card while their opponents see the other. The cards have colored patterns on both sides, and the goal is to obtain as many cards as possible by collecting sets of 4 to 6 matching adjacent cards, based on the side that's facing you. On each turn, a player chooses two actions to take out of a possible six that include flipping, switching, and swapping, all with the goal of lining cards up for a score. And scoring happens frequently in FlipOut, sending the fun level into the stratosphere. For when a player collects a set based on the side they're viewing, they often undo a score you were planning based on the flipside of those same cards! For 2 to 5 players.

This is a wonderful game for younger kids, delightfully fun while actively promoting fine motor skills, color identification, and matching. Its components - game board with pond, wooden pebble, special die, brightly colored wooden droplets, and round palette-like player boards - are of exceptionally high quality, beautifully designed and playfully illustrated with a high level of detail. Players take turns dropping the pebble into a 'pond' filled with colored droplets, the goal being to cause some of them to splash out onto the game board. Freed droplets are collected by that player only if they also match an empty space on his or her player board. The number of times the pebble is dropped is determined by a roll of the die, which can also yield a 'free pick,' allowing a player to simply take a single colored droplet from the pond and add it their board. Irresistible fun for 2 to 4 players!

Knock Your Blocks Off has an irresistibly distinctive look and feel that adds to the already considerable fun generated by playing it. The play consists of two phases. In the Building Phase, players work independently to build their choice of one of five possible structures using wooden blocks. Each type of structure has a distinct advantage, and building requires that you properly match colors on the sides of the blocks, placing a special crown block on top when finished. Speed matters, because the first one to finish building receives a victory token and goes first in the Destruction Phase, in which players employ one of three attack methods, as determined by a roll of the Demolition Die, to try to knock the crown block from an opponent's structure. Succeed, and collect a victory token. Fail, the defender collects one. The first player to collect 8 tokens wins. Both phases are wildly fun and play extremely well across a broad range of ages, making this a great family game. 2 to 4 players.

This remarkably compact, lightweight indoor/outdoor folding tricycle elicited smiles and excitement from every youngster who saw it. The colorful design (Ladybug or Bumble Bee) and extraordinary ease with which it unfolds and folds back up again make it playtime perfect, not to mention a smooth, easy ride. Little feet on the floor or ground provide the power, and the short, easy-to-maneuver handle bars provide the steering. The non-scratch wheels glide equally well on tiles, floorboards, or pavement, and the long seat makes straddling and getting on and off easy to do. Let your little guys and girls get around in kid- and parent- friendly style, then, when it's time to store it in the car or at home, it takes up almost no space at all!

The Garden Plate makes eating fun and easy for young children, helping to keep them happy and engaged at mealtime. The plate is divided in ways that allow different foods to be kept separate and makes it easy for little hands and developing motor skills to get food onto forks and spoons, with special nooks and crannys for just that purpose. The colorful design integrates fairy wing patterns that match the Tillywig Award-winning Garden Fairy utensils (see separate review under 'Set of 3 Garden Utensils,' and these two products from Constructive Eating, Inc. work exceptionally well together. It's dishwasher and microwave safe, and all materials used have been approved by the FDA.

Every parent knows that mealtime can be a challenge, with growing kids resisting the fuel and nutrition they greatly need. These colorful, garden-themed new eating utensils bring fairy lore to the table, sparking your child's imagination and turning mealtime into something engaging and enjoyable. The design of each utensil - the Garden Rake Fork, Garden Shovel Spoon, and Garden Hoe Pusher - incorporates a unique plant and fairy combination, while the packaging includes both the names and a description of the personalities of each of the three fairies. Let Allo the leader, Charlie the prankster, and sweet, wispy Willow turn mealtime into something your children eagerly await rather than resist. Just as importantly, they're rugged, lightweight, dishwasher safe, and FDA approved. Let mealtime be a fun, imagination-inspiring, family time!

Citiblocs continues to expand their line of ultra-high-quality eco-friendly wooden construction blocks with one great new idea after another. Their new Little Builder Rattle Blocs are perfectly designed for younger children, with thicker, chunkier blocks for easy holding and manipulation, and hollow pieces containing built-in wooden marbles that rattle during play. The 10 rattle blocks have brightly colored window-like rectangles on their sides, thus providing the perfect foundation with which kids easiily construct buildings, towns, and little cities. The triangular rooftop pieces are also brightly colored with water-based paint, as are the wooden staircases and squares. There are 22 pieces in all, packaged in a sturdy, beautifully designed bucket with carrying handle, ideal for quick clean-up and transportation between playtimes. When it comes to creative, constructive play, Citiblocs ranks at the pinnacle.

Banagrams has taken the classic game of dominoes and made it zestier, more colorful, and, of course, given it a bright fruity twist! The Fruitonimo tiles are smooth, white, cool, and contain six different fun fruit patterns. After drawing five dominoes from the draw pile, players take turns matching one domino at a time from their hand to the dominoes in play on the table. If a player can't match an open tile, he or she must take another domino from the draw pile and pass the turn. Play continues until one player uses all of his or her Fruitonimoes and wins the game. If instead, the draw pile is gone and no player is able to play another tile, the winner is the player with the lowest number of fruits on his or her remaining tiles. Fruitonimoes is fast, fun, easy to learn, and plays well across a broad range of ages, making it a great family game! For 2 to 4 players.