Activities and Learning Reviews

This miniature water tower is a simple, clever toy that is fun for any age. Attached to a small platform and piece of track, it fits neatly into the Thomas the Train layout that your child has already designed. A lever action pump "empties" and "fills" the see-through tower, so your child will have a real sense of filling up the engine.

Based on the award-winning Shining Time Station television series, the Thomas the Tank Engine train system fulfills all of a child's train-set dreams. Each 2-inch-high, wooden vehicle has black plastic wheels and a different name, character, and face, and there are magnetic bumpers at the ends for easy link-up. Your child will delight in making the pieces interact during imaginary play and will learn social skills playing train with friends. Designed to keep pace with your child's development, this toy encourages the use of new motor and cognitive skills. Other track pieces and accessories are available. --Sandy Hirsch

Designed for competitive or cooperative play, Go Away Monster is a delightful game for pre-school-age children. It gives them power over fears they might have as they "rid their rooms" of scary monsters. By providing each of up to four players with his or her own playing board--designed to look like a child's room--the game cunningly avoids potential squabbles over sharing. Players take turns reaching into a "monster bag" and feeling for pieces of furniture needed for their rooms. If they pull out a monster instead, they can hide it or throw it away while shouting "Go away, monster!" Players may help one another or compete to finish their rooms first. --Lee Strucker

Created by a volunteer math aide in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Moneywise Kids contains two simple, fun games that will help kids understand how money works, in terms of dollar value and spending power. In the first game, Bill Maker, kids take turns rolling the dice and earning dollars that are commensurate with the numbers that come up: roll a 2 and a 6, for instance, and you get $8. As they accrue wealth with each turn, players exchange smaller bills for larger ones until someone winds up with $100. In the second game, Bill Breaker, each player starts with $100 and earns more money with each turn, but players must also draw "moneywise markers"--bills for such real-life expenses as food, medical care, and taxes--and make payments along the way. And watch out for those hard-luck chips that mean big bills. The player who collects all six markers and still has $100 in savings is the winner. The game is lively and only lightly competitive, with an accent on grasping the mysteries of dollars and cents. --Tom Keogh