Activities and Learning Reviews

My daughter is almost 2. She has had these blocks for several months, and enjoys playing with them, stacking them, throwing them, and trying to name the pictures. So far the dog isn't attracted to them.

These blocks have great pictures and clear letters. I agree, however, with another reviewer's comments regarding M/W and some of the word choices, but in general they are great. So, we'll just have to explain somehow what Ink is. I'll bet we can do it.

I particularly like that the block holding tray is durable, and that the dimensions of the box allow for extra room (2 blocks worth) to make re-packing easy.

The blocks are a nice size, and the size and shape remain consistent between the blocks for easy stacking. I have not found any rough edges or splinters. So far the pictures have held up well.

These are high quality blocks that should be a satisfying toy for several years to come.

We bought these toys when our daughter was 10months old, for her first christmas. She just loves them. She also recieved some of the old-fashioned "carved" blocks with the letters cut into them. Unlike these, she quickly chewed the paint off of some of the old-fashoined blocks. She has chomped on these pretty hard and they seem to put up with it with little damage. She bangs them together, chews on them and occationally stacks them. Though they are recommended for older children, i think we made a nice choice as she will be able to play with these for years in many different ways as her skills develop. Also, they are bigger than the standard blocks, so i dont worry about anything and she should be able to manipulate them a little earlier.

We ordered these when we realized that our 2-year old had just about learned the ABCs already, and we thought these would be good for reinforcement as well as good old block-piling fun.

Our child loved them immediately and called out letters while pulling each block from the sturdy wooden tray that the blocks come in. The blocks are made from an attractive wood and the grain shows through nicely behind the letters and the pictures associated with each letter, that fill four of the six faces. We consider it a definite plus that each block shows the upper and lowercase form of each letter. We also like the fact that these are small enough for little hands, but big enough to give to a 2-year-old without worrying about a choking hazard.

One quibble: the blocks are not designed to provide any cues as to vertical orientation, either for letters or illustrations. The reason this matters is that the capital-M has spreading legs, which makes it basically *identical* in appearance to the capital-W, when either letter is upside down. It should have been possible to design the M with vertical sides, which would have reduced confusion and would teach the letter "M" in a form more likely to be found in other settings. Similar confusion applies to the lower-case "L" and upper-case "I", which look identical.

Quibble #2: some of the letter-related words that illustrate each block seem oddly chosen. For instance, "Ink" for the letter "I" -- how likely is it that a 21st century child will encounter an old-fashioned ink bottle anytime soon? Perhaps the problem comes because some letters are not used to begin many words familiar to toddlers, but across the 26 letters in the set, we find quite a few illustrations and vocabulary words that we don't think will be much help to our child learning the alphabet, or be useful in everyday speech later on.

Finally, an unknown: durability. Since these are brand new, we can't say, but the letters are painted onto the surface of smooth, flat blocks -- not cut into the wood, like some old-fashioned block designs. That makes these more attractive for now, but we suspect the paint will probably chip or wear off somewhat more rapidly. That's just a guess.

All in all, we are pleased with this set. We had been looking for something like this for a while, with no luck. So I suspect that it may be hard to find blocks that accomplish all the same things these do (uppercase, lowercase, word associations, size, attractiveness) without any of the quibbles raised here.

Our 5 year-old son plays this game with us and we all enjoy it. This game is a great way to teach children the names and locations of the states. It also teaches an interesting fact about each state. In this version of the game, the players don't have to know the names of the state capitals, but since that information is provided on the game board my son is picking up on it too.

There is a 60 second timer so you can help level the playing field by varying the amount of time older players have to read the card and give the answer. We give our son 45 seconds and my husband and I get 15 seconds. We all finish well ahead of the timer, but we find it easier to use the main intervals marked on the timer. You could use different intervals if you desired.

Durability: We buy a lot of board games and this one has held up better than the others. The cards are thick so they are not easily bent. Also each set of cards has a zip bag so they stay stacked and sorted when you put them away.

Our daughter loves this game. She got it when she was 4.5 years old and it became an instant hit. She learned a lot from this game since then. Now she is almost five years old and we are ready to get her the Great State game for older kids. (she calls it "Great State Senior.") And we are going to give the Great State Junior game to some of her best friends for their birthdays.

Our family loves to travel the United States. I picked up this game to give my five year old son a visual aid in learning where we have been and where we plan on going. It has helped him on many level of learning. Just a great game for great kids.

I bought this as a present for my niece's first day of preschool. She raved about it all day, brought it to show and tell the next day... And the teacher went and bought her own for the classroom! We are so pleased with the quality and craftsmanship and recommend it to anyone... Especially teachers!

We received this toy as an early christmas present and it has been great! My son loves the puzzles and I love how convenient the storage case makes clean up. He can spend hours playing and it only takes me second to out it away! Also, the case is light and sized well so it fits anywhere. This is a perfect first puzzle set!

We received this as a gift for my son and just recently had to take him to the hospital because he severely cut his foot when it fell off the table and onto his little toe. The toy itself is fun, but it's too heavy to be around little kids. I once dropped the box on myself as well and it hurt like a son of a gun. It has since been removed and just the puzzles remain, however, there's now no neat way to organize them. So, buy and enjoy the toy, but put the storage box away immediately.

My daughter is never without "Wuffie". She recieved this gift at birth and even after two years, it is her favorite. I have purchased several more to have in case we lose this one and she carries them all around. People have given her other dogs, but she still loves "Wuffies" the best. They wash easy also-thank goodness!! This has become my official baby gift to everyone.

My daughter has loved this toy since she first set eyes on it! She's had it ever since she was 5 months old and goes everywhere with it. It's still her favorite at one year old. She's a thumb sucker and likes to hold the ears or tail while sucking her thumb. She also does this while nursing! It's very soft and cushy and cleans up great in the washer. I highly recommend this doggie!

every kid has their favorite plush; this is my youngest daughter's choice. in fact, i'm ordering another one (maybe two) to replace the one we lost recently. love at first sight for my 16 mo. old. a great huggy animal friend...no real learning value, but who cares? some toys are just that--toys.

Many of you might be familiar with Michael Ende's classic children's novel "The Neverending Story" or 1984 film of the same name. These works portray a race of tall giants, possibly made from stone themselves, who delight in nothing more than the eating of rocks. In one scene, a Rockbiter (as they are known) pedals to the Ivory Tower by stone bicycle only to devour it in a fit of hunger.

Amusing as this might sound, it is pure mythology and bears no relation to the actual world. Rocks, such as the Prospector's Mystery Rock, are almost unfailingly inedible and unpalatable to the human digestive tract. Rock can seriously damage the human body through ingestion, from either physical scraping, piercing, or blockage of passageways of the esophagus all the way down through one's intestines or poisonous chemical leakage. This "rock," a children's educational toy, is an artificially created stone which can be picked away at with supplied "archaeological tools" to reveal even more inedible goodies. These hidden finds include four gemstones, three fossils, and three mineral deposits, all of which should be kept out of the mouth of both finders and related kin. Fossils, like standard rocks, are made out of mineral rather than organic material, and thus apply to the same rules of treatment.

While none of these items themselves contain deadly poisons, consumption of such material is a bad habit to develop. This behavior is often amalgamated under the term "pica" - the compulsion to eat non-foods, especially mineral deposits like rocks or clay. While often seen in small children who "don't know better," the pica obsession is also displayed by pregnant women.

I bought this for my nine year-old daughter. She was excited at first, but after hours of scraping and uncovering nothing, she got a bit frustrated at the slow pace. Also, the plastic tool wore down quickly, slowing things down even more and requiring much more elbow grease! I finally knocked the clay matrix against a hard surface and broke off a good chunk so she could see the objects inside. Then it became much more easy and fun to retrieve the treasures!

My almost 8 year old daughter had a lot of fun with this. Not only did she like digging the items out of the rock but liked washing them off and trying to figure out what the items were and recording the info in the journal and in the end learning about each item. It is messy - lots of dust - but a few newspapers spread out works o.k.

My 4 year old nephew just loves this puzzle! It's the best! The large pieces make it easy for him to manueuver.

We got this puzzle for our 3 kids last Christmas. It is big, bright, sturdy and very educational...even for me! Of course the first thing we noticed was the picture of the Twin Towers over New York. (Not sure if they are still making them like that)This is something I will keep forever, and that my kids will continue learning from for years to come.

My four-year-old has been obsessed with this puzzle.

The geographical pictures give grownups things to talk about (e.g., "There's the Golden Gate; you've seen that." or "Do you remember where the corn grows?"). Also, the pieces are extremely sturdy & flat so it locks together easily. This reduces the frustration factor.

It's amazing how much a child learns by having access. We are an American family living in Germany and felt my 5 year old would have a greater understanding of where we live and where our extended family lives.

The globe itself is ok and has a lot of educational value for kids starting out in geography, but the stand is so poorly designed that when you rotate the globe on its axis, the stand easily detaches from the globe. The whole point is to be able to rotate it, so in effect it's not very usable if you have to keep fixing the stand again and again. A heavier stand that would not move when rotating the globe would probably work better. The attaching mechanism needs redesign too -- right now it's just a screw in the base.

What a great, inexpensive globe. It's fascinating to watch a child spin a globe - even if they don't seem like they are learning anything, at least they are getting a general idea of the immense size of our world! Since getting this globe, my 5 year old son has learned about the continents and the oceans, found Australia on his own and pointed out that Antarctica is bigger than the USA. It seems that the globe gets loose from it's stand somewhat easily, but it is easily tightened. All in all, a great buy with terrific educational value.

Great toy, I us it every day. Great for wind, rainfall, and temp. Easy to setup and use.

My son got this for his 7th birthday. He loves everything having to do with science. There are a few different ways you can configure the components of the weather station - including temperature, wind direction, wind speed, rain gauge, etc. - but we have yet to find a way to connect EVERYTHING at the same time. It would be perfect if there was a way to attach all the devices at once. Also, the instructions state there are 7 connectors but there were only 6 in the plastic package.

I got this for my 9th birthday and you can see the temp indoors and outdoors. you can show how fast the wind is going. It can also show which way the wind is going. I loved the toy and liked putting eveything together.
Alexander

This package is small and comes with only 6-10 tricks

I recently got this kit, and it is very good quality, and for the most part easy to learn, and impressive tricks. The only bad thing I can say about it is that it only comes with about 5 tricks, unless you count the ability to do a bunch of different card tricks. Over all, a great product though.

This a beautifully presented mini attache case with really cool tricks. Within a few minutes my boys learned to make money appear and perform some truly impressive magic tricks. My nephews particularly enjoyed the card tricks and the quality of the props is as good as Ive seen. It has got them hooked on magic and the instructions are well written and easy to follow.

I found that this book contained the same type of materials that my son was learning in forth grade. It was very helpful.
This learning toy is kept in our car, which makes it handy on trips.

I searched for a really long time the other night to see if the Quantum books work on the Leap Pad and Pro systems. I never found the answer. I almost ordered the Quantum for my 9-year-old granddaughter but decided to wait. In a discount store I saw the books, and it clearly states on the book that it will work in all Leap Pad systems except My First Leap Pad. What a relief. Saved me $40.

I recently bought this book for my younger sister. She has been struggling in school and these books have been a great help. She loves them so much that our family uses them as an incentive to do better in school. The Smart Guide to Fourth Grade is probably the best book I have seen so far. She had so much fun playing the games like Spelling Stingers that she didn't even realize she was learning. What really amazed me is that after just half an hour with the book my sister was doing fractions! Her teacher hasn't even touched on fractions yet. I know fractions are usually one of the hardest things for children to grasp but she understood it in just a few minutes! The only reason I didn't give the book a five in durability is that the little cartridges that come with the book get lost so easily! I wish leap pad would come out with a storage system for the books and cartridges.