Activities and Learning Reviews

The outdoor adventure kit worked great to keep my 3 year old son occupied while his older brother and I worked with the telescope. He now has his "gear" and lets his brother work in semi-peace.

Three of the six pieces to this set fell apart within 3 weeks. Better to pick out components individually that you're interested in than spend (your money)on this garbage. 1 star is too many for the rating.

This product was given to our 9 year old son from Santa. For the price, I thought that all the items I was receiving was going to be a great deal! NOT! The watch battery went dead w/in days after Christmas! The camera, you might as well bought out of a gum-ball machine!...easly broken. (Just by loading the film & the pictures that were developed were horrible. Even the ones I took.) The other "outdoor items" are very cheaply made & break easily. (To repeat the quote like they came out of a .50 gum-ball machine.)
It is NOT worth it at all. It is very cheaply made! Please save your self the agervation & tears & do NOT buy it!

I purchased the Electrolab and what I considered a more traditional electronics kit for my son for Christmas. I had thought that the self contained projects were a very good idea.

I have only had the patience to do one project with my son. We chose the radio as I had made similar diode based sets when I was about 10 and my son was most interested in that item.

Bottom line the kit is very difficult and does not have good instructions. Biggest complaint was the need to roll your own coil. That process took nearly an hour, had no explanation of why you would want to do this, why a coil is necessary and could not have easily been done by anyone under the age of 13 or 14 unless they were very patient and mechanically inclined. Additionally the frame for the radio was very poorly made plastic that had no instructions on how to fold it correctly for assembly. Many small parts, many manual tasks. The kit was more an exercise in mechanical assembly than electronics.

On the positive side I believe it is a fairly accurate representation of what early amatuer dabblers in crystal radios needed to go through to create a receiver. It was kind of nifty for me but the learning value and difficulty makes hard to recommend for even older (adolescent and up) children.

This toy has the look and feel of a real laptop. It is purely educational and not very fun at all. It claims to have 120 games but there are several of the same games which are seen 4 or 5 times each but in different catergories. Ours was purchased for our kindergarten son on his sixth birthday so most of the activities are much too advanced for him. His eight year old friend picked it up and became bored and put it down within 5 minutes.

We recently started collecting the Thomas train items for our son. Just about everything we have purchased so far has been super, however this bridge is not the greatest. The problem is that the covered bridge and connecting track will not stay on the risers. The slightest bump and the track collapses. Hope this was helpful.

I got this for my son. He is so in to science so i thought he would like this. When we opened, we could feel it was plastic. He couldn't get it 2 work, so i tried. The light is poor, the mirror is useless, the directions are bad, the "educational" cd is just a list of the products they have. The lens quality is poor. The slides all look the same in it. It is a piece of junk. Do not buy it. I am returning it immediatly.

I purchased this microscope, hoping for it to be fun!
I unpacked and was already disappointed, it was all plastic!
I couldn't see anything with it! I returned it for a refund! First of all, you cannot see anything! The light is very poor. The picture doesn't change when you change the slide!
...

The microscope was a nightmare. Don't buy. It's a piece of junk. Very hard to focus and can't get a clear image of anything...not even on low power. I am returning it and getting a better one today. Buyer Beware!!

Disappointed. Expected 3d puzzle which would look somewhat like the photo representation. Simply a 1/2" plywood puzzle which creates a silouette only. Very misleading advertisement. I returned mine as soon as I opened the box.

I bought this for my 15 mos. old for Christmas. You have to wind up the music by a knob on the bottom. The white button you push to make the bear pop up is not easy for tiny hands or fingers. The lid requires strong hands to push it closed. Two days ago, while the music was playing and the bear was spinning around, she tried to push the bear down, without using the lid. I heard her cry out and saw she had pushed with her index finger at the base of the bear and her finger had become stuck between the round base and the area where the bear slides down into. Since the lid was open, the mechanics of the toy was forcing the bear to stay up and try to spin, and since her finger was caught, she could not and did not know to push the bear down again to remove her finger. Her fingertip was pretty red for a couple of hours, even though it was only caught for a second. This toy should be removed from the market since the potential for such a painful and possible serious injury exists.

My wife bought this piece of junk for my kids room, and I can't believe she wasted so much money for a piece of uninteresting plastic.

Disappointed. Expected 3d puzzle which would look somewhat like the photo representation. Simply a 1/2" plywood puzzle which creates a silouette only. Very misleading advertisement. I returned mine as soon as I opened the box.

I work with two year olds at a U.S. Air Force child development center in Germany. Our Training and Curriculum specialist purchased two of these shape sorting boxes for my classroom. Notice in the picture the two rounded pegs inside the short end of the box. These are there to hold up the flipping sorting lid. Within the first day of use, these pegs fell out and were found by me in a child's mouth. Luckily, the child simply spit out the pegs, but there is a real choking hazard in small parts like this. When a toy is purchased for a child, we should not have to worry about it falling apart and injuring a child. I would NOT buy this product!