| Blokus Classic |
-
Company: Educational Insights
-
List Price: $29.99
-
Amazon Price: $16.44
-
Used Price: $17.29
 | Grades K and up. Europe's 2003 game of the year! Develops logic and spacial perception while kids learn to be tactical. Players take turns placing pieces on their board, each starting from their corner. Each new piece must touch at least one other piece of the same color, but only at the corners! The goal is to get rid of all your pieces. The game ends when all players are blocked from laying down any more of their pieces. Includes one gameboard with 400 squares, 84 game pieces in four bright translucent colors, and an instruction guide.
| | |
| Live Butterfly Garden |
-
Company: Insect Lore
-
List Price: $24.99
-
Amazon Price: $12.00
| Witness one of nature's most spectacular transformations up close with this reusable, collapsible habitat. Fine, transparent mesh lets you see butterfly metamorphosis up close. Product includes easy-to-use feeder and complete instructions for habitat. Butterfly larvae with food shipped directly to your home. The habitat collapses for storage when not in use. You can adopt and raise a handful of caterpillars, watch them transform into painted lady butterflies, then lift the garden cover to release your beautiful specimens into the wild. This exciting habitat makes a fabulous introduction to the miracles of nature. The larvae and food available round the year.
| | |
| SET Game |
-
Company: SET Enterprises Inc.
-
List Price: $12.99
-
Amazon Price: $6.44
-
Used Price: $6.75
| SET is a card game of quick recognition and deduction. Each card contains one of three symbols (squiggles, diamonds, ovals) in varying numbers (up to three), colors (purple, green, red), and degrees of shading. A dealer arranges 12 cards, face up, and the players--without taking turns--hastily scrutinize the images for logical "sets" of three cards linked by combinations of sameness or difference. It's not as complicated as it sounds: examples include a trio of paired ovals with increasing levels of shading between cards, or disparate symbols in different colors which increase in number on each card (card one has a green squiggle, card two a pair of purple ovals, card three a trio of diamonds). The trick is to keep calm while trying to make the rapid connections. The Darwinian nature of the game (remember: everyone plays simultaneously) is certain to cause some feistiness among more competitive players. --Tom Keogh
| | |
| Quiddler |
-
Company: SET Enterprises Inc.
-
List Price: $14.99
-
Amazon Price: $5.69
| The rules are brutal, but the rewards are worth it in this card game that works a bit like Scrabble. Although there is a solitary version of the game for one player, you can play with up to eight. Cards containing letters of the alphabet and special combinations of letters are dealt in increasing number each time the dealer completes a round. Once you've collected your share, you can discard and pick up a new card with each turn. The object is to turn all the letters in your possession into dictionary-proof words while leaving one stray card as a final discard. You want to be the first to accomplish the goal, of course, but there is a scoring system that makes the play competitive for everyone. One nice element is the cards themselves: the letter design is based on beautiful artwork from Celtic manuscripts. This card game is a 1999 Parents' Choice Silver Award winner. --Tom Keogh
| | |
| Melissa and Doug See & Spell |
-
Company: Melissa and Doug
-
List Price: $19.99
-
Amazon Price: $12.99
| Place the colorful wooden letters in their proper places to spell words on the cut out two-sided wooden boards. Includes 20 playful pictures with three and four letter words to keep learning fun. Includes over 70 letters.
| | |
| LeapFrog® Leapster® Learning Game System - Green |
-
Company: LeapFrog
-
List Price: $59.99
-
Amazon Price: $47.95
| Here is one handheld gaming system that both parents and kids will be able to agree upon. The Leapster Learning Game System takes the brain-building principles that Leapfrog laid out in its earlier electronic learning devices (which have an interactive book format) and applies them to a video-game format. Leapster draws kids in with familiar video game templates—all of which have a secret weapon: a built-in learning component. LeapFrog hopes that kids will become so engaged in the gaming aspects and familiar television and movie characters offered by this toy that they won't even notice that they're learning and reinforcing valuable reading, math, and language skills.
| | |
| Melissa and Doug Cutting Food Box |
-
Company: Melissa and Doug
-
List Price: $19.99
-
Amazon Price: $11.99
| Little ones will love hearing the realistic crunch sound as they slice through this set of solid, smooth-sanded wooden foods. Complete with 8 beautifully colored food items in 29 pieces, cutting board, and knife. Pieces are held together by Velcro, producing sound when they are 'cut.'
| | |
| Rubik's Cube |
-
Company: Winning Moves
-
List Price: $10.95
-
Amazon Price: $8.79
| The date is 1974. The place is Budapest, Hungary. Erno Rubik, an admirer of geometry and 3-D forms creates the world's most perfect -- and addictive -- puzzle. More than three decades later the Rubik's cube is still one of the best selling brainteasers. Whether it was full size or the smaller keychain version almost every child had this puzzle by in 1980 when it found worldwide success. Elementary school kids were seen solving it with their feet on "That's Incredible!", conspiracy theorists believed it was an Eastern bloc tactic to distract American youth from getting an education, and Cubaholics Anonymous was formally established to help cure the compulsive need to solve it. Each side is just over 2", while each sticker is about ½" square. For all of the hullabaloo, the Rubik's Cube actually has a pretty straightforward premise. The faces of the cube are covered by nine stickers in six solid colors (one for each 2.25" side); when the puzzle is solved, each face is one solid color. Then you realize as you turn the rows and columns and see all the colors flash by that there are 43 quintillion possible pattern combinations (that's 43 million millions), but just one right one. Maybe Cubaholics Anonymous wasn't such a bad idea after all…. This Rubik's Cube has reflective red, white, blue, yellow, green, and orange colored stickers with an official twenty-fifth anniversary sticker in the center white square. The cube is packaged in a clear hexagon box and includes a black display stand. There is also a solutions hint and game suggestion book, just in case.
| | |
| LeapFrog® Leapster® Learning Game: Wall-E |
-
Company: LeapFrog
-
List Price: $24.99
-
Amazon Price: $22.50
| Help Wall-E find his place in the universe! Ride a rocket through the solar system and use your letter recognition, spelling and mathematic skills to blast robots, form constellations and sort recycling stacks. Leapster2 players can connect online for extra activities and rewards. And with the LeapFrog. Learning Path, parents can see what their child is learning. Compatible with Leapster Learning System and Leapster2 System, sold separately.
| | |
| Star Wars Clone Trooper Voice Changer Helmet |
-
Company: Hasbro
-
List Price: $36.99
-
Amazon Price: $29.99
| Join the Grand Army of the Republic and sound like it! Speaks signature phrases from the TV show. Changes and amplifies your voice! Join the Grand Army of the Republic and sound like it! This life-size roleplay helmet is big enough for fans of all ages. As featured in The Clone Wars, the fantastic replica speaks signature phrases from the TV show, and it can change and amplify your voice to sound just like an elite trooper. Everyone will think you are a Clone Trooper! Ages 5 and up.
| | |
|
