November 2010 New Specialty Toys — Educational

This question and answer game comes with two special features. First, the questions are practical, not trivial, for hours of conversation about topics such as child-rearing, gardening, everyday law, travel, health, cooking, car and home care and more. Second, Untrivia is cooperative. Players share ideas, discuss the possible answers, and decide on the best choice. A snakes and ladders type of board provides some pitfalls and surprises.

In this game, players are CEOs in control of their own power grids on the continent. Each is responsible for bringing and maintaining full electrical service to a Populated Center. There are bonus revenues and other perks for fully servicing one’s own area. However, each grid is interdependent with other grids, so CEOs must work together for the survival of the Continental Power System.

In this game, players need to bring in enough stories, photos, cartoons and advertising contracts to meet the printing costs and staff payroll of a newspaper. If they can’t meet these combined costs, then it is a case of "Stop the Presses." Each player takes on a different staff role to maintain the paper's publication. The game includes a 17" x 17" board, a reporter mover, a press time marker, one die, 55 cards consisting of 10 staff, two cartoons, one comic page, six photos, six issues, 12 ad contracts, 18 assorted stories and rules.

In this game, players act as research and development teams trying to redesign North America's social-economic system before it's too late. The focus is on energy and resources, but many fields are explored. Designed for thinking friends and for high school and college classes, the game aims to provoke discussion among mature, thinking people.

This game is a Kafkaesque metaphor about seekers trying to escape the political, religious, economic and other illusions that entrap them, preventing freedom of mind and spirit. Captain K sails to a dark but enticing land to look for crew to help cross the dangerous seas to Freedom Island. Constant patrols make it difficult for the crew to gather documents and gear needed to make a boarding at any dock. Players are the crew, seekers after freedom, helping each other round up credentials which entitle them to board the Good Ship Freedom and avoid those feverish patrols, who never tire of vying for their very being.

In this game players are private investigators, all working for Eagle Eye Agency, gathering clues in a big city to solve the mysteries. They shadow suspects, do legwork and gradually work up a case. Everyone plays a key part. It's not who wins, but rather whether players can all solve the mystery. Thirty-nine original cases are provided. When these cases are exhausted, the game can be extended with the Mystery Maker Kit included to create more cases.

In this game, the cruise ship is sinking fast, and players manage to launch a lifeboat. They form a rescue team, working together to save themselves and as many of the survivors as they can. There are many variations on how the game can end. S.O.S. includes a 17" x 22.5" board, special dice, a lifeboat, charts (captain's marine forecasts, food supply, fuel/speed) and diecut cards (drifting currents, food marker, fuel marker, sharks, rocks, food and fuel packets, an assortment of survivors, rules for regular and nasty versions).

This strategy game is about operating Coast Guard Ice Breakers in the Arctic. Players' job is to open up frozen waterways for freighters, supply ships, tankers and military craft. They succeed if they get all 12 ships to their respective destinations before the ice becomes too thick and widespread.
Awards: 2003 Dr. Toy Best Game

Explore a beautiful medieval day with colorful illustrations of enchanting scenery, princes, and princesses. The felt play board can be used to place the various illustrations into the setting for a fun and educational activity.

It's a grand evening at the ball. With this set, choose from different outfits to dress the two main couples on center stage; from elegant pink and blue dresses to a pair of formal attire.

Relive the story of Cinderella with this felt activity set. The set features all the well-known characters of the story, including Cinderella, the prince, the Fairy Godmother, and the three step sisters. Also featured is the stagecoach, the glass slipper, and more.

Press the vdoBug buttons and follow along as Mason's peaceful lodge is destroyed and he is forced to find a new place to live. Watch video of the animals in their natural habitat, color along with the coloring page, work crossword puzzles and learn vocabulary words. Listen and sing along to music written by Grammy nominated Red Grammer along with Latin Grammy nominee Marie del Rey. "This is the most interactive bilingual DVD available. With the vdoBug DVD remote you can easily move between languages as well as the other 5 activities available on the DVD," Sales and Development manager Cheri Scheufler of Playentertainment LLP told TDmonthly.
Awards: 2010 Creative Child Magazine Product of the Year, Kids Products - Educational Equipment Catagory

Press the vdoBug buttons and follow along as Cinnamon Bear experiences springtime and April showers. Color along with the coloring page, watch video of animals in their natural habitat, work crossword puzzles and learn vocabulary words. Listen and sing along with music written by Grammy nominated Red Grammer with Latin Grammy nominee Maria del Rey. "This is the most interactive bilingual DVD available to date. With the vdoBug you can easily move between languages and the other 5 activites with the simple click of the button," Sales and Development manager Cheri Scheufler of Playentertainment LLP told TDmonthly.
Awards: 2010 Creative Child Magazine Product of the Year, Kids Products -Educational Equipment category

Press vdoBug's buttons and follow along as you meet perky and curious Pearl Squirrel. She is building her very first leaf nest. Watch video of the animals in their natural habitat, color along with the coloring page, work crossword puzzles and learn vocabulary words. Listen and sing along to music written by Grammy nominated Red Grammer with Maria del Rey. "Highly interactive, you can move from Engish to Spanish with just the click of a button and you can just as easily move to any of the other 5 activities," Sales and Development manager Cheri Scheufler of Playentertainment LLP told TDmonthly.
Awards: 2010 Creative Child Magazine Product of the Year, Kids Products - Educational Equipment category; 2009 Dr. Toy Best Vacation Product

Players are visitors from outer space whose scout craft has crashed on an island. Their mission is to search the island, the shore, the sea, nearby forests and even mountains for the elements to repair their craft, before the mothership comes to pick up the scout craft. On Earth, players meet UTOCs (Ugly Things Out of Control) and use powers to deal with them. However, the aliens' world is without violence and is filled with people so deeply peaceful that they cannot harm anyone. If a player uses a special power in a violent way, his or her Being disintegrates. The game includes a 13" x 18" board, movers, a traveler chart, travel cards and dice.

Players use the detective card game to put the jigsaw together, and then have a picture mystery case to solve. Each case has 40 Clues and measures 8” x 14.” The sealed envelope contains the solutions, and a secret coded message. Rules are included for a group co-op game for 12 to 36 players, using all four cases together.

These short mysteries have a clever twist — readers have to tap into their science wisdom to solve them. Each story, just one page long, tests readers' knowledge of earth, space, life, physical, chemical and general science. Written by a father/daughter team, this educational book is designed for anyone who loves engaging mysteries, challenging science or both. These "clever one-page stories turn curious kids into scientists," Science, Naturally! President Dia Michels told TDmonthly.
Awards: NAPPA Honors; 2008 Nattional Best Books Award Finalist; 2008 NSTA Recommends; Library Media Connection Editor's Choice

In this game, players are a team of private detectives solving such cases as theft, smuggling and blackmail. They move around a city looking for clues, while trying to avoid locked doors, guard dogs, getting tied up, secret codes, even mobsters — and using disguises, fast moves, a special tool kit, and their quick wits to get out of tight corners. If players pool strategies, use some intuition and help each other out of tough spots, they can get their client out of trouble. Investigators is a quick-moving game with lots of opportunity for sharing, consultation and decision making. It includes a 13" x 18" board, cue cards, "big bucks," a solution envelope, dice and movers.
Awards: 1989 Canadian Toy Testing, Top Rating

In this game, players try to gather the ingredients to fill various shopping lists. They must do this before the ingredients spoil and go to the green bins and the recycle truck, and are carted off to the Recycle Compost Depot. The set includes a game board, 10 spoiled stuff signs, 20 ingredients, six shopping lists, a shopping cart, a recycle truck and rules.

Spies & Alibis is a cooperative mystery game in which players act as a team of special unit detectives working together to discover which of the suspects has taken the government’s top secrets. Players must solve the case before the Spies board the Airplane and get away. The game includes a full color 12” x 12”board, 10 time flies cards, 22 eye witness cards, a government building card and three pairs of handcuffs for making arrests.

In these four mathematical games, players are partners, forming as many good flower gardens as they can using their trowels to dig up the weeds that threaten to choke off the flowers. The basic mathematical skills of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing are all practiced in gameplay. 20 tiles, 12 garden trowels and rules are included.

Read anytime and anywhere with this cool new product from Mark-My-Time. It’s a bookmark with page clip, countdown and cumulative timer and bright LED book light all in one. The makers of the Mark-My-Time digital bookmark and digital metronome have created the perfect gift item for your young readers.  The Mark-My-Time digital booklight features a bright 3 LED light on an adjustable arm, a clip to attach the bookmark to the pages of your favorite book, and three cool camouflage prints in pink, blue and green; or, three animal prints in zebra, cheetah or pink leopard. All these features, plus the homework help timing functions: cumulative timer up to 100 hours, 60 second fluency timer, and countdown session timer that alarms when you are finished and even turns off the light. Take the work out of nightly reading homework logs.

This science toy includes a 50-page illustrated Book of Science, a toy polariscope and glow in the dark and soft flexible toys that show beautiful prismatic rainbows when viewed with the polariscope. It includes Red Dolphin, Yellow Butterfly and Luminescent Dolphin color combinations.

This science toy includes a 50 page illustrated Book of Science, a toy polariscope and glow in-the-dark and soft flexible toys that show beautiful primatic rainbows colors when viewed with the Toy Polariscope. This set includes Green Dolphin, Blue Butterfly and Luminescent Dolphin color combinations.