August 2010 Notable Toys — Educational

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.

This 19" x 13" jigsaw puzzle illustrates over 20 popular dinosaurs. The puzzle features 100 durable easy-fit pieces made from recycled cardboard, recycled paper and vegetable-based ink. Puzzles feature detailed illustrations and text in multiplie languages. "Assembling puzzles improves fine motor skill, picture recognition abilities and task completion; promotes both cooperative and independent play," Erich Fellinger, sales manager, EuroGraphics, told TDmonthly.

This 26.5" x 19.25" jigsaw puzzle illustrates a modern map of the world. The puzzle features 1,000 durable easy-fit pieces made from recycled cardboard, recycled paper and vegetable-based ink. Puzzles feature detailed illustrations and text in multiplie languages. "Assembling puzzles improves fine motor skill, picture recognition abilities and task completion; promotes both cooperative and independent play," Erich Fellinger, sales manager, EuroGraphics, told TDmonthly.

This 26.5" x 19.25" jigsaw puzzle illustrates the Atlantis space shuttle taking off at Cape Canaveral. The Space Shuttle became the first vehicle to not only take off for space, but also to return from space to be reused. The puzzle features 1,000 durable easy-fit pieces made from recycled cardboard, recycled paper and vegetable-based ink. Puzzles feature detailed illustrations and text in multiplie languages. "Assembling puzzles improves fine motor skill, picture recognition abilities and task completion; promotes both cooperative and independent play," Erich Fellinger, sales manager, EuroGraphics, told TDmonthly.

This 26.5" x 19.25" jigsaw puzzle illustrates detailed views of the major systems of the human body. The puzzle features 1,000 durable easy-fit pieces made from recycled cardboard, recycled paper and vegetable-based ink. Puzzles feature detailed illustrations and text in multiplie languages. "Assembling puzzles improves fine motor skill, picture recognition abilities and task completion; promotes both cooperative and independent play," Erich Fellinger, sales manager, EuroGraphics, told TDmonthly.

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.

This science toy includes a 50 page color illustrated Book of Science, a toy polariscope, and glow-in-the-dark and soft flexible toys showing beautiful prismatic rainbow colors when viewed with the polariscope. This set includes Dolphin, Red Butterfly and Luminescent Dolphin color combinations.

This 26.5" x 19.25" puzzle illustrates more than 35 antique fire engines and fire trucks. The 1,000 durable, easy-fit pieces are made from recycled board, recycled paper and vegetable-based ink. Puzzles feature detailed illustrations and text in multiplie languages. "Assembling puzzles improves fine motor skill, picture recognition abilities and task completion; promotes both cooperative and independent play," Erich Fellinger, sales manager, EuroGraphics, told TDmonthly.

This 1,000-piece World War II Aircrafts jigsaw puzzle features many of the greatest warbirds such as the Hurricane, the Supermarine Spitfire, the Messerschmitt BF-109 and the Boeing B-29 SuperFortress. Aircrafts of seven different countries from both Allied and Axis forces are featured with detailed information on each plane. The puzzle measures 26.5" x 19.25" and is made from recycled cardboard and paper and vegetable-based ink. Puzzles feature detailed illustrations and text in multiplie languages. "Assembling puzzles improves fine motor skill, picture recognition abilities and task completion; promotes both cooperative and independent play," Erich Fellinger, sales manager, EuroGraphics, told TDmonthly.

This jigsaw puzzle features a beautifully rendered image with scientific charts of the solar system's planets, complete with full data on spin, distance from the sun, gravity and much more. Made from recycled board and paper and printed with vegetable-based ink, it includes 1,000 durable easy-fit pieces and measures 26.5" x 19.25." Puzzles feature detailed illustrations and text in multiplie languages. "Assembling puzzles improves fine motor skill, picture recognition abilities and task completion; promotes both cooperative and independent play," Erich Fellinger, sales manager, EuroGraphics, told TDmonthly.

This book is designed to help children unlock the door to imagination and possibilities with easily readable text. Kids transform strange shapes into words and experience the adventure of reading. This 9" x 9" hardcover features 90 full-color pages. "Magic Words: Discovering the Adventure of Reading is designed to empower beginning readers with fun, predictable stories that encourage the decoding of simple words and reinforce sight word knowledge," Lightning Bug Learning President Julie Rebboah told TDmonthly. 
Awards: 2010 Reader's Favorite Finalist - Kindergarten Category