June 2013 Notable Toys — Educational

By amplifying a marginal amount of current flowing through your body, the meter's needle will move! Make your friends sweat under pressure! Have fun learning about electrical current and resistance.

Observe the stars in your room! A pin hole planetarium kit. Rotate the planetarium to see how the constellations change with time and season. Adjust the projection angle to see how constellations are viewed from different longitudes on Earth.

Make a coin bank that responds when you insert money! Record your voice then insert a coin. The bank will play back the recording when you put money in! Make a bank that plays back your voice whenever you insert a coin.

How it Works: When the hook touches the curvy wire, it completes a circuit. Current will flow, causing a buzzer to sound and a motor to start shaking the game.

Foster your children’s imagination and creative expression with our revolutionary new block design! A cube with square holes on each face, and a single, connecting stud located off-center. Unlike traditional building blocks which can only be stacked, an Artec Block can be connected in all directions. Horizontal, vertical, and even diagonal connections are possible for unparalleled ease and freedom. The possibilities are endless in the structures, animals, and shapes you can make!

Foster your children’s imagination and creative expression with our revolutionary new block design! A cube with square holes on each face, and a single, connecting stud located off-center. Unlike traditional building blocks which can only be stacked, an Artec Block can be connected in all directions. Horizontal, vertical, and even diagonal connections are possible for unparalleled ease and freedom. The possibilities are endless in the structures, animals, and shapes you can make!

Foster your children’s imagination and creative expression with our revolutionary new block design! A cube with square holes on each face, and a single, connecting stud located off-center. Unlike traditional building blocks which can only be stacked, an Artec Block can be connected in all directions. Horizontal, vertical, and even diagonal connections are possible for unparalleled ease and freedom. The possibilities are endless in the structures, animals, and shapes you can make!

The perfect combination of parts to build great innovations that you can actually use. Compete with other inventors with our online challenges.

Build a fast and fun Gravity Racer and compete with friends. Also join our online community to see what others are doing with their race car designs.

Ever dreamed of being a world-famous car designer? The Hänz Car Design Studio allows you to create functional gravity racers with hundreds of designs. With our three piece design you can create eco-friendly lightweight vehicles that are fast and fun. You can build two small cars and compete with friends or go online and see what others are doing in our innovation community.  Made in the USA with fair trade and the environment in mind.

Developed by world-famous Innovation Expert and Author Nicholas Webb, The Hänz Inventors Lab actually teaches children the same methods that are used by corporations to create world-class innovations. Children can also compete online with other innovators. Have fun and create hundreds of innovations. Made in the USA with fair trade and the environment in mind.

Our exciting Marshmallow Launcher allows you to create hundreds of designs to launch both large and small marshmallows. The learning opportunities include just about every principle of engineering and physics. Flinging food while learning physics and engineering...the winning combination. Made in the USA with fair trade and the environment in mind.

Floats and travels on a cushion of air. Will divide the wind power generated by one propeller to the power to go forward and the power to float. Uses the force generated by a propeller to hover and travel forward. Floats and travels on a cushion of forced air.

Recycle a plastic bottle into a cyclonic vacuum cleaner.

Faint or distant sounds will seem louder. Have fun listening to many different sounds all around you.

Easy and fun to assemble! Make your very own working metal detector. The metal detector's magnet field is affected when there is metal near it. The detector senses this change in the magnetic field, allowing it to detect metal.

Foster your children’s imagination and creative expression with our revolutionary new block design! A cube with square holes on each face, and a single, connecting stud located off-center. Unlike traditional building blocks which can only be stacked, an Artec Block can be connected in all directions. Horizontal, vertical, and even diagonal connections are possible for unparalleled ease and freedom. The possibilities are endless in the structures, animals, and shapes you can make!

The Modular™ Fortress Engineer Construction Kit takes a unique approach, allowing true three-dimensional architecture to be constructed. The game develops abstract thinking, three dimensional perception, and creativity. Compatible with other "Modular™ Toy Construction kits." Watch and participate with your children while they’re thinking, planning, and building in all three dimensions. Includes:                                       
  - 139 construction pieces                 
  - 3 character                                   
  - Decorative stickers and accessories

The Modular™ Fairy Tale Castle Construction Kit takes a unique approach, allowing true three-dimensional architecture to be constructed. The game develops abstract thinking, three dimensional perception, and creativity. Compatible with other "Modular™ Toy Construction kits." Watch and participate with your children while they’re thinking, planning, and building in all three dimensions. Includes:                                       
  - 85 construction pieces,                   
  - 2 character,                                   
  - Decorative stickers and accessories.

With 4 chunky board books and a 6-piece puzzle that fit neatly in a frame for easy storage, children can dive into the deep with Read and Play: Under the Sea. Meet Turtle's new friends at the reef, play hide-and-seek with Octopus, join Clown Fish for her first day at fish school, and make a splash at the beach with Dolphin! For just $12.95, this fun and unique format that will engage children ages 3 and up.

Animal Adventures: Rain Forest is a delightful play set designed to teach children ages 5 and up about the mysteries of the rain forest. With fact cards, 6 plastic animals, 4 press-out models of animals to assemble, a diorama play scene, removable stickers, and a 40-page book packed with intriguing facts, Animal Adventures: Rain Forest is a value at just $21.95.

Discover the mysterious age of the dinosaurs with Build the T. Rex! Packed with colorful illustrations and fascinating facts about dinosaurs, kids can build their very own 2.5-foot-tall Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. At just $19.95, each kit includes an informative 32-page book plus 49 dinosaur model pieces that slot together--no scissors or glue required. Ideal for children ages 6 and up.

Silver Dolphin’s Build It series combines visual and kinesthetic learning. Perfect for ages 6 and up, each fact-filled title includes a 32-page informative book and pieces to construct a two-and-a-half foot model of the given subject. No glue or scissors are required for assembly! At just $19.95, these unique interactive guides cover everything from the human body and dinosaurs to sharks and rockets.

Candies come in numerous colors and varieties and have a long history. The word candy began to be used in the late 13th Century, coming into English from the French "çucre candi." Candy is made by dissolving sugar in water or milk to form a  syrup, which is then boiled until it reaches the desired concentration or starts to caramelize. The resulting type of candy depends on the ingredients and how long the mixture is boiled. As the syrup is heated and boils, the water evaporates, the sugar concentration increases and the boiling point temperature rises. A given temperature corresponds to a particular sugar concentration. In general, higher temperatures and greater sugar concentrations result in hard, brittle candies, and lower temperatures result in softer candies. The candy business underwent drastic changes in the 1830s when technological advances and the greatly increased supply of sugar reduced its cost and opened up the market. Confectioners no longer supplied candy only to the wealthy, but to children, as well. The village candy store became a favorite of children of the American working class. Penny candies epitomized this transformation of candy, and candy became the first product on which children spent their own money. For this reason, candy store owners often relied almost entirely on the business of children to stay in business.  Today the global sales of candy are about $60 billion.