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Nothing beats lying on the grass on a warm August evening staring up in the sky and conveying the majesty and mystery of the heavens to a small child. … Celestron Skyscout – $199 (50% cheaper than in 2007) – The Skyscout uses GPS to ID and 8000 starts and planets and then will even tell you about via audio or text. … Orion Star Target Planisphere ” target=”_blank”>Orion Star Target Planishere – $11.00 – This stargazing the old fashioned way, with a map of the heavens you hold up in the night sky.
Category Archives: Toys and Games
Guess Who Travel Game
November 2, 2008 – 1:09 pm
Guess Who Travel Gam e – Our kids loved this simple game that teaches kids deductive reasoning as they eliminate suspects to find the last person standing. By asking questions of their competitor like “does the person where glasses” or “have blond hair,” kids can easily play the game even before they can read. … $10.45 (a bit more expensive than you would think for a game built like this, but we did get our money’s worth.)
Thomas’ Great Race Game for kids 3+
October 29, 2008 – 11:10 am
Because the questions have to be read, this is a game that requires close involvement with an adult or with an older child. … Since just two or three correct answers send the trains down the hill, the game ends quickly As with a lot of games like this, adults have to quickly make peace with the fact this is not a game developed for them. Our kids, too, were only willing to play the game a few times “by the rules,” and then went on to moving the pieces around under the direction of my four year old boy.
The Easy Bake Oven is back! (but minus Betty Crocker)
October 29, 2008 – 10:50 am
As hard as it is to believe, I actually played with a Betty Crocker Easy Bake Oven when I was about six or seven years old. I was excited to try this out the Easy Bake Oven from Hasbro with my own kids, a four year old boy and eight year old girl. There was great excitement at the house when we opened it up, which was tempered a bit when we had to first search for a 100 W lightbulb to make it work.
Cloud B Constellation Nightlight
October 27, 2008 – 3:43 pm
I like it because it turns their entire room into a planetarium, with choices of blue or green stars (and a moon). Stargazing has always been a special time for me with the kids and, while they can’t always figure out what I’m pointing at, they like the time lying on the grass staring up at the sky with daddy and talking about ‘stuff.’ While the Cloud B Sea Turtle, and it’s other endangered animal constellation brothers, can’t replace that experience, it reminds of good times we’ve had and to come.
Buy this today – Lego Advent calendar
October 10, 2008 – 1:38 pm
LEGO City Advent Calendar 2008 – If you wait very much longer this cool advent calendar will be sold out for Christmas. This calendar has absolutely nothing to do with the holiday, but kids love to open up the little parts every day at breakfast, counting down the days ’till they have more stuff to open. Make sure to get a little plastic box as well to hold all the little tiny parts.
Play-doh Magic Swirl
October 9, 2008 – 5:37 pm
Kids like the many forms you can use to make ice cream-like objects and have a lot of fun playing waiter for hours on end. … Dads, even, will enjoy playing with this for a few minutes since it’s pretty captivating how play-doh can be manipulated into miniature, yet “life-like” forms. … This is unfortunate since it’s hard to really clean all the little bits of play-doh off it, and it does eventually shed a lot of play-doh crumbs all around its environs.
The cowboy
September 7, 2008 – 3:15 pm
Affordable at $79, and less upkeep than a real horse! From Dayla Baby
I Spy Mystery and I Spy Fantasy
May 26, 2008 – 5:55 pm
Our computer DVD has been having problems and little by little we lost the ability to run any kids games that need a DVD to run. Now that it’s fixed, the kids are re-discovering their old friends, I Spy Mystery and I Spy Fantasy from Scholastic…. all the time, and it’s easy, and fun, for adults to peak in and join them in their quest for objects and words hidden in fantasy landscapes and setttings.