Say you want a gift that will encourage Junior to commit a little learning. And say you don’t want to resort to computer software.
Say hallelujah, because there are enough non-binary educational toys out there to satisfy the most fervent believer that if children learn by playing, they might someday get a perfect score on the math portion of their SATs.
But first, a warning. Beware the quiz-type toy, in which a child is asked questions by an electronic licensed character and rewarded for correct answers with beeps or unctuous recorded voices saying, “Very good!” They don’t teach. They teach children to cough up what they’ve learned elsewhere. Sure, you can get your child to press the buttons like a trained monkey hoping for a banana; but why should you?
Luckily, you don’t have to. There are educational toys to give children information, or teach them how to reason and figure things out, or simply to help them have a good time with math problems or dictionary definitions. Many can be found at educational toy stores.
And they can be found for even the youngest of children. Take Wonder Cubes by Early Learning Centre ($11.99), available at Zany Brainy. There are nine stackable cubes, each of which demonstrates a different optical effect. Children look through the top of the cube with a picture of multiple bunnies and they look through a refracting lens that breaks the world into multiple images.
And even children as young as 4 can learn the mathematical skill of seeing likenesses and relationships between objects with an intriguing game called 3 For ME by Patch ($9.99 at Zany Brainy), which is popular with home-schoolers. It is a set of plastic tiles bearing pictures of things like a piece of cheese, a skunk or a sock. Children choose three tiles whose objects they think are related in some way, and explain the relationship. For example: Cheese, skunks and socks all smell. A delightful twist: No answer is wrong, as long as the child can provide a credible, or sort of credible, explanation of what the objects have in common.
And to get a jump on medical school, Noodle Kidoodle offers My First Skeleton ($22.99) for children as young as 6. It is a 16-inch, fully assembled, plastic human skeleton with movable joints that shows children what they’re made of–and holds significant decorative promise for next Halloween.
Some toys promise results. Ready to Read Phonics by Educational Insights ($34.99 at Zany Brainy), for example, says it teaches children to read. But here the line between toy and teacher is blurred. The kit comes with four audio cassettes that teach the sounds of letters. One 6-year-old, in the process of proving that it does, quickly dismissed it as boring. (On the other hand, the same child has been begging to play the games enclosed in the kit, like the one in which players advance on a game board by filling in blanks to spell words. The kit gets a mixed review.)
What about ants? Ant-watching is a time-honored educational activity that consumed hours of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman’s time when he was at Princeton. The latest in ant farms is The Lost City of Ant-Lantis by NSI, which features a clear gel that ants can both burrow through and eat. The result is a thin and rather pretty clear slice of ant life. It is available for $12.99 at Toys “R” Us.
To further pursue science, try the Newton’s Apple series of science kits based on the public television science show and available at Zany Brainy. Newton’s Greatest Hits from The Wild Goose Co. ($17.99), for example, helps kids learn laws of physics using a collection of paraphernalia like magnets, washers, rubber tubing and a plastic car, along with a funny booklet that is perfectly understandable to children. While it is suggested for ages 8 to adult, our 6-year-old tester had a fine time flicking a metal washer at the bottom of a stack of washers, knocking the bottom one away while the upper ones remained. Did she really learn Newton’s First Law (objects at rest want to remain at rest)? We’ll find out when she gives her acceptance speech in Stockholm.
The liberal arts, too, are well represented in toy land. In the Land of Egypt by Aristoplay is a game played with cards that teach children about Egyptian life, how math was used to build pyramids and the hieroglyphic alphabet. Actually, there are eight possible versions of the game, which can be played by following different rules and using different cards in the game. It is available for $15 at several neighborhood toy stores, including WonderChild Toys (1908 W. 103rd St., 773-445-8697), or through the Metropolitan Museum of Art catalog (800-468-7386). The museum catalog also offers By Jove ($25), a board game by Aristoplay based on classical mythology.
In the history department, children can try Chronology from the Great American Puzzle Factory, in which players must arrange in chronological order cards bearing information on an event in history. It is fairly challenging. The junior version, aimed at age 9 and up, could require players to know, for example, that the first synagogue in the U.S. was founded before the Battles of Lexington and Concord. But guessing often works, and the resulting time line gives a good sense of the sweep of history. Both versions are available through the MindWare catalog ($32.95 and $24.95, 800-999-0398). Chronology Junior sells for $19.99 at Noodle Kidoodle.
A crafty facts-in-a-box toy is Box Topics, which supplies games, stories and activities on a single subject. The one on West Africa, for example, includes materials to make a cowrie-shell decorated Nigerian neck wallet, and picture cards that explain things like why black pepper is called “Grains of Paradise” (it was once used to pay taxes, give tribute or make up a dowry). It costs about $20. To find a local store that sells it, call Briarpatch at 800-232-7427.
Sometimes the lowest-tech games can be the most fun, like cards that use riddles or clues to exercise the brain. MindWare sells several nice versions, including Handful of Riddles by Geoscapes ($14.95) for ages 8 and up (“I’m known as a tree/That grows in the sand/But some only know me/As part of my hand). And for older children, Bella’s Mystery Deck by MindWare ($16.95) is a set of cards describing non-violent mysteries solved by the fictional star–who is, refreshingly, a 13-year-old Latina girl. The challenge is to figure out how she did it; the answers are written in reverse type at the bottom of each card, to be read with the enclosed mirror card.
Of course, you can’t go wrong with a classic. The Visible Man and The Visible Woman by Skilcraft, those see-through assembly masterpieces of anatomical correctness, are still around ($17.99, Zany Brainy).
So are Scrabble, Boggle and all manner of microscopes and chemistry sets. The huge Smithsonian Microchem XM 5000 (Toys “R” Us, $39.99), contains chemicals for more than 1,500 experiments in a storage chest. Parents with fond memories of using chemistry sets to blow things up should note that the amounts and strength of the chemicals have been reduced for safety. There is also a less-expensive line of smaller Smithsonian Smartlabs, available at Noodle Kidoodle, that let children grow crystals or build a weather station.
And finally, there is always the learning aid that has been opening new worlds to children, and adults, for centuries.
It is called a book.
