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Double Benefits From Educational Toys
By Michael Kirtley, Fri Dec 9th

Here are some carefully selected fun toys to help in thelearning and development for children of all ages. Theseeducational toys are particularly effective for spatialdevelopment, imaginative play, cognitive skill and motordevelopment; plus and most importantly, they are all lots offun. These toys provide the double benefits of fun play andstealth learning. Play that is visual and spatial in nature andthat is full of color, creativity, and images. Everyone fromyoung children to senior citizens enjoys playing with magnets.Magnets are the only common item in our world that exhibits thefascinating magical-like ability to attract and repel. We haveall enjoyed just snapping magnets together and then turning themaround and noticing how they repel. Here is an award winningline up of toys that use the power of magnets combined withother aspects of learning. For the younger age group of 3 and upwe recommend the magnetic puzzles by the Orb Factory. These 15piece puzzles fit together easily and the magnetic pieces helpthe less dexterous fingers of small children keep the pieces inplace. These puzzles come with a steel playing surface but themagnetic pieces allow the puzzle to be put together on any steelsurface such as a fridge or filing cabinet. For more complex 2dimensional tiling on a flat surface, Fractile-7 is our pick.Fractiles-7 is a unique art and design toy that consists of manybrightly colored magnetic diamond shapes that fit together on a12″ square steel activity board. The diamonds come in differentsizes and angles that fit together to form complex geometricshapes. The permutations of shapes and colorful designs that canbe created with Fractiles-7 are almost endless. Our toprecommendation for pre-schoolers is Magna Tiles. Youngerchildren (ages 3 and up) will love MagnaTiles which are a set of3-D magnetic building tiles of different geometric shapes thateasily click together. For young minds, taking flat objects andcreating 3-D objects is a new and exciting discovery. Childrenwill learn through having fun playing with Magna-Tiles aboutgeometric shapes, symmetry and spatial relationships. Anotherpopular toy that takes advantage of the magic of magnets are therod and ball sets like GeoMags and Magz. This type of magneticconstruction toy uses rods with magnets embedded in the ends andsteel balls (due to small parts this toy is for ages 5 and up).The rods snap to each other and to the balls which allow for anyangle to be constructed. These sets are especially good forconstructing geometric shapes and larger structures usingsimpler geometric shapes as the building blocks. For the moreartistically inclined, we have discovered a couple kits that aresure to please. Mosaics are pictures or patterns made by placingsmall colored tiles together. Magnetic Mosaics uses 2000 smallcolorful non-toxic foam magnets and a 12″ square activitysurface to allow the creation of beautiful mosaic art. The kitcontains information on the history of mosaics and creativemosaic projects. A similar type of kit is Magnetic Dreamingswhich uses Aboriginal art as the inspiration to create strikingartwork using magnetic dots of color. Another science relatedtoy that we love is Zome Systems (also known as ZomeTools) whichmakes a range of kits from small sets for under $10 to huge setscosting almost $200. Zome Systems also provides books and lessonplans with help and ideas for learning play and instruction.Instead of magnets, Zome Systems uses different length strutswith nodes (again, small parts means these kits are recommendedfor ages 6 and up) which snap together allowing for theconstruction of anything from a simple cube to a structure ascomplex as a DNA molecule. The Zome System is used in thousandsof schools worldwide - elementary through college - and byleading scientists, mathematicians, artists and engineers. Weespecially like the Zome Bubble kit. If you make a cube and dipit into bubble solution, what shape bubble will you get? I betyou’re wrong (hint: it’s not a cube). Watch your child’samazement - you will be amazed too.

About the author:Michael Kirtley is the owner-manager of Nature’s Tapestry (http://www.naturestapestry.com ). You are welcome to visit hissite to learn more about educational toys.

Improve Your Students’ Skills With Puzzles And Games
By Aldene Fredenburg, Sat Dec 10th

Pattern recognition, spatial relationships, and logical thinkingare all necessary skills as students learn to read, do math, anddevelop problem-solving strategies. Having a big collection ofpuzzles and games on hand can make developing these skills fun.

Many children’s magazines contain creative, age-appropriategames that reinforce the content of the text, but that’s onlyone source. You can also enlist parents to contribute crosswordpuzzles and other games they find from newspapers and magazines.

Sudoku is all the rage now; papers from the local daily to theNew York Times carry at least one sudoku puzzle in everyissue. Each puzzle consists of a large square, divided into ninesections in a 3X3 pattern, each of which is divided into ninemore squares, also in a 3×3 pattern. The object of the game isto place the numerals from 1 to 9 in each of the nine squares ofeach section; numerals cannot be repeated within the sections oracross or up and down in any line of squares. A great way forolder kids to practice pattern recognition and problem solvingstrategies, the sudoku puzzles range from the simple to themaddeningly difficult; the New York Post offers both aneasy and difficult puzzle in every issue, and sells sudoku booksas well. A number of websites offer free sukodu puzzles playableonline, and offer software programs which can be purchased anddownloaded; start with sudoku.com.

Mah jongg is an ancient Asian game traditionally played withdecorative tiles arranged and stacked in a three-dimensionalpattern. The object of the game is to find two identical tilesand remove them from the pile; the trick is that the tilescannot have another tile located on top of it or to the left orright; one side has to be free. Sort of like an elaborateversion of “Old Maid” or “Go Fish,” the tiles have both simpleand complex patterns; several patterns have subtle differences,demanding fine-tuned pattern recognition skills in addition tospatial relationship abilities. Simplified versions areavailable for younger children. Kids who enjoy tactilekinesthetic activities will have fun manipulating the tiles;visually oriented computer fans may prefer one of the many mahjongg programs available online. Both multi-player and solitaireversions are available; play a solitaire versionfree; or check out multiple versions of mah jongg forkids.

Yahooligans.comincludes a huge collection of games and other interesting infofor kids. Other websites offer games which can be played onlinewith other web surfers around the world, but if you’re thinkingof allowing your students access to a game site online, be sureto check it out and monitor the kids frequently, to make surethey don’t end up in communication with the wrong people.

You may want to use these games as a springboard for yourself oryour students to develop their own games, for themselves or foryounger kids. A version of sudoku for younger kids, for example,might involve pictures of nine different kinds of animals; finda few very simple sudoku puzzles and substitute nine differentanimal pictures for the numbers. Create a giant sudoku grid andmake big cardboard or wooden animal pieces to make it easy forlittle hands to manipulate them. However you decide toincorporate games and puzzles into your classroom, it’s a greatway to keep kids learning while they play.

About the author:Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwesternNew Hampshire and frequently contributes to Tips andTopics. She may be reached at amfredenburg@yahoo.com.