This is a Snap Circuits SC-300 review. The toy, manufactured by Elenco Electronics is the ideal toy for any parents wishing to introduce science and electronics to their child. While I do think that this toy is probably better suited for boys, my two daughters have really enjoyed the whole experience, and are clearly much better at understanding how electricity works. I found out about this toy when I was looking around on amazon for educational toys for my daughter’s birthday. This toy was ranked very highly and had a position inside the top 20 best selling toys last time I looked, but seeing as the list changes every day this ranking is very fluid.
This toy has won quite a few awards including the National Parenting Center – Seal of Approval, The Dr. Toy 100 Best Children’s products and the Dr. Toy Best Educational products award. Whether you think that this toy is really worth buying just on the fact that it comes with these awards is up to you, I personally made sure to check the customer reviews, both good and bad before I actually bought it.
The recommended age for this toy is 8 years and above, although I definitely think that there is room for this toy to be played with by children under that age. My younger daughter was turning 7 years old when we got this, and she was already at the stage where she was able to put together some of the basic circuits. One great thing about this toy is the fact that it allows kids to build on the things they have learned in previous projects. The ordering of the projects is in difficulty order, they will begin by putting together simple things like an electric light and switch project which allows shows them how electricity is turned on and off with a switch. Then later they can build things like a fire fan symphony and a water detection alarm.
The box comes with the following parts. It of course has the plastic “snap-grid”, 32 electric components and 2 project manuals. The number of projects listed with the product is 305, but you will find that there are actually only somewhere in the vicinity of 130 – 140 “base” projects, and the rest of the projects that you can do are “extensions” of the base projects.
Overall, I would have to say that this buying this toy has been an excellent experience and the amount of time that my kids have spent experimenting and playing with this toy, more than justifies the price. Thanks very much for reading this review of the Snap Circuits SC300 set.
The Blokus Classics Game is a brilliant game for all the family, and because the rules are so simple, you really can get the whole family into this game and entertained for hours at a time. Blokus has won many rewards and is apparently the most awarded game of the 21st century, it won the 2003 game of the year and it has also won an award from Mensa for promoting healthy brain activity. If all of these awards are not enough to convince you of the quality of this game, please continue reading the rest of this review.
This game very quickly became one of our family favorites and because of the simple nature of the game it is very easy for my younger daughter, who is still only 6 years old to join in the fun. This is actually the first game that we have had that she has been able to join properly. Learning the rules takes just a few minutes, but it takes a good long time to master the placing of the tiles, and because there are so many different possibilities every single game that you play is different even if you are playing against the same players time and time again.
The objective of each game is to get rid of all your tiles as best you can. When you place a piece on the board, it must not be adjacent (or “next to”) any of your previously placed tiles, but it must be touching the corner of a previously placed tile. If you look at the picture you can see what I mean.
The only negative that I would mention for this game is the fact that the board is ideally suited for 4 players, and when you play with just 2 or 3 players it pretty much always just ends up as “whoever plays first wins”, which does ruin the game. One way that someone online has found to solve this, and I can attest to the effectiveness, is to take a black marker and draw a line 1 square in from the outer edge of the board, effectively making the 20 x 20 board an 18 x 18 board. The 18 x 18 is the best size for a 3 player game, and if you want to play with just 2 players you can draw another line one more square in, and this will give you the ideal board for 2 players at 16 x 16 squares.
There are also a few other game types that you can play including “Draft Blokus” where you can play 2 different colors. There is also then “Reverse Blokus” where the objective is reversed and you must place as few blocks on the board as you can. Then there is “Solitaire Blokus” where you play on your own with the objective of placing all of your pieces in one sitting.
Thanks for looking over this cheap Blokus Classics Game review.
The LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 is a robot building set from LEGO. It is a decent improvement on the original Mindstorms NXT building set. In this review I would like to go over the features of this new NXT set, and also talk about my personal feelings and experiences with this LEGO robotics set.
The NXT 2.0 retails for somewhere around 270 dollars, but the price can vary quite a bit from retailer to retailer. I would suggest that looking online is the best way to keep the price low. The set comes with 619 pieces including motors and sensors, or 613 pieces without them. There is now a sensor for detecting colors, this sensor can detect six different colors; red, green, blue, white, black and yellow. There are now 2 touch sensors which allow for the robot to react to touch, the older NXT only had the 1 touch sensor and 1 sound sensor.
The addition of an ultrasonic sensor is super exciting as well, because the robot can now detect objects at a distance of up to 8 feet. There are 3 servo motors which let the robot interact with environment. There is the same NXT “brick”, which is the programmable computer core responds to information from the sensors and also sends commands to control the motors. The NXT brick is capable of Bluetooth connection with a computer or with up to 3 different NXT bricks.
Then there is the programming. The programming can get really quite deep when you do it using computer software. There is a small amount of programming that you can do just on the brick itself, but it’s quite limited.
There are a few set programs that you can use, these include:-
- Robogator; an alligator that snaps its jaws at objects that get in its way.
- Shooter Bot; a robot that launches balls when it detects movement.
- Color Sorter; this robot separates colors of balls into different trays.
- Alpha Rex; this is a humanoid robot that walks forward, backward, it can turn, talk, grab things and it can also see.
All of these different robots are lots of fun to play with, but I would recommend that the Shooter Bot might be the easiest to assemble and the one to go with first if you are a beginner.
I bought this toy for my 10 year old son, and while he does get a lot of enjoyment out of it, some of the programming can get a little bit too complicated for him. It is a lot of fun me though, and over time I think he will pick it up.
In conclusion, I would like to recommend this as a great toy for introducing your child to robotics and to one of the most entertaining parts of science. For information on where to get a discount Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 check out your favorite online retailer.
This is a toy that will have all Harry Potter fans busy for hours building it, and then busy playing with for months on end after they have finished construction of the castle. The LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle took me and my kids about 3 or 4 hours to complete. But once it was done my kids were jumping about with excitement wanting to play with it. I think that the castle is definitely a little bit too difficult for children under the age of 8 to build, and even some children of age 8 will probably have difficulty with it, unless they have been playing with LEGO for a long time.
The castle includes a whole host of different things from the harry potter books and movies. The rooms include the Great Hall (which is something that has been missing from previous sets), Library, Dumbledore’s office, the room of requirement, common rooms, astronomy tower, owlery and quite a few more. With 1200+ LEGO pieces, there is quite a bit to castle. I’m pretty sure it is the biggest LEGO Harry P. Castle that has been released to date, although there has been a slightly larger castle scheduled for this year so I hear.
Most of the characters from the books are included as well. Harry, Hermione, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall, Flitwick, Filch, Mrs. Norris and two dementors. The exclusion of Ron is probably my biggest complaint with the whole set. I think that the only reason to exclude probably the second biggest character in the whole series is to attempt to force parents into buying yet another of these toys in an attempt to complete the set. The fact that this is being done with kids toys and if the parents do not get the extra toy it will leave the kids put out is not too nice at all.
The price of the castle has now come down in price and you should be able to pick it up for less than 120 dollars. Taking the size of this castle into account this really is value for money. While I put this castle together with my daughters and it took us just one afternoon, if your child was about 10 years old and building it on his own, it could take him a little longer to put together. Also once the castle has been completed the complexity of the thing should ensure that they get months if not years of play time out of it. If you were worried about the durability of the castle once complete you can rest at ease, because my daughters have given it quite a thorough testing over the last few weeks and it is still in one piece.
Thanks for reading this LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle review.
The Melissa and Doug Deluxe Magnetic Responsibility Chart is the latest addition to our household, and I must say that referring to this as a “toy” is a little misleading. This is a fantastic tool for motivating your kids. I recently bought a couple of these for my daughters, who are 4 and 2 respectively. I was thinking that it would be more of a “use at some point in the future” gift for both of them to be honest, but the 4 year old is already very much into getting rewards for completing the tasks. It’s not just getting the reward that she likes, but it’s also placing the magnets on the board and filling up her column for the day.
The chart comes with magnets with all sorts of different responsibility titles. Here is a list of the titles; get dressed, make bed, clear table, take bath, put toys away, keep hands to self (“don’t touch Daddy’s things” might have been better here…), brush teeth, stop whining (I haven’t awarded this one too often), apologize, say please/thank you, help with indoor/outdoor chores, no teasing, show respect, load/empty dishwasher, put clothes in wash, don’t use bad language, set table, take care of pet, do homework, make bed, clean room, take out trash and there are also 2 blank that you can write for yourself.
Of course not all of the tasks are appropriate for my daughters, I won’t for example as them to take out the trash, but I will reward “making an effort” in pretty much all of the other tasks. I think that a reasonable amount of responsibilities for one day is 10. You can also assign an allowance system for each task completed. For example if you gave 10 cents for every 2 tasks completed then that means they can earn a $3.50 allowance with 10 tasks a day 7 days a week. Quite a good system that seems to get my older motivated, but she has yet to earn the full amount.
I went for this product for a few reasons, firstly because I just wanted a way to get my kids doing positive things during the day, but also because this particular product is reviewed and ranked so well on Amazon.com. It has the No.7 rank just in the “Toys and Games” section, but it has the No.1 rank for Toys & Games > Learning and Education. I was finally convinced after looking over some of the reviews.
Thanks very much for reading this Melissa and Doug Deluxe Magnetic Responsibility Chart review. I recommend this as one of the best “toys” that you can buy for children aged 3/4 to 13 years old.
Beyblade Metal Fusion Super Vortex Battle Set is a toy that is a replica of the old game battle tops. It involves players spinning tops into a concave plastic “battle arena” in an attempt to topple each other tops. The player whose top is the last one spinning is the winner. This installment of the game is based on the animated series of the same name. The premise of the game is the same however.
The different tops are customizable in this game, so you have five different pieces that you can put together in different orders to make a different top each time you play. The different tops that you ake can have different weights and be adjusted to have different shapes also. There is a lot of variability with this game, you might think it would be the same thing time and again, but each top has different strength and weaknesses, some of the tops are heavy, while some are fast spinning. Some tops have more endurance and some tops have more power. You will also see different results with different arenas, some tops will be better suited to different arenas.
It does seem to be the case that the creators of this toy had the intention of enticing people into buying all the different tops and arenas that are available as well. This set comes with two different tops and with just the one arena. If you do want to get the most out of this game, it does seem like a great idea to get all the other tops that are available and to buy an extra arena or two. That is of course up to you.
You launch the tops into the arena using a “rip-cord”, if you miss the arena when launching the top, you lose the round, so technique when launching is very important. If two players had all of the available tops there could be a enough variety and strategy to give this game some real longevity, but as it stands with this set, the “Pegasus Storm” top does seem to win more rounds than the “Drago” spinning top. This again could be part of the plot to get users to buy some more tops, but there you go.
My children did seem to enjoy playing with this set, but I think they would have enjoyed it even more if they had been fans of the animated series. I would like to thoroughly recommend this toy as a great gift for children in the 2nd or 3rd grade. Obivously more geared towards boys, but girls can get some play time out of it too.
Thanks for reading this Beyblade Metal Fusion Super Vortex Battle Set review.
Quirkle is one of those games that is very easy to pick up, but once you are hooked on it, you can easily lose hours playing it. I bought this game last year for my two kids, myself and my wife to play. This is an ideal game for us all to play as a family because my wife is Japanese and her English is not native level. When we play games that involve ordering words and things like that in English it can get a little bit too much for her. This on the other hand is the ideal game not just for her, but also for my children, who also would struggle to play a word ordering game properly.
The game Quirkle was made by “mindware” and the gameplay is very straight forward, it can be explained even to a small child in just a few minutes. There are 108 tiles in the box. The tiles come in 6 different colors and 6 different shapes. The object of the game is to match the shapes to each other or match the colors to each other. So you can put a red square to a red diamond or a square of any color. As long as the color “or” shape is the same you are good to go. For every tile that you successfully place on the board you receive one point. During each go you have the option to either place a tile, or you may choose to give up your current turn in order to exchange one of the tiles in your hand for a tile from the pile.
Each player begins the round with 6 tiles, and must keep 6 tiles in their hand until all of the remaining tiles from the middle of the table have been used up. After they have all gone the winner of the game is the next person to successfully place all of their tiles on the table.
This game is ranked incredibly well on Amazon.com it has a ranking of #9 in the best sellers list. That might be enough to convince you that this game is worthy of some attention, but if not I should mention that this game has won numerous awards including the Mensa Best Mind Game Award 2007 and the Major Fun Award 2007. If that is not enough then you will just to take my word that this is one of the most engrossing yet simple to play games that me and my family have every played.
Thanks very much for taking the time to read this game review.
If you have been looking for a unique way to entertain the kids, and keep them away from the game consoles for just a little bit longer than usual, then Loopz from Mattel is definitely a good way to go. I recently bought this game for my kids and I can tell you that they love it. I don’t know how long it will last, but for the moment at least they are arguing over who gets to play first!
The game device has 4 circular rings in a 4 square pattern, as you can see in the picture above. Each ring has a motion sensor attached to it so it knows when your hand passes through it. The game comes with a large array of different games that you can play, but the main premise is that you listen/ watch a pattern of pulsing lights and music, memorize the pattern and then repeat it yourself with as few mistakes as you possibly can. The game continues until you make 3 mistakes. Mistakes count not only with the order of the noises and lights, but also with the timing that you use.
On the front of the machine there is a “home” button and an “on/off” button. You can use the home button to change the game or restart, and also for adjusting the volume level.
There are 7 different game types available for you to play. The first is called “Repeat the Beat” and is the simple basic premise of the game. Watch/ listen to a pattern and then “repeat” it. “Reflex Master” Has you trying to touch as many lights as you can before the time runs out. “Rhythm and Flow” has you trying to keep the music playing by touching the different lights before they turn off. Then there is the “Free style DJ” and “Music Studio” modes. In the Music Studio mode you can play the device like it was an instrument, there are lots of different sounds and each sound has 10 distinct notes. The last mode is the “versus mode” for getting everyone involved. The versus mode allows for the first player to build a tune for the second player to repeat. Same as with the one player mode; 3 mistakes and you are out.
I would thoroughly recommend this game to all families out there, you might get a little irritated when you keep losing to your kids, but it is really masses of fun for everyone.
Thanks very much for taking the time to read this Loopz review.
I recently bought this game to give my kids some well needed English practice. Our family lives in Japan, so I thought this would be a great fun way to introduce them to some new English words. It is also super cheap as well, so I thought that it couldn’t hurt, even if the game didn’t live up to the huge amount of hype that it seems to get on Amazon.com.
I used to really love playing scrabble with my parents when I was young, but I remember not liking it all when players would spend hours hunting down “suspicious words in the dictionary. Or simply taking 10 minutes plus for their go. With Bananagrams that is all gone, unlike with scrabble, players are not rewarded with the points on the letters, in fact there are no points on the letter pieces at all. In this game players are rewarded for speed and flexibility in making their own crosswords. The rules aren’t strict like they are with scrabble either, you can pull apart your own crossword or just change the odd letter if you like.
The gameplay is as follows. The players begin a round by taking a certain number of tiles from the “bunch” which is what all of the remaining tiles as referred to as. Then when the players are ready, one player (doesn’t matter who) calls out “split!” at which all the players turn over their tiles, and must being sorting their tiles into a crossword form. Then the fastest player to sort out his pile into a crossword calls out “peel”. At this all the players must take one extra tile from the “bunch”. Once all of the tiles have been removed from the bunch, the first player to then finish re-sorting his or her crossword can shout out the word “bananas” and on successful inspection of his or her crossword will be declared the winner of the game.
The portability factor of this game is why I think it gets rated so very well over at Amazon, it is actually one of the most highly ranked toys on their best sellers list. You can keep all of the tiles in the little yellow “banana” pouch making it very easy to carry about. I myself have played this game on a flight back to the US just last year, it really did keep all the family engaged for a good couple of hours.
Thanks for reading this review, I hope that you are now that little bit closer to understanding what this toy is about.
As a huge gamer myself, I would like to take the opportunity to review the latest game that I bought “for my son” (honestly, it was for him). New Super Mario Bros. for Wii. This game is best Mario platformer that I have ever played, period. It takes all of the best aspects from the original 1983 NES classic Super Mario Bros., then some from Super Mario Bros. 3 and from the SNES game Super Mario World. But it has also included an offline multiplayer mode that is unrivalled in the gaming world at the moment in this reviewers opinion.
I will admit that while I bought this game for my son, I bought it with the intention of playing it with him (a lot). And that we do, at least 4 times a week (I try to keep the sessions to an hour or less, but as my can attest, I often fail). The fun factor is brilliant.
The new power ups that the game has include the propeller suit, which shoots you high up into the air, the new “ice flower”, which is the opposite of the old “fire flower” that you used to see in the previous games. The ice flower turns the enemies into ice statues that can be picked up and thrown to kill other enemies. Another power up includes th penguin suit which makes walking on icy surfaces no problem at all, and also allows you to swim… like a penguin.
You can opt to control the game with either the nunchuck attached to the controller, but I think the best way to control the game is the have the controller turned on its side so that it looks like an old NES controller. Activating power ups can also be achieved either by the old school “button push” or the new school “shake the pad up and down”. I find that shaking the pad is sometimes quite awkward to do during play, but is good fun never the less.
If I had to say something negative about this game it would be that for some strange reason Nintendo have neglected to include online play. With the potential for this to be such an awesome experience online as well as offline, it does leave me a little confused as to why Nintendo have left this out of the game. Perhaps they are leaving it for a future installment.
In conclusion I would have to say that this is my favorite game for the Wii by a good long way. Mario Galaxy was close, but the multiplayer with this game is too much fun. The longevity of the game is brilliant as well you will keep coming back to play it, time and time again. I thoroughly recommend this game.
Thanks for reading.
