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Double Benefits from Educational Toys

Here are some carefully selected fun toys to help in the
learning and development for children of all ages. These
educational toys are particularly effective for spatial
development, imaginative play, cognitive skill and motor
development; plus and most importantly, they are all lots of
fun. These toys provide the double benefits of fun play and
stealth learning. Play that is visual and spatial in nature and
that is full of color, creativity, and images. Everyone from
young children to senior citizens enjoys playing with magnets.
Magnets are the only common item in our world that exhibits the
fascinating magical-like ability to attract and repel. We have
all enjoyed just snapping magnets together and then turning them
around and noticing how they repel. Here is an award winning
line up of toys that use the power of magnets combined with
other aspects of learning. For the younger age group of 3 and up
we recommend the magnetic puzzles by the Orb Factory. These 15
piece puzzles fit together easily and the magnetic pieces help
the less dexterous fingers of small children keep the pieces in
place. These puzzles come with a steel playing surface but the
magnetic pieces allow the puzzle to be put together on any steel
surface such as a fridge or filing cabinet. For more complex 2
dimensional tiling on a flat surface, Fractile-7 is our pick.
Fractiles-7 is a unique art and design toy that consists of many
brightly colored magnetic diamond shapes that fit together on a
12" square steel activity board. The diamonds come in different
sizes and angles that fit together to form complex geometric
shapes. The permutations of shapes and colorful designs that can
be created with Fractiles-7 are almost endless. Our top
recommendation for pre-schoolers is Magna Tiles. Younger
children (ages 3 and up) will love MagnaTiles which are a set of
3-D magnetic building tiles of different geometric shapes that
easily click together. For young minds, taking flat objects and
creating 3-D objects is a new and exciting discovery. Children
will learn through having fun playing with Magna-Tiles about
geometric shapes, symmetry and spatial relationships. Another
popular toy that takes advantage of the magic of magnets are the
rod and ball sets like GeoMags and Magz. This type of magnetic
construction toy uses rods with magnets embedded in the ends and
steel 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 any
angle to be constructed. These sets are especially good for
constructing geometric shapes and larger structures using
simpler geometric shapes as the building blocks. For the more
artistically inclined, we have discovered a couple kits that are
sure to please. Mosaics are pictures or patterns made by placing
small colored tiles together. Magnetic Mosaics uses 2000 small
colorful non-toxic foam magnets and a 12" square activity
surface to allow the creation of beautiful mosaic art. The kit
contains information on the history of mosaics and creative
mosaic projects. A similar type of kit is Magnetic Dreamings
which uses Aboriginal art as the inspiration to create striking
artwork using magnetic dots of color. Another science related
toy that we love is Zome Systems (also known as ZomeTools) which
makes a range of kits from small sets for under $10 to huge sets
costing almost $200. Zome Systems also provides books and lesson
plans with help and ideas for learning play and instruction.
Instead of magnets, Zome Systems uses different length struts
with nodes (again, small parts means these kits are recommended
for ages 6 and up) which snap together allowing for the
construction of anything from a simple cube to a structure as
complex as a DNA molecule. The Zome System is used in thousands
of schools worldwide - elementary through college - and by
leading scientists, mathematicians, artists and engineers. We
especially like the Zome Bubble kit. If you make a cube and dip
it into bubble solution, what shape bubble will you get? I bet
you're wrong (hint: it's not a cube). Watch your child's
amazement - 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 his
site to learn more about href="http://naturestapestry.com">educational toys.

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