What's your favorite educational toy?

[RCT]

I am just curious to all of you....Teachers/homeschoolers/mothers what would your favorite educational toy be?????

[littlesista06]

Dd's most played with "educational toy"....... paper and pencil.
She has more creativity and imagination ...... that's the first thing she'll go for in the playroom.

BTW - while cleaning up/out the playroom and making room for the C'mas goodies ---------- GUESS what's she's playing with???

A CHUNK OF STYROFOAM!!!!!!! Yep, I'm thinking her b'day (in Feb.) is gonna be "TOY-FREE". I'm thinking a book, magazine subscription or membership to the science museum..... something that doesn't come in a box or require batteries!

[RCT]

LOL...I was thinking of no new stuff for thier birthday's either....we could just rotate what is in the closet here...they don't even know what they have anymore....

my dad suggested that spelling twisty thing from leap pad for my ds since he is having trouble with spelling...but...I just don't want to buy anything that will sit here and collect dust....

[Leigh]

I don't have any children, but during my research for school, I have found some really neat educational game sites. I would have to say the computer is my favorite educational toy right now.

[KarlaB]

Originally posted by littlesista06
BTW - while cleaning up/out the playroom and making room for the C'mas goodies ---------- GUESS what's she's playing with???

A CHUNK OF STYROFOAM!!!!!!! !

Phew! So glad I'm not alone! ;) Youngest ds did that on Christmas when all of his brand new toys were sitting around him!! 8o He built some pretend building with the empty boxes and styrofoam!

[KarlaB]

Renee - Do either of your dks have Leap Pad? Both of my dks like that, but of course go in spurts with it.

[MaryL]

Hmmm...my favorite educational "toy"/supply would have to be books, books, books!!! My boys have tons of them. We read ALOT! I also like Magna Doodles, Brain Quest card decks, and games like Uno, Match 'Em, etc. The gift of an imagination is one of the best gifts you can encourage in your child. I love to hear my dks "making up games". It's a riot...and I know they are learning at the same time.

[angie r]

My dk's love their leap pad/imagination desk. Ds got the turbo twist spelling for Christmas and he is loving it so far. I have the mind station so I can download his weekly spelling test into it.

Books are the best!!

[kat]

Originally posted by MaryL
Hmmm...my favorite educational "toy"/supply would have to be books, books, books!!! My boys have tons of them. We read ALOT! I also like Magna Doodles, Brain Quest card decks, and games like Uno, Match 'Em, etc. The gift of an imagination is one of the best gifts you can encourage in your child. I love to hear my dks "making up games". It's a riot...and I know they are learning at the same time.

MaryL, great minds think alike. (or kindergarten teachers) I have to say books. Kids need one on one cuddle and read time with mom and dad. It's so much better than sitting and playing with some electric gadgit while mom and dad do something else.

[Suz]

I would have to agree that books are top on my list too. Also, though, I love educational games - like "Name that State" and "Name that Country" great for teaching basic Geography. And also like our Geosafari.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[arianna]

MM!

I have to say we'd be lost with computers.

That being said, it then would have to be:

Software.
Carmen Sandiego, Oregon Trail, and most of the Blasters.
Son #1 uses MSWord well and will begin with Excel this month. We're going to build an Excel list for his vocabulary words.

The Internet
This is the best bill I pay each month. We have such limited resources here, we really depend on the internet for a lot of information.

Books and other reading material
I love books, my kids love books...... and comic books, (Scooby-Doo and Spiderman)game-guides for their PS2 and GBA games,
instruction booklets for Legos and Bionicals, Lego Magazine, Web Pages, and email.

Legos! Legos! Legos!
We love them! No homeschool day would be complete without them. ßß!

[Suz]

Arianna, I'm with you! Our curriculum would not be complete without our "lego time" :) My kids will play legos for hours!!!

[Lynda-WA]

I don't think either of my kids could settle on one favorite educational toy. In fact I think the most important thing is variety.

We've got the LeapPad. Like Karla's kids, mine go in spurts with it. Same with our GeoSafari, Geosafari Know It All, Word Arcade, Inquizator, Kwik Kwiz, VTech Little Smarty, and a bunch of other electronic gadgets. We've also got nearly all of the LeapFrog TurboTwist games and cartridges. Those have had more lasting appeal. I think because it lets you smack it to answer! We love these as truck toys especially. With the nearest relative living over an hour away, we do alot of driving. One of the best ways to practice those route memory math facts but it seems like a game. One of the biggest appeals for the electronic type toys is that they are games. The learning part isn't as obvious so it seems less like *school*.

DS has the IQuest also by LeapFrog. This is from the same family of toys as the TurboTwists and LeapPad. You can download questions to go with the textbooks they are using at school to supplement those from the cartridge for that grade. DS said that it's like playing GameBoy but learning. He's already taken it out to the bus stop and he and the girl in his grade quiz each other. I can guarantee they don't do that with their textbooks!

They love their computer. Like Ari, we use the internet for research and to find more resources. We also have a whole host of computer games. I am really big into things that are educational yet don't seem like it. DS just got NFL Math. It's a program that combines his love of football with math and will encourage him to use sporting stats from his favorite teams and real games to do math. DS wants to be an (electronic) engineer so games like Contraptions are very good for his thinking skills.

Like Ari and Suz, simple things like Lego's are more favorites. Again, DS wants to be an engineer so doing robotics with legos and the computer is feeding his interests in an educational yet fun way. It's amazing to see him build a lego toy that can throw a ball or walk across the floor. Other favorite model toys are K'nex, Capsella and Marbleworks. All of the science and math they learn without even adults realizing. Especially the physics and geometry! I read an article once that talked about the old erector sets. It said that when the kids with the first erector sets reached college age, there was a bumper crop of engineers, architects and such. When the professors started to quiz them, they discovered these guys had nearly all had erector sets as kids and that is when they decided what they wanted to be as an adult. The power of toys!

Both kids love science so we have oodles of hands on science stuff and more books on science experiments then out local library. Microscopes, telescopes, electric science experiment stations, you name it, we've probably got it.

I know this isn't very P.C., but our satellite dish is another big educational tool. Both kids know some amazing things because of channels like The Learning Channel, Discovery, and other such cannels. DD was able to correct her aunt about dinosaur fact s and my SIL is a 2nd grade teacher that has a unit on dinosaurs! It was funny listening to this then 6 year old telling her *No, they've given that dinosaur a new name*and *No, dinosaurs didn't eat grass. There wasn't grass until later*. Good thing DD wants to be a paleontologist! DH loves marine life and will watch every shark show with the kids. DS had a worker at Marine World shaking his head in amazement when DS started rattling off info about sharks.

Books are another favorite. Hardly surprising when I have so many myself. My Christmas present was a book database that costed 150$. Well worth the money to me since so far I've input over 4,000 of my own books into the database. DD has three floor to ceiling shelves jammed full. I'm starting to find that you have to be careful with some types of books though. DH has read every book on sharks he can find. Unless it's just been printed, it probably containes erroneous info. That really frustrates him. Same with DD and dinosaur books. New info is being discovered so rapidly you are better off getting your information from the net, magazines or TV. I very much agree with Ari on another thing. We don't limit ourselves to *traditional* books but non-traditional reading sources as well. You are reading if play a game of Trivial Pursuit, if you quiz from a deck of Brainquest cards, or if you read the question off of an electrionic quiz game like IQuest of a computer game.

[Mickey]

Ds loves books, but I don't think he would view them as "toys". He loves his Leap Pad and he received a few new books/cartridges for it for Christmas. Loves the geography and anatomy ones he has had for a couple of years now (we like to play "Eureka"). He really doesn't like the Reading ones you can get for them--he prefers to read on his own or for me to read to/with him.

[arianna]

MM! I think it is PC to use cable or digital television for educational purposes.
Most EDUCATIONAL cable channels have educator and program guides.
I wonder if you can deduct the monthly cost when you do your taxes.

I read some where on the HSLDA site about a federal tax break for homeschool families. Has anyone heardof this before? I have kept all my receipts this year for homeschool materials and supplies and I'm going to try to see if I can claim them too. Any tips? ßß!

ps ...Son #1 received a microscope from a family member for the holidays and the boys love it. They're examining some freally gross stuff. YUCK! Is this a "boy" thing?