Hands-on, brains-on fun
344824
I teach 4th and 5th grade and got this kit for my classroom to support exploration of da Vinci's ideas. When I first got the kit, I was a bit conscerned that it was too complex for kids to work with it independently - it looked like maybe it needed to be adult+kid. But I was wrong: some kids have tackled it on their own, most are working as twos or threes, but they are happily spending the hour or so it takes to figure things out and get them built. One recommendation: there are lots of little pieces, and the packaging doesn't offer support in organizing them. So I got a hardware organizing case to keep everything in - very useful in a busy classroom.
279007
This is a ton of fun, easy to learn and brings kids (and adults) of all ages to the table to play together.

Girls and boys have loved playing Ready, Set, Silhouette!, and my daughter has even played it by herself in a solitaire version; she was training for a game with the grown ups.

This is very much like the Spot It! games by Blue Orange with a twist - you're matching all of the items on the card to a card that has black silhouettes of those items.  It's great fun and even challenging for the grownups.

Matching strengthens visual perception skills.  When you're playing against opponents or the clock, you strengthen cognitive speed.  Its also easy to play cooperatively, which we really enjoy.

The silhouette cards are plastic and very sturdy.  The image cards are heavy cardboard.  This has lasted through more than one kid and is still going strong in excellent condition.
3251700
Yes, Pat Battaglia, has produced yet another fascinating, challenging, stimulating, and sometimes downright maddening mind bender of a book.  We found it to be of immense fun to work our way through it as a small group. It often makes you ask yourself, "how dumb can you really be?" but even so, it is loads of fun and entertainment. It is just about right for those searching for a challenging word exercise that is moderately difficult and with sometimes infuriatingly obvious answers for those who find themselves a bit stumped along the way. Highly recommended for good, clean fun!
483264
Riddle Cube, The Game, created by Howard Fleischer, is a fast-paced game, stimulating for all ages. I played it first with two 94 year olds plus myself and another, both middle-age. We had a lot of laughs and fun with the stretchy cubes creating the shapes to match the pictures on the challenge cards. Some of them took a while to figure out! I recommend this game for the seniors because not only did they work with their hands to stretch and manipulate the cubes, but also they worked mentally to match the shapes. And, of course, in showing each other what they created, the social interaction was perfect! We did not use the timer provided. This light-weight game can be easily transported in a pocket or a purse. Next time, I will take the handy Riddle Cube game to a restaurant with a long wait. I recommend, as advertised, this mind-bending, shape-shifting game.
4549468
Lots of innovative ideas for mixing learning with playing. My husband and I read and sing to our daughter constantly.  But with help from this book, we have integrated interactive play while reading and singing, and she has responded with pure glee.  It may all sound scientific but in fact the book takes a simple, hands-on approach to learning mixed of course with love from you.  So grab this book, get down on the floor and get going because you will be shocked at how your child will respond and how you will then respond to her and so on and so on.
1992762
I LOVE all of the fun, hands-on activities shared in this book! My son has recently become obsessed with kinetic sand (who can blame him?), so the activities shown in the book really spurred his imagination. I'm excited to use some of the activities with my preschool class, too! Lots of fine motor practice built into imaginative play, and there's so much room for playful learning! A definite 5 stars for me! :)
3651903
I didn't realize how much fun this game was until I got it for my son after he played it at a higher learning camp. It's addictive and teaches space and reasoning skills, as well as improves hand-eye coordination.
51813
This game is so much better than Brain Age, which I got tired of within the first couple of weeks.  This game continues to keep me entertained with a great number and variety of games, as well as the ability to keep unlocking new ones to add to the  mix.  I also like the different categories of Stress Testing vs. Brain Testing, it just doubles the amount of games that there are to play.  This game is really fun, I have a hard time putting it down!
4333086
DK generally makes great hardcover gift books for kids, and "Mind Benders" is no exception.  It was definitely a hit with our ten-year-old, particularly when we worked on and discussed some of the brain teasers together (and yes, when he saw/solved some of them faster than I did!).  He commented that the directions for many of the puzzles were well-written and removed the confusion in trying to understand the most complex ones.  All in all, he said that the puzzles were "challenging but fun."

Think about your reader/audience with this one, though - while kids who enjoy solving puzzles, decoding messages and working through logic problems will likely naturally love this book, it's not going to magically transform other kids into loving these activities.  Case in point with our other son (granted, who is younger than the recommended age) who worked through a few puzzles with me but then quickly complained that this seemed like "extra homework."  I really didn't have a counter to that - even a six-year-old was able to spot that many of these puzzles do have the same problem-solving skills that are being taught in grade school math these days at their heart.

So ask yourself if you know a kid who enjoys the challenge of his or her homework each night.  If so, then DK's "Mind Benders" book will reward them with a lot of fun ways to exercise their brains!
291260
This isn't a book for those who'd rather park their kids in front of the television or who wish to send their kids off to do something else. It's hands-on, preferably adult and child, and tends to be for younger children. But if you're that kind of parent--and here's hoping you are--prepare to have a blast with your younger child. Kid art gives this book a fun look and feel, too.
2008349
This is wonderful. The player is the apprentice and learns motions while having fun that makes you look like a musical conductor. The motions really build up ones arm muscles; and the music and graphics are magical. It's fun and exciting as you don't know what is going to happen next. Due to having to identify which motions to do within the music timing, and doing them in time- it helps with cognition and other skills. Excellent and fun. It initially may look complicated or quick, but the game is more than doable as it shows hints if needed and is quite fun in the movements. Complete the task set and all other movements are additional points. This becomes more and more possible as one gets used to the movements. Even the most no move person we played with who thought when initially watching others play that the game was confusing,  agreed to try it - and loved it so much that he kept wanting to play. It's for every ability and every age. Have fun.
2608099
This game is SO FUN. I gave my version away as a last-minute birthday present and will surely buy again. I don't know if I've had another game make me feel this level of ...enthusiastic stupidity? It's fascinating to me how re-orienting a shape can make your eye totally miss it. I'd love to look into it more.

Loads of fun for anyone of any age, just know that you will get LOUDI left a copy at my friend's apartment and I could hear them (and the one French one of them for whom English is a second language) shouting BRO!...google...guh...GLASSES!!!! mmmBICYCLE! Quest-ce....bahMUSTACHEDOG!

If you feel like hurting your brain (depending on your ability with mathematical planes), this is a very interesting exercise explaining the way the game is created: [...]

Some math teacher should totally use this in class.
3307069
This is a marble run set of the block-and-ramp type that works with color coded blocks and no incline to the ramps; it works on momentum gained from the gravity dropping through the blocks.

It's hard when you are buying a gift for a child to really hit it out of the park; this set is expensive and seems like a risk, but I absolutely recommend it if you can afford it. It's worth it to go over the basic set for this one, but choosing between this and the rail set is really up to you. The lever / see-saw in the rail set are cool, teach some basic balance and torque physics concepts, and are visually interesting; the spirals in the rail set are just plain cool looking, and putting tons of marbles in them versus one at a time is fun to do while teaching some angular momentum concepts.

I am a consummate ditherer, and I ended up buying both; I don't, however, recommend doing this unless you can afford it and your child has the creativity to make use of both, either together or independently. Be aware, however, that (for you chemists out there) due to steric hindrance - space and angle constraints - combining the two sets doesn't work very easily, and there are few pre-designed setups that combine both effectively.

The blocks are color coded and fit together in a peg-in-hole type setup. It's very stable and takes either our dog or spatially useless me (or the kids purposefully knocking it down) to upset it.  And it's OK when this happens, because it gives us an opportunity to pick a different setup.

If you have a carpet, get a plywood sheet or thick cardboard box to put under the setup, or it won't be stable enough.

My only other complaint - and it is a very minor one - is that the box closure is designed with one handle that pokes through the other, which is fine for a few months, but the toys are heavy, and soon the handle pulls through or the box tears.

Actually, the box INSIDE is ingenious - there is "a place for everything, and everything in its place"; the color coded blocks fit precisely into their individual spots in the box, which makes cleanup a breeze, even for younger children.
4445282
So many different ways to play and learn really cool
2626000
I can't think of a single non-screen-based activity that has so captured my kids' attention.

The gameplay itself is pretty simple: roll a die, move a piece, hand it on. Even pretty young kids can handle the mechanics of it. The fun is the randomness of the hex bug, which bobbles around, well, randomly, crashing across the game board every once in a while and always knocking my pieces out of their spots while leaving everyone else alone. Er, i mean... anyway, it's fun. There aren't too many pieces, and the only battery to replace is the one in the hexbug.
2238607
We have several Living Books and a variety of educational CD's, but this is, by far, the most entertaining one for a 3 1/2 year old and her father.  Each page has something new, and sometimes my daughter will find the right object to click before I do. The music and creativity allows adults to play along with their children repeatedly without becoming bored quickly.
525723
This is a wonderful, educational activity.  Being stuck inside by poor weather on a Sunday can be rough, but thanks to this, I kept three daughters 9-12 happily occupied for almost four hours putting this together and working through the first half of the experiments.

The "Experiment Station" is quite well constructed (I was skeptical when I saw it was all plastic), holding up very well with three kids grabbing at it.  The instruction manual is very clear about what to do and more importantly explains the why you see the results that you see.  The girls quickly thought of other experiments we could try--particularly with the early experiments on pressure and vacuums--in some cases figuring out what would happen in more complex cases and explaining then proving their theories.

The only (very minor) critique I have of this is that the plunger on the cylinder is fairly hard to pump up and down and will probably require an adult (even my 12-year old struggled with it), but that is not a big deal--it is so much fun to work through the experiments with your children that you will want to be there to help, anyway.