Magnetic Toys for Children

Details: Magnetix explore your creativity with magnets, rods and marbles.  Comes with 42 pieces, 12 balls, 30 rods.

My Review:  My kids love magnets on our fridge, love magnetic puzzles, games, and toys.  We have a huge collection of magnetic "rocks" from a science museum that our children get to play with for school time.  But they wanted something more fun and creative.  We were given a set of Magnetix which the boys fell in love it.  Basically its a set of toys where you have plastic rods with magnets in both ends of the rods, and you have metal marble sized balls.  You can build anything with these rods and balls.  Some rods are longer and others shorter, you can find them in various colors.  But this one set didn't have enough rods or balls for my children to be really creative.  So I was lucky enough to find a set of 42 pieces for $4 on Ebay with free shipping.  TOTALLY amazing right?  That's what I thought.  So I bought 6 packs.  I should have bought more, but we now have roughly 300 pieces of these Magnetix toys and its a great start to the collection our kids can play with.  We use these toys for our home schooling, for their play time, when their bored, and as a family.  This is really a great toy, and I'm very excited to have a good starter collection of them for my children.

Pros: fun for the whole family, great for home schooling, science classes, child friendly,

Cons: none

My Rating: THUMBS UP

Shell Memory Game for Kids

Details: Thinkfun's Shell Game is for children ages 8 and up to adults.  Single player game of swapping the shells to solve memory puzzles.  60 challenges from beginner to expert level.  Shell game includes: 6 sea shells, 6 hermit crabs, 3 ocean stones, 60 spiral bound challenges, instructions and solution manual.  "Thinkfun is the world's leader in addictively fun games that stretch and sharpen your mind.  From lighting up young minds to creating fun for the whole family, Thinkfun's innovative games and mobile apps make you think while they make you smile."  4 Step setup/ play process: set up Hermit Crabs and Ocean stones in the Start position, cover the crabs with a shell, swap the Shells following the arrows from position to position trying to get to the End position without looking.

Disclaimer:  I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

My Review: I think originally I as Mommy was more excited about this memory game than my children were.  Growing up, my family had a lot of time to play games together, so we played tons of board and card games.  Memory was one of those popular games with my family.  We did all kinds of memory games: cards, math, sequences, Simone Says, etc.  Now that I'm grown, married and have children of my own, I'm also getting involved with my kids and playing board games, card games, active games, thinking games, silly games, educational games etc.  I love Thinkfun games in general.  I have been able to have a good selection of games from them, and have enjoyed every game.  This Shell Game is a new fun unique twist on memory.  My 7 year old loves the magic "cup and pom pom ball" trick, so I thought of him when getting this game.  Let me tell you, he loves this game even more.  Its the perfect game for a single player who loves thinking, solving problems, finding solutions to puzzles, and loves to test their memory.  I'm very impressed!  The levels from Beginner, intermediate, advanced to expert really are excellently thought out, and really help boost your memory, and thinking skills.  I've played some and really do have to focus in order to "win".  This will be a fun game for when my youngest gets old enough to play it.  I am going to recommend this game, I see it as a great time filler for teachers, home school moms who home school multiple children.  One negative is that this game isn't fun once all the levels have been won.  In one day my 7 year old completed all Beginner levels.  Once he's won all 60 levels he won't want to play again, but I'll be able to pass this onto my younger child.

Pros: my son loves this game, I love this game, I love Thinkfun products, fun, educational, well thought out

Cons: not a long lasting game

My Rating: Thumbs Up and Down