Home » Partners & Parents » Websites for Kids » Educational Toys: Which educational toy or game should I buy?

Educational Toys: Which educational toy or game should I buy?

© Wayne Dawe

(Note: The Internet is a dynamic place and web sites can come and go quite quickly. This is one of my older and some of the links may not work anymore. If you find that this is the case I invite you to look at some of my more recent articles. My links section has my favorite links from past articles and is checked regularly for non working links. Wayne)

Fooled you didn't I, you thought I was going to rant against TV this week. I don't feel surly enough this week to take on TV so I have decided to continue my exploration of games with an article on educational toys and games.

First off I'll hit a couple of my favorite "old-fashioned" toys, for smaller kids (at least my kids) still like good old fashioned Picture word flash cards. It's amazing how many different games you can invent, the box we have has some suggestions inside the box top. Make up a simple game and away you go. Another good game is scrabble, there is a version for kids that is suitable for kids 5 and up. Another toy that's great is Lego and it's older counterpart Meccano. Following the printed instructions to build the models helps build sorting and classifying skills in smaller children and mechanical design skills in older kids.

There is so much educational software available at your local software store that it's almost impossible to decide what to buy. I have some educational software that the kids enjoyed for a while but kids seem to go through computer phases when they only want to use the computer and other times when they don't care at all. I have found that one good source of educational game suggestions is other parents and teachers you might know. To help you find good educational games I have found a couple of sites that provide software reviews of children's games. One of these sites is Children's Software Reviews, which has review of games by parents. Another worthwhile site is The Review Zone. Grace Sylvan has software reviews on her site Children's Shareware and More. Grace's site is a great resource well worth bookmarking and returning too often. One game that my kids really enjoyed was Amy's 1-2-3 which can be downloaded from Devasoft (and Amy's!) Home Page.

Another good resource for information about computer games for kids is the Usenet news group misc.kids.computers. Most Internet service providers support Usenet news groups, if you need more information on how to configure your system to read Usenet news contact user support at your ISP (Internet Service provider).

The copyright of the article Educational Toys: Which educational toy or game should I buy? in Websites for Kids is owned by Wayne Dawe. Permission to republish Educational Toys: Which educational toy or game should I buy? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.