We don’t do a lot of formal schooling in our household, but we do surround our children with educational toys. In fact, it is a rare toy in our home which is not directly educational or open-ended and imaginative. So I was thrilled to be offered the opportunity to review some products from Learning Resources. We received the following products:

Spill Your Guts is an anatomy game. It consists of question cards, and plastic organs (and ribcage), which are placed into a clear plastic form. There are several variations of gameplay, but the basic idea is to identify the organs (and, in some cases, their functions) and place them where they belong. I found it a little tricky to place the organs properly, because they don’t interlock or anything, but am looking forward to using this to teach my daughter in a fun way about how her body works. Please note that only organs found in the trunk of the body are included – no brain, arm muscles, etc.

Color Match Penguins are a sand/water toy for preschoolers.  The penguins are in the style of “rubber duckies,” and the inner tubes are a fairly rigid plastic.  We had a little bit of difficulty with the color.  The color is painted onto the penguins and it isn’t very bold in places.  The orange was “muddy” enough that my five-year-old (who knows her colors quite thoroughly) did not recognize it; it looked brown.  (Mommy identified it largely by process of elimination.)

I also don’t think I would be comfortable using these in water; although they say they are made from mold-resistant plastic, the penguins do have holes in them and toys like this are notorious for getting full of water and mildewing inside where you can’t get to them to clean them.  (At least, in our house they are.)  However, playing with them in the sandbox (as the description also suggests), or even on the floor, is still quite workable, and these are a pretty nifty idea.

Each penguin has a top hat with a colored band around it, and a single white shape on the very top of it, to match one of the colored, patterned inner tubes.  Each also has a bow tie of a different color, so the penguins may be matched to the inner tubes by shape, hat band color, or bow tie color.  I would have thought that my five-year-old would be about past these, but she loved them, and I can’t get her to leave them in the package!  One last feature, not mentioned in the seller’s description, is worth mentioning – it comes with a drawstring-style net bag for storage.  I like that attention to detail. 🙂  (The box says not to give these toys to children under two, but I’m not sure why.  There are no small parts.)

The Light & Action set of Gears, Gears, Gears is pretty interesting, as well.  Even my husband said that these would make a good Christmas gift – for him! lol  The Gears, Gears, Gears sets are building sets of interlocking gears.  This particular set includes lighted pieces and a small motor (powered by AA batteries, not included).  There are decals to add to some of the moving parts, including a few glow-in-the-dark ones. I  have to admit it took me several minutes of fiddling with the pieces and examining the picture on the bucket to figure out how to put the included pieces together to get the gears to interlock.  With a bit of practice, though, it looks like we can build some pretty fun things. 🙂  My physics-minded husband will have a good time playing with my daughter with these.

You can find these and other educational toys at Learning Resources.