Jigsaw Puzzle Piece

Ingenious Educational Toys

Educational toys can enhance your child’s intellectual, social, emotional, and physical development. For preschool age kids, simple 10-20 piece wooden jigsaw puzzles or wooden blocks are a good place to start. These toys stimulate basic cognitive skills, problem-solving and hand-eye coordination.

If your child is approaching elementary school age, more sophisticated interlocking manipulative toys like Legos or more challenging jigsaw puzzles can further aid the development of these skills, and assist your child in developing patience, and a better understanding of spatial relationships. The key point to remember is that the educational value of a toy or game greatly depends upon it’s age appropriateness for the child.

At JigsawPuzzlePiece.Com we’re constantly researching educational toys, games, and puzzles to report back to our online readers the most ingenious, fun and effective educational toys and games we can find. This week we researched educational toys for children ages 3-6 and here’s our Top Pick Of The Week.

Fisher-Price has done it again… typically rain, snow, or other inclement weather means your kids have to stay inside and occupy themselves with more sedentary indoor activities. Well, Fisher-Price has designed an ingenious solution for this problem called The Smart Cycle. It combines the physical activity of bicycle or tricycle riding with the fun indoor activity of playing video games. Designed for 3-6 yr olds, the Smart Cycle is an all-in-one stationary bike and educational tool. Your little ones will exercise their bodies and their minds — and have a whole lot of fun in the process.

Using the bike’s joy stick and buttons, your child can navigate through many learning adventures and environments without ever leaving the room. The Smart Cycle plugs into your VCR or TV input jacks, and requires no need for a separate game system. Simply insert a game cartridge “a key” and your child can start riding… and learning!

The Smart Cycle comes with a “Learning Adventure” included, in which your child drives a car by pedaling the bike and turning the handlebars. Your child will splash through mud puddles and turn sharp corners to catch letters of the alphabet along the road. He or she will quickly learn to keep pedaling in order to keep the adventure moving, and to keep catching those alphabets!

The game cartridge also features several other fun and educational adventures such as pedaling to “Math Mountain” which helps your child practice numbers. And an adventure-filled trek to “Shape Lake” to introduce your child to a wide array of different shapes. This cartridge also includes a car racing game that two children can play at the same time, and a “creative journal” that lets your child create pictures and snapshots of their trip.

Several optional game cartridges can also be purchased separately that feature favorite characters such as Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants. The Smart Cycle will keep your child happily entertained and engaged in learning for hours. Perfect for a rainy day, or any time that going outside to play isn’t possible.

Ingenious Educational Toys…

About The Author

Nora Campbell is a former educator and avid writer. She has utilized educational games and toys with her own children and now maintains an informative blog concerning traditional and educational games, toys, and other useful family resources. Check out her blog at: www.jigsawpuzzlepiece.com

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under Great Games For Kids, Learning Disguised As Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.