Children's Learning Toys

When buying children's toys, it's good to think of toys as also something for learning. Here are some suggestions for combining entertainment and learning, including "teaching toys."  In fact, most of childhood play is also a form of learning.  Almost all of the best toys provide a form of education.

Spiral and Hoop TeachBalls, available from The Book Store, http://thebookstore.vstoremarket.com/index.htm are color-coded balls, which "show how to execute essentail ball skills."

Telescopes - There are a number of beginner's telescopes for children which help to introduce them to the study of astronomy, which has always been a fascinating topic for kids.  Beginners telescopes can be found at Amazon.com, at Thinkbutton.com, at Telescopes.com, and Discovery.com. 360 Vega Telescope & Discovery's Sky & Land Telescope are suggested telescopes for children.

Kids Make Music! Activity Book - This activity-book helps children to learn how to "invent lyrics, build homemade instruments."
It's available from Thinkbutton.com.  There are also a number of art activity books, which introduce children to the world of art.  Art and music activity books can be found at Amazon.com and Thinkbutton.com.  Of course, to learn about music you can also buy children various musical instruments, real & pretend musical instruments, like karaoke, found at Disney.com and etoys.com.  For art, there are also water color sets found at http://www.childrensplace.com.

ATM Bank - The toy version of ATM bank "accepts real bills & dispenses cash like a real ATM."  It helps kids to learn about banking & saving money.  Teaching Cash Register is also a similar teaching about money toy which is found at http://www.etoys.com.  YOUniverse Amazing Money Jar is also found at Amazon.com.

Try-This-At-Home Science Kit - This and other science kits help to introduce children to science.  This kit contains more than 100 experiments.  It can be found at Discovery.com.  Other science kits can be found at http://www.sciencekit.com.