Struggling To Find Ourselves

With a 5 year old son, I am ALWAYS on the look-out for educational toys, and one company was kind enough to send me 3 items to review for them.

The World Traveller kit was not quite what I expected.  I was expecting like a wall-sized map, when the one we got was not even the size of a good sized placemat.  It IS a GOOD map, but not quite what I was expecting/hoping for.  The rest of the kit was about the same.  I was hoping for something that could be used in numerous ways with my 5 year old, and I found it kind of limited.  We WILL put some of the things in it to use, but DEFINITELY not quite like I was hoping.

Another item that they sent us to try out was the “Race Around The Clock” Game.  It’s not a bad game, but it’s DEFINITELY got a limited “lifespan” in my opinion.  My Sister and I played it, and it got boring REALLY quick!!!  SOME of their questions were WELL beyond their suggested age to play of 8.  Others were TOO easy.  The directions did not state whether you had to land exactly on the ending spot in order for the game to be over, so the directions were kind of unclear in places to us.  It would make a GREAT game for a school teacher, or someone who has different children that are trying to learn how to add times and subtract times and such, but as a game for the whole family, I don’t think I’d go by it because of it’s limited useability.

The best item out of the package was probably the Lights and Sounds Gears building set.  I mean, this set has REAL potential for a child who has the ability and inclination to sit down and figure out how to make it all work.  There were only three MAJOR problems that we found with this set…#1:  They didn’t send enough connectors and other pieces to make a TRULY great masterpiece….#2:  The base they send is DEFINITELY not easy to get apart OR put together, and is therefore not very friendly for children to be putting together or taking apart….and #3:  The gears, by themselves, are okay, but a set like that mixed with a set of different building blocks would be GREAT!!!  My son has started incorporation the gears set in with his Legos set a little bit, and that makes BOTH sets even better with even more possibilities!!!

All in all, we are pleased with what we got…the building set made the other two worthwhile!!!  And we thank learningresources.com for the opportunity to review these items for them!!!