What is the best educational toy that you have bought/come across?

[lisalisa]

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A pack of large playing cards and Tweenie snap/pairs cards. Pencils and lots and lots of paper!!! Books and more books.

The simple things work best I always reckon!

p.s. always think those leap pad things are a total waste of money. The way they speak is sooooo annoying. No kid really sits and reads with them surely??

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ooh mine love their leappads!

But I guess you can't beat pens, paper and books.

Luckily I bring scrap paper home from work or I'd be bankrupt! Pencils last OK but felt tips are a nightmare as they leave the lids off and use all the pinks (2 dds!) up all the time!!!

One of those sketcher things - not etchasketch, but similar - megasketcher I think it's called - has a pencil with a screen and you can rub out all your drawings. Both my DD and DS play with it for hours. And the pencil doesn't get lost because it's attached, and there aren't bits of paper hanging around all over the place!

Whiteboard / Blackboard / easel

Paint and paper

for older kids, has to be meccano or Knex

ds1 wasn't in the slightest bit interested in the leappad, ds2 loves it and will sit with it for ages.

I also agree that geomag is probably their best toy, and the one they spend longest playing with.

listmaker we have that with the pinks (2 dds also)

and we have it with the red and blues (2 x ds with a love of spiderman!)

What is a geomag??

Geomag

Expensive, but well worth it IMHO. Have been buying sets on ebay as they are a bit cheaper on there.

Stacking cups did the business for my pair...they loved building up, knocking down, side by side and they were great for the bath and the sandpit. Good for counting, colours etc too. Best £3.99 I ever spent!

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lisalisa, we have a couple of medium size sets put together. Plus I have bought another set for ds1 as part of his xmas present and my mum has bought him a box of the panels.

Oh, DD is only 2, so she is a bit young. But I remember playing with meccano from about 6 or 7 (could be the reason I am an engineer now??)

Bought nephew knex when he was 7.

Why don't you buy DS a small knex - a car for instance (I think they start at about £5) and see how he gets on?

sellotape and lots of empty boxes, tins, toilet rolls etc. dd1 aged 4 makes all sorts of models from these.

A globe.

lisalisa, there is a Kids K'nex which is aimed at aged 3 upwards and a bit chunkier plus we found the Brio Builder great from about 2/3 years - tool kit and wooden construction sets more solid than Meccano. ds(6) enjoys Knex , Lego (enjoyed helping assemble the Nasa Space sets and reading about it)and board games.

I'd like to get some building blocks for ds to play with but it's surprisingly hard to find any (its all electronic toys). Can anyone recommend some?

Yeah, the Megasketcher has been by far the best thing ever bought in our house. It has been used so much by DD1 and now DD2 is playing with it. Might have to get another one!!

alamel ELC do a big tub of wooden blocks.

My Sil really rates this and she is not into electronic y gadgets at all