The Best Multi-Awarded Educational Toys For Kids [Part 1]

Magic School Bus Going Green Science Kit

1. The Magic School Bus "Going Green" Science Kit (from Young Scientists Club)

Toy Industry awards: 30
Age: 5 +
Amazon Price: $21.99  $14.32

Okay, this cool learning toy is geeky and all, but who cares? The fun it packs is downright superb, so go right ahead.  The Magic School Bus "Going Green" Science Kit unleashes the young scientist in your kid, letting your kid learn how to save the planet through a series of fun and exciting DIY experiments, such as:

    * Recreating the water cycle,
    * Building a compost tube,
    * Shrinking plastic,
    * Making styrofoam packaging cubes disappear,
    * Decomposing food with fungi,
    * Making eco-friendly paper

Every Magic School Bus Science kit is designed by Harvard graduates, scientists, acclaimed educators and parents, and what's more--they're tested and approved by kids themselves attending the Young Scientist Summer camps.










2. Blokus (from Mattel)

Blokus

Toy Industry Awards: 26, including a Mensa Award
Age: 5 +
Amazon Price: $24.99  $20.00

Blokus is an award-winning educational toy that both kids and their parents can enjoy.  It's a strategy game that hones your kid's logic and spatial skills by letting them figure out how to fit their pieces on the game board while blocking their opponents'. 

Sounds easy?  Yes, and no.  Blokus is easy enough to understand and learn, but the head-scratching (and fun) becomes greater as you progress into the game.  All in all, this is one great educational toy worth getting hooked into anytime.

For a more challenging game, there's Blokus 3D.

Qwirkle

3. Qwirkle (from MindWare)

Awards:
    * Games Magazine Award: Best Family Game Runner-up 2007
    * Mensa Best Mind Game Award Winner 2007;
    * Major Fun Award Winner 2007

      Age: 6 +
      Amazon Price: $34.99 $16.51

Tired of dominoes?  Qwirkle might just be the answer.  This is not just your average match-the-colors-and-shapes educational toy.  You never sit casually to a game of Qwirkle, you bring your best logical skills and strategy to the table.  Players try to score the highest by laying out their tiles according to the shape and color.

Sounds simple enough, but when you're in the thick of it, you'll realize that the best scores to outdo your opponent are achieved when you lay a wicked combination of tiles.

4. GloBonz (by Curious Toys)

GloBonz

Awards:
    * National Parenting Publication’s (NAPPA) Honor Award Winner,
    * Family Fun Magazine Toy of the Year Award Winner

      Age: 5 +
      Amazon Price: $29.99 $25.98 

      No matter what, kids will always be fascinated with dinosaurs, so Curious Toys takes this fascination to a whole new level with GloBonz's glow-in-the-dark dinosaur skeletons.  There's fun and learning with vertebrae, you know. 


With 32 swiveling and flexible joint pieces in each canister, and what's more, they can be interchanged with other GloBonz construction kits. They can be practically made into fabulous and weird creatures, not just dinosaurs.  The verdict: puzzle-solving skills and imagination, a big check. 

5. Stars, Planets, Forces Science Kit (From Young Scientists Club)


Awards:

Stars, Planets, Forces Science Kit

    * Dr. Toy's "100 Best Children's Products"
    * The National Parenting Center Seal of Approval,
    * Learning Success Institute "Outstanding Learning Success Resource Award",
    * National Parenting Publications Parenting Awards

Age: 9+
Amazon Price: $26.99 $24.97


The Stars, Planets, Forces Science Kit combine three nifty science kits in one package.

This multi-awarded educational toy deftly introduces your budding astronomer/physicist into the wonderful world of science governed with such curious forces as gravity, momentum, and Newton's Three Laws of Motion.

Packed with several fun interactive experiments, this science kit lets your kid build their very own star book and constellation box, a planetarium, and even their own DIY telescope.