Media Macaroni

I first saw the game Animal Mastermind Towers at the Pressman Toy booth at BlogHer, and the fine people at Pressman were kind enough to send me the game to try out with Olive. Each player gets a tower and arranges six tiles in a secret order in the tower. The other player has cards that match the tiles hidden in the tower. The object, like the classic game of Mastermind, is to guess the correct order of your opponent’s tower.

You can ask questions that include the words “above” or “below”, as in “Is your giraffe above your monkey?” Then, you can use the cards to keep track of the order as you decode it.

Olive has played this game countless times in the past few days. The game is designed for ages 6 and up, but after playing several rounds of the games in teams with the grandparents, Olive caught on to the strategy pretty quickly and can now play on her own. I find that the best games are ones where the rules are easily customizable, and that is certainly the case here. The instructions specify to play with fewer tiles with younger kids, but there are other ways to make the game easier, too, such as allowing the players to ask about bottom and top tiles.

There are upcoming licensed versions of the game, including (naturally) SpongeBob and Disney, but I like this set of animals. My favorite tiles are the sheep and alligator who look inexplicably angry. I always pick those two tiles first.

In the giant sea of toys at Toy Fair earlier this year, this little box of dice caught my eye. It’s Rory’s Story Cubes, and the lovely people at Gamewright were kind enough to send me a set to try out with Olive.

There are a bunch of different ways that you can play with Rory’s Story Cubes, but the basic premise is that you look at the images on the dice that you’ve rolled, and weave all of those images into a story. There are some great images in the set to get your creative juices flowing. I rolled the dice and began,”One day I took a plane to Scotland. While I was there I visited a big, beautiful castle that had a flock of sheep grazing out front…” Olive saw what I was doing, seeing the plane, castle, and sheep on the dice, and she just ran with it – that was all the instruction she needed.

As adults, I think we try to hard to have our stories make sense. Sometimes you need to just stop and listen to the oddities that can unfold from your child’s mind. Olive rolled a set of images that included Earth, an alien, and a clock, and suddenly the clock became the planet Clockidon which traveled too close to Earth, stopping all time as we know it. Awesome.

This is a great take-along game to kill time anywhere where kids have to sit still. For us that’s in restaurants and on the subway. I’m very appreciative that the box is small and durable, and there’s room to roll the dice right into the box for playing on the go. Rory’s Story Cubes has earned a permanent place in my purse.

You may have noticed that I’ve been slowing down with the posts lately. That’s because the boy doesn’t like to nap. Correction: The boy doesn’t like to nap unless he’s being held lovingly by a parent person. Mama needs hands free for bloggin’, kid.

What to do when I need a break? I’m not ready to park him in front of baby TV (OK, except for the occasional Koi Pond on the iPad). But what else can entertain a baby for twenty minutes at a time? Say hello to Lamaze® Octotunes. This little octopus has been through three kids in my family – my niece, Olive, and now Ozzie – and the effect on babies is uncanny. It’s like a pre-Elmo Elmo. The kids just instinctively know they like it.

If I plunk Ozzie down next to his octopus, he’ll just stare and smile and grab and babble for a longer stretch of time than he does anything else that doesn’t require two grown-up arms.

Sure, you can squeeze the legs and make some music, but that’s not really how it gets played with around here, unless Olive comes by to make some noise for Ozzie. All it really needs to do is sit there. For this, I’m grateful.

Bonus? It smells like vanilla. Even after about 9 years.

Wait… should I be worried about that?

Olive doesn’t really ask for much. Yes, if you take her into a toy store she’ll point to thirty things that she’d like to have, but if you ask her what she wants for her birthday she’ll likely shrug and say, “Whatever you feel like buying.” This year though, she mentioned a few times that she wanted an ant farm. The one she had pointed out to me was sold out, so the Mac Daddy went on an ant farm search and brought home the Insect Lore Ant Hill.

The ants arrived yesterday. I should mention that they’re fire ants. You know… the kind that bites. We stuck them in the fridge to calm them down, and then made the safe transfer to the Ant Hill.

In less than a day, the ants have done some serious work. I love what they’ve done here by hollowing out the lower left corner so that any time an ant crawls down there it plummets to the bottom. Good thinking, ants.

It’s at the kitchen table so we can eat meals and watch the ants. Watching ants work is a nice Zen activity for the whole family. I wonder how Zen it will be in a few weeks when it’s little more than a mass ant grave. At least Olive will be reinforcing the life-cycle learning she’s doing at school. Here’s a diagram that she made of an ant in her journal, taking special care to point out the fire ant’s poison sac.

If you bring a swarm of fire ants into your home, a nice companion toy is the Bug Vacuum from Backyard Safari Outfitters, which was an awesome gift from one of Olive’s friends.

We took it out to our backyard and sucked up some ants, a couple beetles, and a spider. The best part is the gentle suction that doesn’t hurt the bugs, not even the fragile little spider. It pisses them off, sure, but it doesn’t hurt them. It could suck up fire ants in no time (we had it handy during the ant transfer). Once in the vacuum you can flip up the magnifying glass to trap and examine the bugs.

The big question will be how the gentle suction handles the occasional giant NYC specimen that invades our home in late summer, the kind of bug that when we see it we scream and throw shoes and pans and other heavy objects at.

I’ll keep you posted.

I’ve often mentioned that Olive enjoys her some science, and I was delighted when she asked for science to be the theme of her birthday party this year. Unsure about the timing of the baby, we decided not to do a big party at some party place like we’ve done in previous years. We went the backyard route for the first time, which meant being responsible for our own activities.

My Toy Fair finds really came in handy. I was sure that the kids would be as delighted as I was with Insta-Snow, especially on a hot day. It all started out so sweet and contained, with kids holding out their hands to try having snow grow in their hands.

My husband warned of the mess that would result from the snow, and I poo-pooed that thinking it would stay contained in the nice little tray I had laid out for them to scoop snow in. Um, yeah.

The good news is that they loved it. The big show-stopper, though, was the Mentos Geyser. You load up a tube with Mentos and pull the string to drop them into a 2 liter of soda. Here you can see what happens with Mentos and Diet Sprite. Man, that was quite a geyser.

The Diet Coke geyser (seen here) was even larger. So awesome.

We also hid a mess of bugs from Oriental Trading, along with some magnifying glasses and bug tongs and set the kids out on a bug hunt.

The party was rounded out with the few bits of homemade I managed to eke out. Here’s Pin the Stinger on the Bee, a concept that was all Olive. I was amazed at how much the kids cheated as this game, as you’ll notice with all of the carefully placed stingers.

The cake carried on the bug theme, and was also Olive’s design. She made a sketch, and I just had to execute. Making the dirt was the most fun. I think that fondant would have been better than frosting for the leaf, but I feel like that’s slightly beyond my skills. Maybe next year.

The best part of throwing a science-themed birthday party is all of the science birthday presents that Olive got. I’m sure I’ll be detailing several of them in future posts – so much great stuff!

Friend of the blog, game and media expert, and creator of things that do not exist, Russell Ginns is backfor a guest post. Nobody knows board games like Russell does, and if you have the chance, pick up Russell’s own wonderful board game, Word Spot.

Perhaps you have had this experience: Kids invite you to play a board game, such as Candyland or Chutes and Ladders. Half an hour later, the game is still going, seemingly as far from its conclusion as when you started. Nothing new has happened for dozens of turns. Soon, you catch yourself gazing out the window, scanning for an Icelandic mountain that could possibly erupt and distract everyone…

While some of the most popular kids games are good introductions to the concepts of rolling dice, taking turns and drawing cards, there is a UNIVERSE of wonderful fun family games out there.

The next several posts round up some of the great board games you can enjoy with your kids that excel in fun, interaction between players, and reasonable conclusions. Today’s set is good for kids age 5 or 6, and that you can probably track down most of these games at Target, B&N or other mainstream stores.

Snorta! is a tricky, silly memory game where players have to think fast and make the animal noises that match up with other players. The catch, you have to look at pictures of other animals while you try to remember the sound you’re supposed to make. This game is great of up 8 players, and the more the merrier. Quack!

Sherlock is another great memory game. Players take turns moving the detective piece around a circle of cards. Score points by remembering the images on all of the cards. This is one of the games in our house where the kids can usually defeat the grown ups… handily.

Blokus is an abstract strategy game… with very cool colored plastic pieces. Players take turns competing for ever-dwindling space on the board, and the only rule is that your own pieces may only touch each other by their corners.

A to Z Jr. is a competitive category game. Race against the timer to come up with words that match categories such as “sports” or “ice cream flavors”. The grown up version, A to Z (no Jr.) is a hit with my grown up friends, too. Like the rest of the games on this list, the Jr. version great for kids age 5 or 6 and older. Youngest kids may need some help with the reading of the cards—or play with kid/parent teams!

Game aficionado’s note: If you can’t find them there, however, I am a big fan of online game stores such as Funagain Games or Thought Hammer.

I’m sure you must be going through withdrawal from my Toy Fair coverage, right? Well, if that’s the case, fear not! Scott Traylor of 360KID has kindly put together this video of a roundtable discussion I participated in during Toy Fair and the Engage Expo, hosted by Warren Buckleitner of Children’s Technology Review.

In this video, you’ll see such esteemed industry folks as Robin Raskin of Raising Digital Kids, Reyne Rice from the Toy Industry Association, Christy Matte from About.com’s Guide to Family Computing, Gary Goldberger from Fablevision, and Ellen DePasquale of The Online Mom, and many fabulous others. You also get to see me, all gorgeous and articulate pregnant and brain-fried after four days of Toy Fair. Enjoy!

I’ll admit, I may still have one Toy Fair/Engage Expo post in me. I mean, I haven’t even written about seeing Will Wright speak at Engage.

I’ve talked about some of the big trends and big players at Toy Fair this year, but I thought I’d round it out with some of my favorites from the show, particularly the booths I didn’t want to leave.

It was interesting to be pregnant at Toy Fair. It was quite a bit like shopping for the new little guy, down to picking out my future diaper bag at the Skip Hop booth. On the baby gift front, there was nothing as cute as the animals and blankets from Apple Park. And, with the adorable hat box packaging, these goodies are perfect for showers.

Speaking of pregnant, how about this awesome puzzle from Beleduc & Hape Toys? Z Recommends turned me on to the multi-layer Beleduc girl and boy puzzles, and these Mother Layer Puzzles are a great addition to the line.

Elsewhere in the marvelous Hape Toys booth were these gorgeous Organeco blocks. Forget about the kids – I want to play with these.

Similar wooden goodies were at the Kid O booth, including that Things That Go wooden book I recently discovered, and this Deep Into the Forest play theater.

Some things stop you cold in your tracks, like when you see unbelievably cool Wild Things figurines from Medicom Toy.

Other things you need to interact with to love. In the Eco-kids booth, I started playing with their Eco-Dough and never wanted to give it up. And I left the booth smelling of rosemary. I love Play-Doh, but this was a hugely appealing substitute in gorgeous vegetable-dyed colors.

I saw this beautiful stack of cards from Rubbing Hands, and stopped to learn more. The game is called Get the Gem, and you hide the gem then leave a trail of arrows to point the way, a great activity to get kids moving.

Rubbing Hands has another hide and seek game called Capture the Gag. You hide this little critter, making sure to leave his little eye visible. The suction cups and clips allow for endless hiding possibilities.

Lots more toys after the jump… including the ability to make snow anywhere, anytime.

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While I love looking through the booths of the mom and pop toysellers at Toy Fair, it’s also interesting to see what the major players are doing. I’ve already given a rundown of what Hasbro is up to, and here are some interesting things coming from other big toy companies.

I’m most excited about Lego board games. Oh, yeah, you heard me. Lego. In the game aisle. This concept works out exactly as I hoped it would: build the board then play the game. Because Lego is master of open-ended play, each game comes with alternate rules and board set-ups to change up the games for different levels of play. There’s even Lego dice that get transformed during gameplay.

Lego and board games is such a natural match, I found myself marveling at the fact that this chocolate-and-peanut-butter combination hasn’t happened sooner. Hasbro is also playing with this idea, with board assemblages of some of their classic board games, but the Lego games (unsurprisingly) seem to have a better building component.

Two companies, VTech and Fisher-Price have come out with eReaders for kids. I haven’t had a chance to play with Fisher-Price’s iXL yet, but I got a hands-on demo of VTech’s Flip. The Flip is a well-designed piece of hardware for kids ages 3-7, with nice resolution on the touch-screen and a keyboard for different types of gameplay. The stories are animated and there are different story-related games to play.

The Flip itself is a reasonable $59.99, but each individual story cartridge is $19.99, which seems a hefty price to pay for a book with games. There will be cheaper downloadable content, which helps. In the past, though, I’ve enjoyed VTech hardware but not the software. If the eBook titles are good, they could warrant the price. If not, I fear there won’t be enough bang for the buck. The Flip titles at launch will include properties like Shrek and Olivia, and there’s only one classic book, The Little Engine that Could. I’ll be keeping my eye out for more of the classic books.

Until I get my hands on Fisher-Price’s iXL, here’s Gizmodo’s review.

VTech also introduced their handheld device, MobiGo. This too has a touch screen, and it also has a flip out qwerty keyboard, like a mini Sidekick. It has the same pricing structure as the Flip, and I carry to this device the same set of reservations as the Flip, though the Shrek game I saw looked pretty fun.

Ultimately, though, it seems like all of these touch-screen toys and readers are filling the time between now and when we can get a second or third-generation iPad into the hands of our kids. The versatility of a platform like that (even at the significantly higher price tag) has the power to blow these smaller toys out of the water. My iPhone remains Olive’s handheld device of choice for now.

Lastly, I previewed Disney’s The World of Cars Online, a virtual world based on a little animated film you might have heard of, Cars. The story in the virtual world picks up where the film left off. Lightning McQueen returns to Radiator Springs to teach other cars how to race. Players get to custom design and name their car avatar and enter the world of Radiator Springs.

Disney was incredibly smart to buy Club Penguin. It’s clear that all of the learning curve of Club Penguin has been applied here. You can find and chat with friends, explore the world, and play mini-games. Much of the content is free to play, but a $5.99/month subscription unlocks extra features. The unlocked car customization is extraordinarily elaborate – a whole game unto itself. I think Pixar fanboys (and girls) will be pleased with this world, doing justice to the story and characters created in the movie. The World of Cars will launch later this year, but if you’re itching to play a non-penguin Disney world right now, Pixie Hollow looks equally well-treated in its own beautiful fairy way.

OK, after this I promise only one or two more posts about Toy Fair. What can I say? I found a lot to talk about this year. There’s also my latest post at Z Recommends about hands-on building and creativity toys.

Z Recommends has my latest round-ups on Toy Fair:

Toy Fair Goes Green – featured environmentally-friendly toys from the new green section of Toy Fair

The Best of the Board Games – easy to learn and fun to play