Kids who are growing up with the Thinkin' Things series will be pleased to know that the Fripples are back. These colorful, doodle-like critters need help finding their way home. And working with as few as one written clue and two or three "thought balloons," kids have to solve the logic problems posed by the clues.
Stocktopus poses another kind of logic puzzle: how best to trade such "commodities" as pennies, light bulbs, keys, soccer balls and the like in order to build a particular kind of "portfolio." At first, it's obvious which swaps will net the items kids need. But as the difficulty level increases, kids find that they need to map out a whole sequence of trades - including items that they may not need in the end!
By challenging kids to create a half-time show with their choice of marching bands, cheerleaders and football players, Half Time introduces the concepts of computer programming. Kids design the formations and link a wide variety of programming codes - represented visually as puzzle pieces - to set them in motion. (In addition to the usual directional commands there are some silly, kid-pleasing ones that make the half-time characters do fun routines.)
Photo Twister is a visual playground where kids can distort photographs with 22 special-effects tool or try to duplicate a sequence of effects created by the computer. What's to learn here? Try it yourself, and you'll see there's a lot more than just doodling going on! To succeed, it takes an eye for patterns and sequences, deductive reasoning and a willingness to experiment.
Carving Blox is a "virtual" discovery zone where kids gain hands-on understanding of gravity, friction, motion and inertia. The idea is to set balls in motion on a sheet of metal by carving channels, adding ramps, tilting the surface, squirting oil and the like. At first, kids use the tools just to see what happens. Later on, they start trying to create particular events. And as with all the activities in this product, it's harder than it looks!
