You know what drives me crazy as a parent?
Buying toys for my kids, and finding out that they’re just overpriced, plastic crap that breaks right away and that they play with once and then ignore.
So I’ve been working hard to get my kids quality toys that they’ll enjoy playing with again and again.
Enter the folks at ThinkFun games who make quality, educational toys for little ones.
I was thrilled to get have two of their most popular toys, Robot Turtles and the Gravity Maze for my kids to try.
Gravity Maze
My little seven year old is a budding engineer. Whenever we get something new, from a can opener to a new toy, the first thing she does is sit down to figure out how it works.
So I knew she’d love the ThinkFun Gravity Maze. She loved it so much, in fact that she spent at least an hour playing with it the first night.
And this is what I found her doing the next day, as soon as she finished school. For hours on end.
More about the Gravity Maze from ThinkFun
Played solo, Gravity Maze by ThinkFun engages kids ages 8+ in building and solving as they arrange colorful, translucent towers to whisk their marble from its starting point to target.
The towers can be arranged in many visually stimulating structures, offering lots of creative building time, but only one design will solve each of 60 puzzle challenges, ranging from beginner to expert.
Robot Turtles
My nine year old, as most nine year olds are, is a huge fan of anything video game related.
So he was keen to try out ThinkFun’s Robot Turtles game.
Robot Turtles is a board game designed to help teach little ones to code. It’s aimed at pre-schoolers, so I wasn’t sure that it would appeal to him, but it’s designed so that some of the more advanced options will appeal to older kids like him.
Parents take note here – Robot Turtles requires a parent to help set it up and run the game (even for older kids).
More about the Robot Turtles from ThinkFun
A Fun Way to Learn to Code! The most backed board game in Kickstarter history sneakily teaches preschoolers the fundamentals of programming, from coding to functions, while making silly turtle noises! Before you know it, your little one will be writing computer games rather than just playing them!
My bottom line
Are Robot Turtles and The Gravity Maze worth buying? Absolutely!Our kids are still playing with the games two weeks after we got them, and I’m sure they’ll keep on playing with them.
Find out more
You can find out more about on the ThinkFun website, and on Facebook and Twitter.
Looking for more cool toys? We review the Flutterby fairy here.
Disclosure: We received a copy of Robot Turtles and Gravity Maze for this review, but our opinions are our own.