Arts Reviews

I couldn't think up a better way to protect kids clothes than with this apron! The long sleeves are a great feature. It also seems to fit a wide range of toddlers and young children. I love the little pockets for supplies and whatnot. Also, it wipes clean quite easily! This apron is a winner in my book!

Inexpensive and much better protection than dad's old shirt. Heavy clear/printed vinyl. Concerns about fit listed in ratings did not hold true. Purchased for use in pre-k class and apron has lots of growing room & could be likely be used for several more years. Nice velcro closures make apron easy for child and teacher.

So many art smocks are too little for elementary students, but these were big enough to both fit and cover school uniforms! Hooray for no more paint on white shirts!

The concept seems so deceptively simple - use just five 3-dimensional puzzle pieces shaped like stacked bricks and arrange them into 60 different symmetrical configurations as shown on the supplied deck of cards.

The puzzles to match are on one side of each numbered card and the solutions are on the back.

The little game is a welcome distraction and nicely takes your mind off other things. I'm middle aged and I enjoy it. My little boy likes it and I would bet that seniors would like it too if they have enjoyed puzzles all their lives. I just recommended to my brother for his 20 year old who is recuperating from leg surgery.

This game is so much fun! I purchased it years ago, and raced through it! I am 23 years old, and still like to pick it up once in a while - it challenges me to this day. The cards you are given look easy, but as you work your way through the deck you realize it's not as easy as you think. People of any age group will find it fun, but addictive. As you play, you learn to visualize things in a new way, which is useful in real life. The back of the cards have hints in case you get stuck - one hint shows where a few pieces go; the other hint shows the rest. You can use whichever hint you feel you need more. All around, this is a fun game that doesn't take long to learn and can be enjoyed by everyone!

Being a school grade teacher, I am often looking for games that will challenge the mind. My children and I found this game both challenging and fun. It does cause younger children a bit of frustration, but they don't want to give up. They just keep trying harder!

My 2 daughters spent a long time painting the plates and did some beautiful designs, only for them to start coming off as soon as the paint dried. The painted plates are useless, if even a drop of water hits the paint it comes off --Since the product is using glass plates which only older children can handle I think they would be responsible to handle proper glass paint as well. WHat a waste of our money and our daughters' time. The initial "fun" factor was higher but quickly dropped to zero (but I had to select at least one star!) after the girls realized the artwork wouldn't last

I thought this kit was fun because I like to do crafts and it's nice to be able to eat off of the plates you've painted. This is a fun activity. But if you buy it, don't expect your plates to look like the pictures on the box: all perfect and smudge- free, because in reality, the paint is actually quite smudgy. That was the problem with this kit. The plates still look nice, just not perfect and proffessional.

Painting the plates is a fun activity because you can be creative. The only problem is that you have to be careful or they could crack or break.

To begin with . . . this thing is ENORMOUS! Where on earth am I going to store it? Second; this requires 6 size D batteries! At $6 for a pack of four, that starts to add up (seeing as my child NEVER remembers to shut it off). Third; the markers don't wash off (BTW, *what* is the point of markers combined with lite-brite?). Fourth; little pegs all over the place! And Last; the novelty of sticking pegs into little holes wears off fast. I can't wait to dump this one in the trash.

My daughter picked this out herself for her fourth birthday, in the My Little Pony Version. She quickly mastered the letter identification/match to peg color concept and really enjoyed coloring and making pegged pictures. She likes the tracing concept, but much prefers to ask her older sister to do the tracing.

Flaws:
1) The storage bin for the pegs needs to snap shut. Moving this monster from one part of the house to another is an exercise in frustration because the peg bins pop open and spill all over. Those puppies HURT when you step on them, and you quickly reach the point where you don't have adequate pegs to complete a design.

2) WHERE do you get refills? I can't find them anywhere. I suppose the upside to this is that we haven't yet had to replace the batteries. See the next item.

3) No AC adapter. Replacing batteries for this thing, assuming I can ever find refills and use it again, is going to be beastly expensive.

This toy seemed like a nice, multi-purpose art and educational activity. Five stars for how much fun she had while it lasted. Five stars for how quickly she figured out the letter/color matching. one star for durability because of refills and peg storage, one star overall because we can't use it until we get refills.

A toy that can only be used for 2 days because there is no after-market support from the manufacturer just isn't a good toy. I wish I'd encouraged her to select something else. Anything else.

This was given as a Christmas gift to my 4 1/2 year old. We also have a 2 year old that likes to play with her sister and all her toys. Of course, we watch her with the small pegs, however, that was not the problem. I walked out of the room for, no kidding, 30 seconds, came back to my 2 year old colored BLUE! She had taken one of the markers and drew all over herself. OK, I take blame for that given I was out of the room, however, THE MARKS DO NOT COME OFF HER SKIN!!!!! I tried EVERYTHING (hairspray, vaseline, plain soap and warm water, alcohol based products, fingernail polish remover, scrubbing, etc. etc.) NOTHING WORKED. Nothing. It just has to wear off. PLEASE toy manufacturers - PLEASE - use washable markers when making products like this.

Cybernetic Revolution is the second newest series of Yu-Gi-Oh cards that is being advertised at the moment. Many of the Cards are featured in the new series of Yu-Gi-Oh on Cartoon Network, so if your kid wants to use the Main Characters cards, this is the pack to buy. Machine monsters rule this deck, so naturally, we see some super-powerful monsters like 'Cyber End Dragon'. Overall, a good pack to get, as it has many new and interesting card types.

I was lucky with this pack. I only got 2 packs and I got a goblin elite attack force and a UFOroid. It's an alright pack, but not the best. Some of the Vehicroids have pretty nifty effects. Overall, just pick up 2 or 3 of these.

This is a pretty good pack if you want Cyber Dragon, or some E Hero Support. Just scale some packs to get a CD or two.