Science Reviews

My 3-year old received this for her birthday and absolutely loves it. The instructions are verbal and doesn't require any reading skills yet. However, she has learned so much since she had this game. She is a Nemo enthusiast.

This Leapster book is just as good as the movie itself! And of course is a great learning tool. My 4 year old enjoys every bit of it and can't put it down. There is a lot to learn and undestand. The various levels are very challenging, and can interest a child for long time. Hint: Good when travelling long distances instead of switching on the DVD player in the car.

This game my grandson just loves. He is constantly looking for nemo in the game section. Glad I bought it.

fabulous fun thing to do with your child...dress it up,nurture it,watch "it" grow....

This is a wonderful Kit, with lots of great seeds & props. We gave this to my son on his 7th birthday , knowing how much he loves plants/flowers & watching seeds grow. Painting your own pot then planting the way you wish around the little cottage was great fun for my little guys (7, 4 & 2). The props are a little bit big for the garden but are still great for creating a beautiful secret garden all your own. We've added extras to ours; little green trees from a birthday cake, toy cars & shells.

My kids are always begging for something to do. this product is the right amount of creativity and "already done" activity. some supervision required, however, kids learn how to take care of plants for weeks after planting. the miracle of growth is clearly demonstrated.

I am expecting to give a 5 star review. I have not used this product yet. I just purchased it for my 2 1/2 year old daughter. She has been telling me that she wants the Easter Bunny to bring her a computer. Mommy works on a laptop all day and she is so interested in using my keyboard. I thought this looked like a real laptop and it should interest her as much as mine does. I have originally thought that this would be too advanced for her (ages 5 and up listed on my box), but after reading a few of the reviews it might just be the right challege that she needs.

Mom in Michigan

I bought this for my grandson's 6th birthday along with the case. He started using it immediately and thinks it is just like Mom's and Grandma's laptops--mouse and all! But this is kid-sturdy and educational. He loves it.

I purchased this activity notebook for my granddaughter who has scheduled a thirty minute session each night after dinner. It was her request, by the way. I like the fact that it tracks progress and has levels of difficulty that will keep her attention for years to come. As a bonus, her little brother can use it as well when he is old enough. I predict its usefulness in their household for at least the next twelve years. Its the best gift I've ever purchased for a child.

I watched and waited for this item since Christmas and it was worth it. As soon as we opened the boxes, my 9-year-old twin boys were hooked. They have been playing with the Touch Tablet for hours non-stop. There is so much to do. They don't realize that they are learning as they play. I recommend this item. A bit expensive to buy 2 like I did, but worth every penny.

I purchased 3 units this past Christmas. The idea was to help bring up my nephew's grades, but I couldn't just buy 1. With 3 school age kids, sharing is non-existent! The kids were very impressed, and so was I. The mere weight of them is astonishing. The computer is in fact a 'REAL' kids computer! My daughter told her teacher about it, and the request was made for her to bring it to school. My daughter is now using this 'COMPUTER' in class! The teacher is so impressed with it, that she is getting them for her grandchildren. At the end of the school year, I have a surprise for her...I am donating one to her class!!!

I love this product.

My nephew has gone from D's and F's, to B's and C's.

Thank You, Thank YOU, THANK YOU! VTech for such a wonderful product!!!

I hunted for this product for my oldest grandson for Christmas; I could not locate it anywhere. One morning I was on www.vtech.com; which I visited frequently trying to see if this item was back in stock. I got lucky and your corporation had it that one morning. I am giving this product to my grandson for his 8th birthday which is not until the end of March. I am just grateful to have been one of the lucky ones to get my hands on something that he wants so bad, and is so hard to locate. Thank you

I pre-ordered a got the new NXT box last week. I built the alpha-rex. It was fun. Here are my impressions so far...

1. The motors, sensors are well designed and works great.
2. I found a single defective piece in my set which is very uncharacteristic for lego. However, it was still usable.
3. The bluetooth gave me some problems on the second day of usuage. My laptop (Dell Precision M70) and the NXT brick couldnt connect. I had to use USB to download. I dont think its serious issue as it had worked fine previously.
4. The labview software was intutive and straight forward. However, I believe that a 10 year old will need some lessons to get used to it.
5. The display interface on the brick is very intutive. It could have been better with backlight...but then again I think that would eat up the battery faster..
6. The packaging is very disappointing. I plan to buy separate plastic boxes for storage.

Overall, I am very excited and happy with the product. I cant wait for the bluetooth resources that lego will post on their website, which will let me do some cool stuff...i hope :)

My NXT set just arrived by FedEx this afternoon. I'm a parent of two (6 and 3-year old) so this is mainly for me for now. I was an early adopter of the first generation of Mindstorms, so naturally I pre-ordered the NXT. I've played with it for two hours, so these are my initial impressions:

- the new motors are Wonderful -- they work as motors or servos (you tell them which angle to go to). They look futuristic and robot-y

- it comes with an ultrasound distance sensor -- whoa that's neat!

- All of the sensors are "slick-looking", and seem to work very well.

- the brick display is quite nice, but the interface is a bit niggly. Lots of nested menus. My 3 year-old managed to delete the built in demo program by button twiddling. It was easy to restore, though.

- the box itself (the "out of box experience") is disappointing. You have to punch out some quarter-circles to allow it to hinge, but they're poorly serrated, so the tears come out ugly. The inner boxes are hard to open so you end up messing those up. In short, the previous mindstorms box was a great long-term storage solution. This one is going in the trash. As a first impression, it's pretty poor.

- back to the good: there's a "quick-start guide" that gets you building a simple robot that is run by a built in demo program. It's perfect: not difficult, but not trivial -- it makes noises and moves around. The kids were enchanted.

- the "powered by LabView" programming environment seems halfway between the nerd-y LabView system that you could buy from Dacta and the totally bozo thing bundled with the old Mindstorms. It doesn't have that "rocket scientist" feel of the old LabView environment, which is both good (it's more self-guided) and bad (I don't see how to zoom out so that I can see complex programs all at once, for example.

All in all, this thing is very impressive, has lots of staying power, and since it supports MacOS X, I'll actually use it, and will most likely pull out my old MindStorms and combine parts. Thanks, Lego -- keep up the great work!

Firmware update worked fine for me. You may need to reset your NXT brick (paperclip beside the usb port) and redownload.

My three year old daughter and I built and programmed the tribot in about three hours. We're thrilled with it.

I ordered this item for my grandson who is 7 and really into Magnetix but he got lots for Christmas so I just kept this one at my home so everyone can enjoy it there when he or other grandchildren/other children come to visit. Magnetix are GREAT fun for all! Great product for Amazon to offer.

Sea-monkeys are cool, and this set is also cool, but to own sea-monkeys, you need to be very serious about it, you need to care for them always, and if you forget to feed them once, or oxygenate them, or even the tiniest thing, they can die, this has happened with my sister and I for the second time, and this time they died after five days! So, I guess before you buy this set, you should be willing to take full responsibility for your little aquatic pets, perhaps make a schedule for feeding, oxygenating, etc. for your pets. Hope this helps!

The Sea Monkey Ocean of Light is a good invest. As long as you follow the instructions, the growth process folds right before your eyes. There are 4 easy steps to getting the little monkeys on their way. You and your child can read the instructions together, and they can help agitate the water or pour food into the tank. My kid loves watching the little sea monkeys swim around, especially since they are easier to see.

I always had sea monkeys as a kid, so when I saw them in the store, I could not resist picking some up for my animal-crazy 4 year old.
I had forgotten the 36 hours you have to wait, and since my son does not have a whole lot of patience- it was not an immediate hit.
However these little creatures quickly grew, and now Im almost more amused by these little shrimp then my children. (and yes I know they are just Brine shrimp, Thank You)
It was still a great science project for a four year old and his mom, and it added a nice dose of nostalgia to my day.

I give this Leap Pad book 3 stars for fun because my children were not interested enough to even look at all the pages.They played with it a lot, but did not get even half way through, maybe that just means it is full of fun stuff to do, but since my kids have not gone back to it, I feel it does not hold their interest quite enough. Educational, 4 stars because some of it seemed a bit simple, like the space page. 5 stars for durability because it is no more and no less durable then regular Leap Pad books. Dont like the eraseable pen though. Must cover it each and every time, even between questions. If it's off more then 5 seconds, it dries out.I peronally did not find it very easy to keep picking up and putting down pens. I tried using a pen in each hand, and it dried out, so I had to keep putting down the regular "pen" to cover up the eraseable pen. Pretty annoying.

I'm a little disappointed about the Smart Guide to Third Grade, not because it's not good, but because it doesn't offer much more than the sample book that came with the Quantum Pad. I'm sure that someone who has the LeapPad will get more use out of it, but if I had known that the only major bonuses are in the math section, I would have purchased the Third Grade Math Book instead.

I think this book is very good for learning the skills of third grade. The only thing is that I wish it came with a case to hold the cartridge, book and pen in one place like my sister's Smart guide to 1st grade came with.

I felt this kit was expensive for the small amount of items that came with it. It is cute and beats having my kids sit in front of the television, [...] As a plus I must admit that my children (ages 9 and 7) enjoyed painting the butterflies and turning them into magnets. That is worth a few stars.

I bought this item for my daughter for Christmas last year.
She and her brother had a great time with the kit, but I thought it was a little expensive, considering it only came with one paintbrush and only 6 basic color paints.
The wooden butterflies are nice size and shape, but I wish the kit would've come with a few more of them. We added magnets to the back and now have them on the fridge. Overall, a nice kit that my kids really enjoyed.

My girls have received other Balitono kits before and they love them, so I am always on the lookout for more styles. The best ones we had were the horses kit and some other jewelry box kits (not sure the exact names) but the painted things are on our girls' tables.

The butterflies kit is not as elaborate as the others we had but we had as much fun creating them. My 9 year old and 7 year old shared the kit and took the time painting them and making into magnets and ornaments. The butterflies are about 4 inches each, not large but there are 3 of them and i am impressed with the quality of the paints and paintbrush since i used to paint on canvas. on the pamphlet, it said the wooden butterflies are hand-carved and they have the details that are life-like. One improvement i would like to have is to have a glow-in-the-dark paint included.

I have an iQuest. It has helped me in the fields of math, science, and social studies. It is also fun to play with.
I love my iQuest. I think every child should have one.
(I am 11)

If your child likes computer games.. this is a way to help him/her. Check to see if the text your child uses is on the program, they have quite a few.

this is agreat device for who get grades that you dont want. I think that this is good for a kid who oNly has $25 and needs another $25.