Best educational toys—as judged by children

T.J. Bearytales (Playskool, $50, 3 and up)

Playskool

Talk about cute!  Theodore James Bearytales (you can call him T.J.) is one of the most adorable animated characters I’ve seen in a long time. T.J. likes to sing, but he loves to tell stories.

He comes with a colorful storybook that lets kids follow along. And they really like to do that. T.J. proves that a good educational toy can make learning fun.

One teacher told me T.J. quickly becomes “a very good friend.” That’s why the kids can watch and listen to him for the longest time. In fact, when one story's done, they want to hear another. That’s easy to do; just change the cartridge in his back. T.J. comes with “My Big Birthday Surprise.” Other stories, such as “Bear Ahoy! My Pirate Adventure,” are sold separately.

For the school-age crowd
Power Chutes Start Set (Rokenbok, $70, 6 and up)

Rokenbok

Some remote control vehicles just race around the room. The R/C Skip Track front loader in the Power Chutes set has a purpose — to deliver those red and blue ROK balls to the power chutes factory.

Of course, before kids can do that, they have to build the factory. That construction project has 127 pieces that snap together.

“They start off with nothing and then build up something great,” said a teacher.

Kids control the front loader with a controller that looks like it came from a video game machine. It controls both the direction and the scoop on the front loader. I watched the kids driving up the ramp to the loading bin and it’s quite challenging. You’ve got to maneuver the Skip Track into just the right position to drop the balls into the chute. The way you drop them determines which chutes the balls go down.

This start set is a great way to “test drive” the Rokenbok line. The RC Control Center can handle up to 8 vehicles. And everything in this set works with every product in the Rokenbok line.

WonderWorks Talking Picture Book (Cranium, $20, 5 and up)

Cranium

Those clever folks at Cranium have done it again. The WonderWorks Talking Picture Book is a personal, portable drawing pad. It uses dry erase markers and comes with lots of reusable stickers.

There's also an activity spinner that gets kids started with various story lines.

But here's cool part. Kids can record a little story for each of the four pages. Then play back the audio, one at a time, in any combination. You should see the smiles on the kid’s faces as they hear themselves narrate their stories. It’s amazing how something so simple can be so much fun.

You can see all these toys in action by watching my video podcast at the top of this story.

Next week: Top rated toys for under $25.

MORE FROM HOLIDAY RETAIL

Holiday retail Section Front

Post-holiday sales aren’t saving the season How to recover from holiday ‘debt hangover’ Shoppers rush to stores before Christmas Shoppers ‘too little, too late’ to save season Final hours will be long ones for some stores Stores brace for last-minute gift card surge Maine: Why let unused gift cards go to waste? Holiday shoppers taking their sweet time U.S. may face foreign shopper hangover Consumers still spending on gadgets Holiday retail Section Front   Add Holiday retail headlines to your news reader: