TechVines: Toys, games, apps to make time fly

Friday, June 29, 2012

Toys, games, apps to make time fly - Washington Post

Toys, games, apps to make time fly - The Washington Post

Â Best summer travel toys

My Friendship Bracelet Maker Crorey Creations. Age 6 and older. $16.98. Available at www.toysrus.com, www. amazon.com and www.hearthsong.com. (Slightly larger version $19.99 at Michaels craft stores.) Crafty kids will love this travel container for creating those colorful bracelets. ThereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s a clip at the top for holding one end of the bracelet and several pegs at the other to keep the threads from getting tangled. A drawer below holds 10 colors of thread. And instructions are provided for those who have never made a friendship bracelet.

Media CafÃ© OnlineLLC /

Best summer travel toys

Star Wars building set with planet Lego. Ages 6 to 10. $9.99. For the kid who loves to build, three new Lego sets have just enough pieces to be interesting but not overwhelming in the car or plane. The TIE Interceptor, Podracer and Naboo Starfighter come with a standard-size figure, a small ship and a platform for the two. The 56- to 80-piece sets store neatly inside a planet -- or a mini Death Star -- that can be hung from the ceiling of your room after the trip. Available at Amazon.com

lego

Â Best summer travel toys

Mini Mouth Thinkfun. Age 8 and older. Two or more players. $9.99. Fans of Scrabble and Boggle will like this word game, which is small enough to fit in your pocket. Flip two to five of the 26 tiles, and the first person to make a word with all of them wins those tiles. (Thankfully, you don'T have to use all the letters if you turn over two tricky ones: Q and X words, anyone?) The player with the most tiles wins. This game could work on an airplane tray or a lap desk in the car.

Think Fun

Â Best summer travel toys

IQ Fit Smart Games. Age 6 and older. $9.99. Available at Barstons Child's Play stores in Washington, Rockville, McLean and Arlington. Also online at www.smarttangoes.com . You might have played a similar game called IQ Twist, but this one has an added challenge: The pieces are three-dimensional. So when you pick a challenge and place a few colored pieces in the slots according to a picture, it's no easy feat to finish the puzzle. The compact game offers 120 challenges -- from starter to wizard levels -- and the tremendous satisfaction of being able to stump your parents.

Smart Games

Â Best summer travel apps

Monster Physics Dan Russell-Pinson. Age 8 and older. 99 cents through the end of July for iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone. The creator of the fun geography app Stack the States has designed a challenging app for kids who like to build things. Each player becomes a monster that tries to build a machine of wood or metal with wheels, wings, propellers or rockets. You can accept a mission to get your monster over a ramp or through a minefield. Or you can use your imagination and parts to build something unique. It's colorful, fun and requires creative thinking.

Monster Physics

Â Best summer travel apps

Kids Doodle -- Movie Your Drawing Bejoy Mobile. Age 6 and older. Free for Android, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. (A version without ads is 99 cents.) Who doesn't like to doodle? Yes, there are dozens of drawing and painting apps out there, but this one has more than a dozen neon-glow brush strokes (including dots, circles, thick and thin lines) and a neat feature that replays how you created your masterpiece. Every time you lift your brush, the strokes change color. You can import vacation photos and then draw on top. (Perhaps some bunny ears for Mom?) Save your doodles in the gallery to enjoy long after the trip is over.

Illustration by Susana Sanchez-Young

Â Best travel apps

Marble Math, Marble Math Jr. Artgig Apps. Ages 5 to 12. $1.99 for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Choose a marble and roll or drag it through a maze. But you have to perform a task or answer a question to make it out the other side. You can collect bonus points, but watch out for ghosts, slime and banana peels along the way. Each app offers three levels of difficulty, so when you take a break, your little sister might want a try.

Marble Math screen grab.

Â Best travel apps

BrainQuest. Workman Publishing. Ages 6 to 11. Free for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad; $2.99 for Nook. BrainQuest, a travel-ready series of question-and-answer cards for kids, has been around for 20 years. The free iPod Touch, iPad and iPhone app, for grades 1 through 5, takes players through a series of adventures with timed quizzes about science, social studies, math and other topics. Additional adventures can be unlocked for $2.99. The paid Nook app contains all the adventures for one grade level. This is a fun app for kids who like trivia, but the Nook version can get expensive for families with several kids.