This year's American International Toy Fair featured some innovations that are so equally fun and educational it may be hard to figure out whether kids or their parents will be the first ones in line. NY1's Adam Balkin filed the following report.
This week at the Javits Center in Manhattan there's loads of stuff kids will want just for fun, and loads of stuff parents will want their kids to have for learning. It's all part of the 110th annual American International Toy Fair which, of course, has lots of great middle grounders that both kids and parents will likely agree upon like Crayola's Marker Maker kit out later this year. Kids will like making their own markers from scratch, parents will like the process which is like a beginner's guide to chemistry.
"It lets kids experiment with colors and follow their own recipe guides to create their own custom colors using Crayola inks and marker parts that come together to create a customized marker," explains Faith Strucko of Crayola.
Popar Toys, which makes books with augmented reality so that you can point your mobile device at the page to make it digitally come alive, will start selling in a couple months puzzles with augmented reality and AR maps of the world and the solar system.
"It's a seek and find so it actually asks you questions so you learn about solar systems, you learn about star clusters, you learn about each individual planet and their probes such as the Magellan space probe or the Destroyer probe," says Robert Siddell of Popar Toys.
And finally, you might think it's a bit of a stretch to have kids learn about science by having them play with bubbles but chances are they've never played with Epic Bubbles.
Out this summer from Be Amazing Toys, Epic Bubbles are clear or if you supply the dry ice you can fill the bubbles with smoke. The secret though is actually in a fancy glove you wear.
"It's a regular bubble and regular dish soap. It's just the fact that the bubble is not touching any type of oil or dirt on your hands when before could you ever squeeze a bubble like this, here we go we'll recycle which makes it kinda fun," explains Steve Spangler of Be Amazing Toys.
The same folks are also allowing kids, through lesson in physics, to make square bubbles.