Toys and Games Books

This book is layed out simply; gives understandable instructions on its' use; and two different examples. Great way to catalog your collection and also to have a record of the number, type and value of your collection for insurance purposes should anything (ie. fire, theft) happen to your collection.Note: You would then want to store your book in a firesafe place!

The Teddy Bear Men: Theodore Roosevelt and Clifford Berryman by Linda Mullins is a great book that I found hard to put down before reading every word and experiencing every picture. I find my joy and enthusiasm for this book overflowing into my conversations and e-mails.

The book delightfully combines teddy bears, political cartoons, and history in pictures and words. Although the intent of author Linda Mullins in writing this book was not to write a biography of either Theodore Roosevelt or Clifford Berryman, there is enough biography information included to bring their personalities and character to life and give perspective to the book. Clifford Berryman is described as "one of the most thoughtful and constructive political philosophers of his day". Berryman possessed the unusual ability to achieve "satire that never left a scar" in his political cartoons. He is best know for his political cartoons of President Teddy Roosevelt with his trade mark teddy bear in them.

President Theodore Roosevelt is described as " a boy who grew up to be the man of his dreams". The association of teddy bears and big game hunting with Theodore Roosevelt is well know. The author traces the development of Clifford Berryman's cartoon signature, the Berryman/Roosevelt Bear, and discusses the public love and acceptance of this delightful little bear and the fascinating association of teddy bears with the lives of both of these great men.

The copies of Berryman's cartoons richly enhance the experience of the book as do the teddy bear illustrations. The Teddy Bear Man: Theodore Roosevelt and Clifford Berryman by Linda Mullins is a "must have" addition to the collection of any collector of political cartoons or teddy bear lover.

Researching students will find the book a good resource for human interest to include in term papers on either Roosevelt or Berryman and related subjects.

Linda Mullins identification book is a must for the teddy bear collector. I have followed Mullins' teddy bear shows in So. California for almost 20 years and this book captures the knowledge and experience of Mullins. This book offers comprehensive information that not only clearly identifies past collectible teddy bears but provides bear "seekers" valuable information on the newer bears the collector should be watching. Thanks Linda Mullins for such a fine book!

This is a marvelous, heartwarming book all about those loveable, adorable, teddy bears. Filled with beautiful color photos of a very wide variety of the old teddies (even miniature teddy bears are included)as well as some of your more contemporary teddy bears too. There's a total of 40 stories about bears, the teddy bear owners and related subjects. You'll also read about and see photos of irresistable topics ranging from the mechanical bears, teddy bear books, not so cute looking teddy bears and even lady bears. This book includes over 170 photographs to illustrate the talies and all the other information that is so interesting to read about. It would make a great gift to any teddy bear collector or even the beginning collector! I highly recommend this book, and guarantee you won't want to put it down.

If you are attempting to teach your child how to tell time, all you need is this book and 5 minutes a day. Although the book consists of almost 60 lessons, my daughter learned how to tell time in less than 2 weeks.

The activities do not comprise of the typical "busy work" variety, as they require the child to think and not just fill in another blank space. Several of the lessons are hands-on and require the child to actually use time measurements for conceptual understanding. My daughter cringes at workbook type materials, but gleefully grabbed this title off the shelf as a free time activity. My daughter's review by action speaks volumes for the effectiveness and ease of use of Telling Time with the Judy Clock.

We used a wall clock for acitivies requiring the actual Judy Clock manipulative.

As a 5th grade teacher, I have already used many activities in this book that my children have really enjoyed. So far, their favorite is the dictionary type activities. I noticed the second week of school that my students struggled on finding words in a dictionary. Like really struggled. I pulled out 3 activities from this book. The guide word giggles which we did first, Dictionary Duos, and then Dictionary Wars. My kids were begging me to keep going by the end (we played in teams to win). They are very fast finding words now which is wonderful for them as well as me!!

My son loves all four books in this series. He got his first one at 10 months and is now 20 months and wants to read them all the time. He loves the different textures and is now starting to put the shapes back in the spaces by himself. I recommend all the textured soft shape books very highly.

This excellent series of teacher resource books is one of my all-time favorites. The basic organizational system gives order and focus to any topic being studied. You can start with the fabulous projects given here, feeling free to use just what you wish, and also to include your own ideas. Areas included are science, social studies. literature, art, writing, math...you name it! I teach second grade and these books have been perfect for this age group...best investment I've made in recent years. I highly recommend these books for new teachers and veterans alike.

A great simple book with clear graphics and a lift up on each page. Milly searches a house looking for a monster, but instead finds animals under blankets etc. - the flaps reveal what the monster really is each time. Needless to say she does find her monster in the end. Each page also has four common elements (e.g. a spider) for the child to look for. Excellent

The most impressive characteristic of this book is how the designers have been able to incorporate three-dimensional puzzles into the structure. Many of the puzzles pop-up into form when you open the page and you can physically manipulate the pieces to work through the puzzle. The puzzles are:

*) Hog-tied in the saloon - a puzzle where two card dealers are supposedly tied together
*) Babylon - a puzzle where you slide numbered tokens from one side to another never putting a larger number on top of a smaller number
*) Jumping frogs - sliders containing a green frog on one end and an orange frog on the other are to be moved from one configuration to another without violating intermediate rules
*) Four-square fold - a slider puzzle where each slider has four colored sections
*) Crossing the bridge - four blue cars are on one side and four red cars on the other and the goal is to reverse which color is on which side
*) Pyramaze - a maze where you are to traverse a three-dimensional pyramidal maze
*) The pairing maze - in this case the goal is to move colored balls along a maze into a selective rearrangement
*) Hampton court maze - a replica of the hedge maze of the time of Henry VIII.
*) The beer glass puzzle - in this case the goal is to rearrange sliders so that a man disappears and a glass of beer appears
*) Get off the Earth - the classic Sam Loyd puzzled of the disappearing Chinese warrior
*) Double image, a folding jigsaw puzzle - in this case you are to take the pieces of a picture of the Mona Lisa and fold it so that it displays a picture of Marilyn Monroe
*) The folding magic square - in this case, you are to fold a flat structure so that the colors in the cells have a particular alignment
*) The Lo-Shu magic square - placing numbers in a 3 x 3 grid to make a classic magic square
*) The magic square - order four - in this case you are to fill in the remaining cells of a 4 x 4 grid to make a magic square
*) The flexi-square - you are to fold a piece of paper to make particular designs
*) Minimal length ruler - you are to slide markers to positions on a ruler so that you can measure every distance from 1 to 16 units
*) Minimal length circles - a circle is divided into seven equal distances and your goal is to place three markers on the circle so that all distances from 1 through 7 can be measured
*)Love me, love me not - you start by placing 13 bee markers in the center and you are to move them to an alternate configuration without violating any rules
*) The illusion wheel - a series of line segments is drawn with markings on them. Your goals is to determine which segment is divided exactly in half by a marking
*) The magic room - in this case you are to fold a three-dimensional structure so that it has a specific configuration
*) Space rescue - a set of 49 images of space aliens is given and you spin a spinner. The first person to recognize the image having the characteristics of where the spinner landed is the winner
*) The great escape - in this case the user is to manipulate a figure containing an image of Harry Houdini so that it can escape

Solutions to all of the puzzles are included if you get frustrated. As is generally the case when I encounter puzzle books, I spent a lot of time working through these puzzles, although I can't really complain. Time spent working quality puzzles is by definition not time wasted.