Lloyd and I went to Omaha on some small quests, and one of the stops was Fat Brain Toys, where I saw – and purchased – the Best Thing Ever!!
In preschool we have lots of ways to encourage children to explore writing, and traditionally the girls are raring to go – lots of ‘office work’ and such – but I often have a handful of boys that would rather eat a mountain of spinach than come over and draw for a little bit.
This will change all that.
It is so cool!! The ‘pen’ is a magnet that pulls each BB up through this little tube until it clicks into place. Tracing each letter produces the most satisfying click-click-click, and then to erase them, you trace back over them with your finger and they click back down. (I bought the number version, too.)
The directions for making some of the letters and numbers are a little wacky, but this is absolutely awesome! I can’t wait until tomorrow. 😀
Mary Ellen says
School starts a week from today and I cannot wait to get my hands on one of these! I am in Wyoming on vacation, so I just need to convince the hubby and kids that we should return to Illinois via Omaha. Fat Brain, here I come! Well, maybe I should check Amazon first, Omaha is a bit of a detour I think?
Lauren says
Just take Interstate 80 -- You’ll zip right by. 🙂
Brad says
But be careful that a boy doesn’t break it open to see where the BBs hide. I was just talking with someone about the mechanical curiosity that led me to destroy things when I was a kid. It wasn’t malicious… it was science.
Lauren says
You would have been in a lot of science-y time outs in my room, mister.
Peggy says
Very cool item for your kids!! I watched the video & the ‘click, click, click’ could become quite addicting. I keep saying it as I write this morning.
AND I spent a good amount of time looking at all the cool stuff at Fat Brain (hehe) Toys.
Let us know how the boys liked it.
Kristi says
I love that store! We were there last month, and I saw the very same toy. It is so very, very cool. I could drop a lot of money in that place. Good thing there’s the internets for ordering, since I can’t make a weekly trip.