Reading Time: 4 minutes In our nerdy home, it wouldn’t be the Christmas season (November 1-December 31, as far as I’m concerned) without a bit of Harry Potter. The banners, feasts, and thoughts of the warm, fuzzy sweaters of the Weasley family—along with the fun rivalry of most of us being in different houses—all add […]
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Fire up your tractor beam and let’s abduct some cows! Logic game style…
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Assemble a puzzle, solve the mysteries, and escape from the room in this line of escape room jigsaw puzzles!
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Take logic puzzles into the third dimension with this new logic game from ThinkFun.
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Reading Time: 2 minutes Designed by a fan and implemented by the very intelligent folks at LEGO (they knew that a certain segment of their fan base would appreciate this set very much), the new LEGO Friends Central Perk set is out today! (Not to be confused with the LEGO Friends line of toy sets.) […]
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Reading Time: 3 minutes Stephen Fry can be at once hilarious, melodious, and serious. And cheeky. Often cheeky. He has managed to combine all of these qualities together in the book Mythos, with a new U.S. version out today from Chronicle Books (it was previously published in the UK to wide acclaim). In Mythos, Stephen […]
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Reading Time: 3 minutes This year, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of the biggest news stories of the 20th century, the first moon landing on July 20, 1969. Capturing the interest, hearts, and intellect of countless people around the world, the space race, leading up to the first moon landing, was a serious […]
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Reading Time: 5 minutes I grew up eating the occasional homemade pizza, and we still make it sometimes ourselves. I’ve tried countless recipes, baked in my standard oven, but, while usually tasty, none come out quite like you’d hope, quite like you’d expect from a pizza joint. Well, the likely reason for that is the […]
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Reading Time: 4 minutes Learn about astronomy with your kids! Image used with permission. Now that the nights are starting to get warmer (in some places, at least!), it’s time to start considering some outdoor activities. But after all the hikes, cookouts, and kite flying, what’s a good activity after dark? After you’ve filled up […]
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Reading Time: 2 minutes As they do every year, the folks at American Mensa hold a weekend o’ games, Mensa Mind Games, where Mensa members play, rate, and rank tabletop games submitted for that year’s competition. This year’s was held just last weekend, and the 2019 Mensa Select winners have been announced! The winners are […]
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Reading Time: 3 minutes Did you know that there is enough energy in just your little pinky to power an entire city? That’s how this book of wonder begins, explaining how marvelous our bodies can be. Power Up: Your Incredible, Spectacular, Supercharged Body, written by Seth Fishman and illustrated by Isabel Greenberg, looks at energy […]
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Reading Time: 2 minutes Since The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part will be released in theaters on February 8, 2019, LEGO has released 19 (nineteen!) new LEGO sets based on the new movie. They will all be available starting December 26, 2018. There is something for everyone in this collection, with prices ranging from […]
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Reading Time: 5 minutes Images: Shrinky Dinks TIL that Shrinky Dinks came out the same year that I did: 1973. October 19th, to be exact. I remember playing with them as a kid. Most kids of my generation will remember coloring and cutting out Shrinky Dinks as a playtime or party activity. My first memories […]
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Reading Time: 4 minutes As the world of Harry Potter expands, so do the offerings for enthusiasts and collectors. These three books are all solid options for adding to your home’s Harry Potter library. Whether you like to sit and gaze, explore and uncover, or get in on the action yourself, there is something for […]
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Reading Time: 3 minutes We all know that kids are curious. Science-oriented kids are often curious in, shall we say, unexpected ways. They may challenge the laws of physics. Or chemistry. And they often do a lot of, “Oh, I just wanted to see what would happen if…” kinds of things. Famous scientists were no […]
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Reading Time: 4 minutes Those of us of a certain age can be a bit nostalgic for the BASIC era, the same way we are for rotary dial phones. BASIC was never flashy (pun intended), but it was fun, straight forward, and accessible to kids with no more than a basic understanding of how computers […]
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Love escape rooms but not the price tag? A new Kickstarter launches today that will give you hours of puzzle-solving fun without the hefty price tag.
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Reading Time: 3 minutes Image: Laurence King It’s never too early to introduce your kids (or your neighbor’s kids or your sister’s kids or your grandkids) to the elements that make up our world. A brand new book, The Element in the Room: Investigating the Atomic Ingredients that Make Up Your Home, will help you […]
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Reading Time: 4 minutes Photo: Julia Williams. Used with permission. Do you believe in fairies? No? Well, most fairies don’t believe in you, either. Nor gnomes, pixies, or others in the magical realm. At least according to a new book entitled The Land of Stone Flowers. But don’t worry. A few believe. And they have […]
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Reading Time: 3 minutes Though we’ve been celebrating this event all year long, today is the actual 40th birthday of the LEGO minifigure! Happy birthday, little articulated guys and gals (and monsters and droids and…)! I’ve had LEGO my whole life. My earliest memories of playing with toys include the free-form LEGO sets we had. […]
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