ToyTalk’s Top Ten Educational Toys 2008

Our roundup of the best new toys continues with the top educational toys to launch this year…

Cooking Up Sentences – this fun game from Learning Resources treats sentences like recipes to make it easier for kids to grasp the basic elements, including verbs, pronouns and prepositions. Priced around £17.

Technokit Electric Chopper
Interplay’s Technokit range continues to impress. New this year is the Build an Electric Chopper set, which comes with pre-cut wood, stickers and an electric motor. Priced around £7.99.

Tag reading system – a brilliantly original creation from LeapFrog, aiming to help children develop a love of reading, which works by combining specially encoded pages with the Tag reader. Priced around £39.99.

Pirates Undercover – Part of Learning Resources’ Smart Games line, Pirates Undercover is a great game that boosts logical reasoning and problem-solving skills. Top Toy Award winner. Priced around £14.99.

Peppa Pig Step ’n’ Learn Playmat
Golden Bear invites you to learn while answering questions in four categories (numbers, finding, colours and names) with the delightful Peppa Pig. Also available in a Thomas and Friends version. Priced around £24.99.

V.Smile Cyber Pocket
VTech’s revamped games console has a new flip-up screen and works with a huge range of educational V.Smile games from characters like Kung Fu Panda and Wall.E. You get a Scooby-Doo game with the blue console or a Cinderella game with the pink version. Priced around £59.99.

Smart Builders’ Piano
Introduce the joys of music with this clever contraption from Mega Brands, which works as a basic piano but comes to life when the special building blocks are added. Priced around £29.99.

Wall.E Learning Laptop
What better way to introduce laptop computers to youngsters than this offering from VTech, which brings Wall.E’s distinctive appeal to the educational toy market? Priced around £29.99.

Grow a Bug, Bee and Butterfly Garden
Another winner from Interplay, this kit includes seeds and instructions for attracting insects to your garden. Priced around £11.99.

Leapster2
LeapFrog’s handheld console offers educational games from some of the best-loved children’s properties, including Dora the Explorer, Cars and Disney Princess. You can also get a cool black version with the Star Wars: The Clone Wars game. Priced around £49.99.