Product Description
GENERAL FEATURES: Ball of Whacks by Creative Whack Company is a creative tool for innovators, artists, and nearly everyone else! More versatile than a puzzle and lots more fun than a brain teaser, there's no wrong way to play and work with it. It gets your creative juice flowing!The Ball of Whacks is made up of 30 magnetic design blocks that can be taken apart and rearranged in endless ways. The Ball of Whacks comes with a 96-page illustrated book that provides exercises for creative brainstorming and problem-solving. For ages eight and up.
Customer Reviews:
A fun, creative toy for the person who has everything.......2007-10-01
This is just a fun, creative toy. It starts as a ball and comes apart into mini "pyramid-like" pieces. From here, you can use your imagination and create new objects (animals, stars, etc.). It also has a strangely soothing feel when you are putting it back together.
The only drawback is that the magnets could be a little stronger. Sometimes it is hard to get your new creations to stay together because they slip. However, overall this is a really cool toy. Good for kids and adults.
Disappointing.......2007-09-12
I'm sorry. I just find this product to be boring and, to be frank, juvenile.
Great for your coffee table.......2007-05-07
When I was a kid my family always had a game or puzzle on the coffee table to twiddle with when watching TV. Even though in this TiVo world we watch commercials less, the Ball of Whacks still gets picked up and played with while the TV is on.
This is a timeless toy that can be split and combined in a zillion ways. Not quite the rubik's cube of the 00's, but fun for kids and adults.
Not as good as expected.......2007-04-05
I was excited to get this based on the reviews, but I found the toy more inhibitive than expected. The odd shape of the blocks combined with the limited amount only allow a couple different arrangements, all tending more or less toward a ball-like design. Things like the "frog" in the picture are about the most you can spread it out, but it will be too fragile to touch at that point. I felt like this could have been cool, but the pieces just aren't as flexible as I would like (such as Legos). This was not worth the money to me.
Neat at first.......2007-03-31
This was fun to play with. The magnets aren't as strong as Geomag or Supermag toys, and as a result interesting arrangements can't keep their shape. However, the shape of each piece is clever and you can make many arrangements with it. After a few weeks though I got bored with the Ball of Whacks and gave it away.
Book Description
More than 65 delightful games and activities to jump-start your baby's amazing brainpower
Can simply singing a song or blowing a dandelion under a toddler's nose help her mind to blossom? Can your baby count, remember events, and solve problems even before he can talk? The exciting answer to both questions is yes!
Breakthrough research is revealing the extraordinary inborn abilities of infants.
It is also showing how experiences during the first years of life profoundly
influence intelligence, creativity, language development-and even later
reading and math skills.
Now two psychologists and child development experts-authors of the bestselling Baby Signs-have created a delightful guide for parents based on the most up-to-date knowledge of how babies discover the world. You'll learn how to:
_ Create a homemade mobile to stimulate your three-month-old's delight in solving problems
_ Play a patty-cake game to help your two-year-old
make logical connections
_ Initiate bedtime conversations that build your child's memory and sense of personal history
_ Develop "Baby Signs" to help your toddler communicate before he or she can talk
_ Stimulate your child's natural number skills with puppets and counting games
_ Use nursery rhymes and special read-aloud techniques to foster reading readiness
_ Nurture budding creativity with humor and fantasy play
_ And much more!
Baby Minds is not another program for creating "super babies." Instead it
builds on activities that babies instinctively love to develop their unique abilities and make your daily interactions full of the joy of discovery-for both of you.
Customer Reviews:
Fabulous book - every parent should have!.......2007-08-01
I read this book and then bought a copy so I could keep it as a reference. Full of fascinating information about baby development that every parent should know -- I was surprised to learn just how advanced babies' minds are as soon as they are born, how they are much more aware of the world around them than previously thought. This book has many ideas of how to capitalize on your baby's brain development as s/he grows. Simple and fun games to play and ways to interact with your child. I love this book and have used many of the ideas already with my 8-month-old daughter.
Focusing Mr. Live Wire.......2007-05-13
Our first and only grandchild has the typical inquisitive mind of a toddler. This book helps us to offer additional play that will encourage the mind. It is the small things that have influenced him the most.
Great info on baby's brains!.......2007-03-28
Sort of a review of "Early Childhood Development" courses. With reference to Skinner and Vygotsky's work. Very interesting and a fast, easy read.
Interesting but wordy.......2006-11-04
This is an interesting book and it goes into detail about little minds, but some of it may be too technical for parents who just want to learn the games and not why or how they stimulate. Some parents might not have time to read all the background info and would like to just get down to the fun part, which is a little bit difficult with this book. Still, if you have the time to devote to this book, it really is interesting and enlightening and may encourage you to try to develop even more games to stimulate your child's growing mind which is certainly a good thing!
prefer Perlmutter's Raise a Smarter Child by Kindergarten.......2006-10-24
If you are looking for more activities / games to play with your child, there are over 30 in chapter 3 of David Perlmutter's book, Raise A Smarter Child by Kindergarten.
Book Description
So You Think You're Smart is a delightful book of word games that the entire family can enjoy. All games are concise, uncomplicated and, most of all, a lot of fun. They are about ordinary words and things that everybody knows about so only common knowledge and a bit of resourcefulness are needed to solve them.
The games are only one of the fun features. All answers are encrypted! Each is given on the same page as the game, but is printed upside-down and backward - as in a mirror image. To ensure that they cannot be accidentally read, the answers are further obscured by using italics and a reduced size type. A mirror is needed to reveal the answers - and a special unbreakable plastic one is provided with each book.
Customer Reviews:
So You Think You're Smart.......2006-08-31
Fantastic book and THE most prompt service I have ever received from a publisher.
Very much appreciated!!! You won't be disappointed with ordering this selection.
Ideal for parties or simple personal enjoyment.......2002-08-04
So You Think You're Smart: 150 Fun And Challenging Brain Teasers compiled by Pat Battaglia is an eclectic collection of queries and riddles to boggle the mind, from sports trivia to word games to graphical puzzles. Each conundrum has hints and solutions, written in reverse to avoid casual reading yet easily looked up with the aid of a small paper-thin mirror that doubles as a handy bookmark. Ideal for parties or simple personal enjoyment, So You Think You're Smart is enthusiastically recommended as a fun and engaging selection of riddles to challenge readers of all educational backgrounds.
Fun and Creative Puzzles.......2002-06-13
Your puzzles are great! We're having so much fun with them. You are so creative
Captivating and Enjoyable.......2002-06-13
One I got started I discovered it (the book) captivating and soon found I must limit my time with it or I wouldn't get anything else accomplished during the day. It brings me enjoyment each time I go back to it.
So You Think You're Smart: 150 Fun and Challenging Brain Tea.......2001-03-17
Wow...I planned on spending about a half an hour working on these challenging mind bogglers, next thing I knew I was depriving myself of many hours of much needed sleep and enjoying every moment of it. If you want a mental challenge and some real mental stimulation the key to maintaining mental acuity at any age then this is the book. ~Dr. RJ Shick, Winter Haven, FL
Book Description
Are You Smart, or What? is the most entertaining book of word games, ever! It combines clever challenges and surprising answers with playful innovations to both amaze and amuse readers of all ages. All puzzles are concise and uncomplicated. They are about ordinary words and things that everybody knows about so the entire family can enjoy them.
Customer Reviews:
Are You Smart, or What?... An Excellent Challenge !.......2007-08-30
Pat Battaglia has a gift for challenging the reader with his verbal and numeric teasers. With each page skillfully crafted to whet your appetite for his next challenge, he offers an array of puzzles that make it difficult to put the book down. Many of the mind benders are so cleverly done, with a nice balance between difficult and easy, he almost compels you to turn the page to find out what lies ahead. When you miss the obvious, the frustration mounts and yet you push on, desperately wanting to decide for yourself, "Am I smart, or WHAT?" The book is excellent fun !
Are You Smart, or What? A Bizarre Book of Games & Fun for Everyone .......2006-08-09
This extrordinary book takes you deeper than a basic quiz book. It challenges your way of thinking and seeks the reader to apply diverse and lateral thinking in order to come up with what turns out to be, the most obvious answer. It challenges the mind far more that you may think and even challenges you to think. An excelent book to improve spatal orrientation, visual ques and logical thinking. Want to improve your cognition and perception? This would have to be the way. Further more, it is great to use to encourage family members to do the same and simply - THINK. A must try to anyone wanting to indulge the brain in lateral thinking.
Wonderful fun!.......2005-11-27
I just adored this book and enjoyed every single puzzle in it. As one reviewer points out, this is a book for word puzzle enthusiasts. It might be compared to Will Shortz's "Puzzlemaster Presents" series. What I love about this book is that it can be done without the aid of a dictionary, as it uses a vocabulary from common cultural literacy (e.g. types of candy bars, etc.). I also appreciate the fact that the references aren't dated like some game books are, which can lead to frustration when I am asked to rely on my knowledge of stars from the eighties. Overall, I simply loved this book for the accessible but challenging fun it provided. I hope that Mr. Battaglia will be gracing us with another book of this type soon!
Are you Smart, or What.......2005-07-02
The item was shipped as promised, on time and looked like knew. I would definitely buy products from this seller anytime.
Not as it seems in the review ...........2005-04-27
I am a huge fan of brain teaser books. I have a huge collection of these types of book. BUT after reading this book I say that this book is not as good as it seems in the review. If you think that you will find many Logical and mathematical riddles, this isn't the book for you, but on the other hand if you are into word games this might be a great book for you .
Book Description
Here it comes: a revolution in sudoku solving! This is by far the most complete guide to cracking these addictive puzzles ever produced, with tricks even the experts won’t know. While most books might have a few pages of introduction before proceeding straight to the sudokus, this one covers it all: hidden pairs, naked pairs, X-wings, jellyfish, squirmbag, bivalue and bilocation graphs, turbot fish, grid coloring, and chains. Every single one is here, and much more too, including the exclusive Gordonian logic methods (Gordonian rectangles and Gordonian polygons) that will turn even the hardest puzzles into a breeze. Of course, there are hundreds of sudoku for practice. A very special addition is a reprint of the very first sudoku ever published in 1979, from Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games magazine!
Customer Reviews:
Excellent guide for Sudoku.......2007-09-04
I found several techniques that I had not run across before that have helped me solve some of those "black belt" puzzles in the paper with relative ease.
Mensa Guide to Solving Sudoku.......2007-09-01
The book met my expectations. It is an excellent resource for a serious Sukoku puzzle solver. It teaches new problem solving techniques and has puzzles in each chapter that test the new knowledge learned. It also has a lot of puzzles at the end of the book that will give hours of pleasure or frustration, dependin on your point of view.
Definitely good value.
My only negative comment would be the binding is not good and I have loose pages already.
helpful, but hard to understand.......2007-08-15
Maybe because I am not a genius, this book was hard to undertrstand. It has tons of puzzles and a plethora of techniques to guide someone in solving the hard sudoku puzzles. However, I needed to buy another book that dumbed it down a little. The 2nd book I bought was Mastering Sudoku Week by Week: 52 Steps to Becoming a Sudoku Wizard by Paul Stephens. This book is wonderful. It is easy to understand and still teaches the techniques to solving the extreme sudoku puzzles. Also, for Mensa Guide to Solving Sudoku: Hundreds of Puzzles Plus Techniques to Help You Crack Them All (Mensa) there are 6 puzzles to a page and that is rather cramped. The harder puzzles require notes/candidate listing, which is nearly impossible with the size of these puzzles.
Just Exactly What I Wanted.......2007-07-31
Although I had figured out most of the basic techniques listed in the book by myself, I needed a "teacher" in order to learn the more sophisticated solving techniques. This book provided exactly that, without the huge jumps between instructional steps that some books have. I like the fact that this book contains a large number of puzzles to solve which increase in difficulty, but for the hardest puzzles it would have been nice to have the name of a possible solving technique to access first in the answer section, instead of being forced to go directly to the completely solved puzzle.
I also would have preferred a round-wire or spiral binding so that the book would lie flat when open which would make the puzzles easier to work, but removing the sections of early finished puzzles while keeping the instructions intact allowed the book to flat and served my purpose anyway.
Overall, it was a great book...the best I've seen, and I've looked at lots of them.
The Sudoku "Missing Link".......2007-07-29
Most Sudoku books are a collection of puzzles of varying complexity with either no solving strategies other than the basic rules of Sudoku or with a brief, superficial look at the more elementary solving methods.
"Solving SodoKu" by Peter Gordon is the exception. It covers virtually all the techniques required the crack the more difficult "evil", "diabolical", etc. type puzzles. It starts with the fundamental methods and graduates up to the difficult strategies. Each chapter includes a number of puzzles solveable using the method in the chapter to practice the technique. The book also has about 700 more puzzles. So far this is the only book I have found that goes into the level of detail to identify the "key" to the puzzle and then solve it. After working thru the techiques I am now finding and solving many puzzles using the Gordonian Logic family of strategies. That chapter alone was worth the price of the book.
I highly recommend the book if you are serious about solving super-tough puzzles.
Unfortunately, I could not give the book a 5 star rating as the puzzle size (6 per page) is too small and the binding is poor. My book is simply falling apart after what I would consider normal use. I'm also getting tired of copying the puzzle to a larger blank grid to properly work the puzzle.
Book Description
THE HOTTEST CRAZE IN PUZZLES!From puzzlemaster and New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz comes sudoku, the new "wordless crossword" puzzle that's taking the world by storm! Once you start, you won't want to stop. These addictive puzzles are easy to understand---just fill the grid with numbers according to the few simple rules---but incredibly fun and engaging to complete. You don't need any mathematics knowledge: Just supply a pencil and an inquisitive mind.This brand-new collection features original sudoku ranging from effortlessly easy to devilishly difficult, along with an introduction from Will Shortz that explains these fascinating puzzles and how to solve them. Plus, the last five bonus puzzles in the book are giants--more than 50 percent larger and correspondingly more fun to solve! If you're a crossword fan, a fan of logic puzzles, or just a puzzle lover in general, you will be engrossed and delighted with sudoku!
Customer Reviews:
Shortz and sudoku.......2007-05-13
This is an entertaining book. Shortz is the best when it comes to puzzles of any type. I eagerly await future books.
Will Short is our favorite.......2007-04-29
Will Short is our family's favorite author on Sudoku's. This series of books from him is the best for taking in the car, etc. as it's compact yet the puzzles are big enough for writing.
i love sudoku.......2007-03-31
It is a good size book. I have bought a smaller book of sudoku, and gets too messy when you write numbers around the square.
Bought as gift for family member, they couldn't put it down........2007-02-12
Do be weary...these books immediately addict the readers. I gave this as a gift and it immediatly consumed him.
Its a good book with a quick intro for those that are unfamilar with the subject...and then scales puzzles according to your level.
This did lead to another gift quickly after for orther japanese number puzzles.
Sudoku for everyone.......2007-01-21
I love doing these puzzles so much I wish there were more than 100 in this book. I found the easy ones easy, but not ridiculously easy. I like the medium ones. I have not done the difficult yet, but I look forward to them. Even though there are only 100 puzzles in this book, it has taken me a while to work my way through it. Will Shortz is the best.
Book Description
This companion volume to The Out-of-Sync Child presents activities that parents of kids with Sensory Integration Dysfunction can do at home with their child to strengthen their child's abilities-and have some fun together along the way.
Customer Reviews:
helpful, but..........2007-04-25
I highly recommend the book "The Highly Sensitive Child" by Elaine Aron to get a different perspective (more positive) on the out of sync child.
The Out of Sync Child has fun.......2006-11-03
This is an excellent book for teachers and parents! It provides useful and very important information to work and deal with kids with sensory integration disorder
Very useful book.......2006-08-08
As a teacher I found that this book had many fun and functional activities. I do wish this book had more activities for older (teenage) students with moderate to severe disabilities; but, a great book overall.
Best Book for Sensory Integration out there!!.......2006-03-10
I *LOVED* this book. It was such a quick read that I got through it in two days, *with* two kids underfoot, but there certainly was no lack in valuable content to read. This has transformed the way that I understand and work with my daughter, and she has had a diagnosis for sensory integration disorder for years! I reccommend this to *any* parent, even those without sensory kids....
Best resource for activities I've found!.......2006-03-03
I found this book very helpful for use in my field as a social worker who works with children and adolescents, not just with sensory issues, but across a wide spectrum of issues. This book offers MANY activities targeting children of all ages and with diverse interests, and I have also found it helpful to recommend to parents as options for activities to entertain their kids with!
Book Description
Outstanding collection of nearly 200 crowd-pleasing mental magic feats (requiring no special equipment). Author offers insider’s tips and expert advice on techniques, presentation, diversions, patter, staging and all else needed to make any trick a foolproof success. Lucidly written, thoroughly diagrammed book by one of magic’s legendary figures.
Customer Reviews:
Not for beginners!!!.......2007-09-18
This is a great book on magic, but it is absolutely not for beginners. I can't do any of this stuff. My good friend is a magician and he loves it.
Outstanding in it's time........2007-07-19
Ted Annemann is still considered one of the greatest Mentalists to have taken the stage. Within this volume you will receive hundreds of dollars worth of ideas. Annemann was one of the most prolific and original inventors of magic effects in his short life. If "13 Steps to Mentalism" is the bible of mentalism, Practical Mental Magic is the Dead Sea Scrolls. The only down side to this excellent book is its antiquity, and may require some updating to work with more sophisticated modern audiences.
Wow this book was written in 1944.......2007-06-26
Im pretty sure any good magician would put this book as a must have, it probably is a bible but ... Although most of the tricks are good not even the typeface used is new, is like reading a manuscript written in a typewriter, with a few, hand drawn illustrations. It makes it heavy to read after a while. Too dense for me, I prefer a more graphical, photograph intensive book.
Didnt like it.......2007-03-15
If your a fan of magic and perhaps a hobby magician then stay away from this book. It has little to do with magic and my opinion is that its no good at all. Another book I wish i didnt buy.
One of the two mentalism Bibles.......2006-03-09
This, along with Corinda's "13 Steps to Mentalism" is an absolute essential for anybody that wants to get into the art of mindreading. It covers all of the main ruses, and Anneman's work with Billets is, in my opinion, unparalleled. Some effects are somewhat dated (i.e. some effects encorporate the "magician's force", which is now widly known by the layman), but considering it was first published in 1944 this is to be expected.
Beautifully written and compiled, and very cheap for the amount that you have to work with.
An absolute must.
Customer Reviews:
Keep sharp!.......2007-05-14
Working these puzzles is a great way to keep mentally fit, and this collection provides varying levels of challenge and types of brain-builders. Enjoy!
only for crossword lovers.......2007-02-25
this is a great book. you must be an extreme crossword lover. i give it a three because all the puzzles are just too hard for me, not including the find the word. a little unfair rating, but it just wasn't what i expected. i wanted to see at least one suduko puzzle.
Everything..even goof ups!!.......2006-07-31
Not a bad puzzle book really, maybe not as good as some others but Ok nonetheless. However, they skimped on proofing I think, as the easy crossword puzzles are listed as the medium and vice-versa. A little discombobulating!
Puzzles for dad.......2006-07-15
I actually bought this book for my dad - an older gentleman who needs to keep the ol' brain pleasantly occupied. I coupled it with a (ubiquitous) sudoku set, too. He told me last week that he's been rationing them out so he won't finish the book too soon. Great stuff.
Perfect Gift for Those Serving Time.......2006-03-14
I you have a loved one doing some unfortunate incaraceration time, this is a great gift. It helps pass the time, promotes humorous conversation with other cellis, and it stimulates the mind. It will last some time and it is an acceptable gift if you order it and have it shipped from Amazon. It will not be concidered contraband unless they decide to wet it and make a sculpture or something. Everyone enjoyed it.
Book Description
Noted expert selects 70 "short" puzzles. The Returning Explorer, The Mutilated Chessboard, Scrambled Box Tops, and 67 more. Solutions included.
Customer Reviews:
The best compilation from Martin Gardner's Scientific American mathematical games column.......2006-07-19
"My best mathematical and logic puzzles" presents 70 of the best of the brain teaser that Martin Gardner published over a period of 25 years in his Mathematical games column at Scientific American. It some cases references to new developments related with specific puzzles have been added.
Martin Gardner was always especially careful to present in his American Scientific column only new and unfamiliar puzzles that have not been included in classic collections before. Now you can challenge your solving skills and rattle your ego with a compilation of his best mind-benders.
Here is an example of what you can find inside this book (31. The absent-minded teller}:
"An absent-minded bank teller switched the dollars and cents when he cashed a check for Mr. Brown, giving him dollars instead of cents, and cents instead of dollars. After buying a five-cent newspaper, Mr. Brown discovered that he had left exactly twice as much as his original check. What was the amount of the check?"
One of the best things about Martin Gardner books is that a carefully explained solution follows each problem, this way you learn and add new abilities to your problem solving skills, that will sure be helpful in solving real life problems, while entertaining yourself with a good and challenging reading.
The best of one of the best.......2004-04-26
Martin Gardner is the grand old man of puzzles and recreational mathematics. I recommend this book for intermediary and advanced puzzle enthusiasts - beginners might find some of these too challenging.
Intermediary puzzlists will find the pleasures of often working at the upper edge of their skills. The solutions at the end of the book are complete enough so that even those who didn't get it right the first time will get aha insights.
The book is well worth its price even for puzzle enthusiasts. Even I knew many of the puzzles beforehand - classics indeed - but the notes in the solutions often add a twist, a clever solution or a human interest point of view.
The age recommendation of amazon.com - 4-8 years - is probably either an insider joke or a typo. I'd recommend this book to people between 14-80 years of age, and even over.
Puzzles requiring intermediate mathematical skills.......2001-03-26
Marvelous book. I found it better than many books but my friends, who were not that conversant with intermediate mathematics did not like it much. Though this book doesn't require a knowledge of calculus, people who have this level might appreciate the book more. But it has more to do with mathematical 'thinking' rather than mathematics itself.
So get this one if you are good at mathematical thinking and want to challenge yourself. If you are weak in math and would rather read puzzles that require only logic, cleverness, and lateral thinking only, this may not be the one for you.
A Question.......2000-08-16
I just had to question this - the book is rated at a reading level for 4 - 8 year olds, but some of the reviewers mention going on technical interviews and keeping track of columns in Scientific America over a number of years?
Great collection of what it says it is: prepublished puzzles.......2000-06-05
This is a great collection of puzzles from the Master Of It All. However, the book is exactly what is says it is: It is a collection of Martin Gardner's puzzles previously published in Scientific America. That means if you have followed Gardner's column over the years, you will have seen many of these puzzles already. And precisely because they're the "best," chances are you still remember them. Of course my favorite (a monk leaves his monastery and goes up the mountain...) is in there, as are a number of other favorites.
Books:
- Seasons of the Witch, Vol. 1 (Charmed)
- Secrets of Chess Tactics (Batsford Chess Library Middle Game)
- Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth
- Small Stakes Hold 'em: Winning Big With Expert Play
- Starting Out: The Caro-Kann (Starting Out - Everyman Chess)
- Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
- Team Challenges: 170+ Group Activities to Build Cooperation, Communication, and Creativity
- Technical Analysis: Power Tools for Active Investors
- The 21 Lessons of Merlyn: A Study in Druid Magic and Lore
- The Adventures of Tintin: The Crab With the Golden Claws / The Shooting Star / The Secret of the Unicorn (3 Complete Adventures in 1 Volume, Vol. 3)
Books Index
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General
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Creative Whack Pack
The Dangerous Book for Boys
Innovative Whack Pack
A WHACK ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD: How You Can Be More Creative
A Kick in the Seat of the Pants
