Great Gifts For Inquisitive Kids: Eyeclops, Eyeclops Night Vision, and Eyeclops Mini Projector

Eyeclops products by Jakks Pacific, including the original Eyeclops microscope, Eyeclops Night Vision Binoculars, and the Eyeclops Mini-Projector, are great investigative toys, perfect for the science minded child.

Children, by nature, are inquisitive, exploring the world around them thoroughly, sometimes in less than desirable ways. The toddler who samples the bugs in the back yard comes to mind. One of my children, in particular, is extremely inquisitive, and is consistently thinking up "what if's. This is the child who will explore a concept, plant a seed of his own accord to see if it will grow, and, unfortunately, who managed once to squeeze an entire litter of kittens into a shape sorter. The poor little kittens were quickly rescued, but the inquisitive nature did not really disappear.

For an inquisitive child, there are many great gift ideas, and anything which engages his or her thinking skills is fantastic. Adult supervision is highly recommended, however, if you have an experimenter such as mine!

The name of the product brings back memories of the introduction to the "Six Million Dollar Man". The EyeClops Bionic Eye, their original plug and play microscope, connects through cords to the television, which does impose a small limitation of reach, as you will only be able to investigate things within that reach. However, this provides lots of fun in terms of examining fabrics, fibers, hair, skin, bugs, and anything else you can imagine...and yes, little boys can get a little too creative!

This is a fun, at home introduction to the world of microscopic exploration. The EyeClops Bionicam takes this a step further, making the device portable, with a small screen to display the results. With a portable device, there is really little to limit your inquisitive child's exploration.

 Jakks Pacific also has created a set of Jumbo Maps, which allow for use of the bionic eye to explore. This is a great educational tie-in, something I love in a gift, and something that has a lot of potential, if further developed by the company, for giving the inquisitive users of the bionic eye more opportunity to integrate it with areas of interest.

I got a great deal on the MiniProjector last year at Amazon, and this projector has proven a great source of enjoyment for my children in the 6-10 year age range.  The graphics aren't quite as crisp and clear as an expensive projector, and the conditions for use must be quite dark, to be able to see.  However, my boys have had a great time creating tents over their bunkbed in order to play plug and play video games on their bedroom wall.  The EyeClops MiniProjector requires additional cords to plug into the television, not included.  However, the older kids weren't as interested in using the projector, though we used it a couple of times to put movies on the wall.  There's more distortion in doing things on a big scale, and it didn't interest them.  For my elementary aged kiddos, however, this was a great gift, at a great price.

 The Night Vision Binoculars allow for seeing things in the dark, with four modes, for stealth vision(removal of light so the explorer is not seen), long range, for distance, and two modes simulating the effect of using real infrared binoculars.  I can't review this product, yet, as we haven't yet used it; however, this is another of those items that jump out at the boys in catalogs, ads, and of course, in the toy aisle.  Jakks Pacific products have been very good, thus far, for the age group I'm dealing with, and so I will be watching for some great deals in the coming year.

Further considerations for parents of inquisitive kids, when it comes to gift ideas, might include Spy Gear by Wild Planet, products which also encourage the inquisitive and science-minded child to investigate the world around him.