Owl Puke – The Pellet (8+, Workman Publishing, $20) The kid-friendly and informative 92-page owl book offers a unique opportunity to do some real science. That’s because it includes a genuine — but, thankfully, sterilized — owl pellet: the regurgitated, indigestible remains of an owl’s meal. Despite its name, testers were relieved to discover that there is nothing particularly gross about the activity, and were fascinated to pick apart the dark grey fluff to see what an owl eats for dinner. Check the Internet if your enthusiastic little scientist wants to do it again, as several companies supply additional owl pellets. Note: You’ll need toothpicks. Testers also found a magnifying glass and water dropper useful.

“It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to figure out what kind of animals the owl ate. There were a lot of bones in that little pellet — I even put one of the skeletons back together again. It was like doing a puzzle.” Conor (12)

Cranium: Family Fun Edition (4 or more players for ages 8+, Cranium, $30) There are some familiar favourites, but the more difficult adult-oriented tasks are gone. The new version has questions geared to young and old alike, so multi-generational teams work best. Families liked that it is a shorter game and more active than the original age 12+ version, with crazy challenges like flipping plastic frogs to knock down a tower made with dice-sized blocks, or getting the frogs to jump through a soft clay hoop.

“Great game! Sarah (9) laughed her head off when I had to push a pencil around on the floor with my nose. Patrick (11) couldn’t believe I did it. I guess he’d never seen his mother do anything like that before.” Cindy Dick

Trebuchet (10+, Pathfinders, $38) Catapult (9+, Pathfinders, $30) These quick-build wood kits are a nice change from everyday construction toys. Each kit comes with an instruction manual full of information about the history and working mechanics of the machine, as well as ideas about how to have fun with it after — experimenting with different settings, target games, or even just demolishing a block wall.

“It was fun to build, and then you get to play with it. I like to see how far I can fling a piece of clay, and to watch my dog chasing a piece of kibble as it flies through the air.” Chris (12½)

Fashion Design Sketch Book (8+, The Bead Shop, $20) It’s like a mini fashion course. The style guide is full of labelled illustrations for different necklines, blouse styles, shoe types, jewellery ideas and more. Mix and match favourite looks, then sketch them on the design pad using the mini pencil crayons and markers. Perfect for fashion-crazed tweens. “It’s like real designing. You draw the clothes, write down your notes and colour it. I like adding details because they make it look a bit more pretty. The book gives you lots of ideas — my favourite is the Spencer coat.” Alie (8)

Heroscape (2 or more players for ages 10+, Milton Bradley, $60) The mix of 30 different, highly detailed 3-D characters in this dice-duelling game represents a wide variety of heroes and beasts: dinosaurs, dragons, Vikings, samurai, robots, FBI agents — anything goes. The game board is equally appealing, with interlocking tiles that let you design the 3-D playing landscape. There are a number of suggested scenarios, or you can create your own. Although the manufacturer recommends the game for ages 8+, it was our 12+ testers who had the most success; older kids can work through the rules and game scenarios on their own. Additional expansion packs ($15 each) are also available.

“This is a completely awesome game. Probably the coolest part is how you can customize the playing surface by making caves, rivers, bridges and whatever else you can think of. There’s like no limit. Also the races are pretty coolness — they’re from all different times: dinosaurs, FBI agents, knights, and then you have like all these weird alien dudes.” Dominic (14)

Da Vinci's Challenge (2 or 4 players for ages 8+, Briarpatch, $30) Each player has a set of ovals and triangles. Players create patterns (the more complex, the more points earned), while keeping an eye out to block their opponent. The trick to this game is seeing the patterns as they emerge. A terrific new strategy game. “At first you don't notice the patterns, but then poof! - they appear out of nowhere. The game is easy to win and fun to play, but some people just don't notice the opposition's place.” Ryan (9)

Buy Word (1–4 players for ages 8+, Face 2 Face Games, $30) This new word-building game is a bit like Scrabble without the board, except that you have to pay for your letters. But that’s OK: If you’re clever you can sell your words back at a profit — that’s how you win. This is a well-designed game, and our testers liked how the instructions encourage players to adapt the game to suit the way they like to play. “It’s funner than Scrabble because you can make your own rules. For our rules, we allowed slang words and it was better.” Diyako (14)

Originally published in Today's Parent, December 2005