Toy of the Year Award Winners

Winner of Toy of the Year, these tiny radio-controlled helicopters are armed with infrared beam weapons, so battling them feels a lot like a real-world 3D video game. They're so easy to maneuver that after just a little bit of practice, anyone can pilot them like a pro. You can make them fly up, down, right, left, forward, or backward, all with precision, but please, leave the pets alone.

There are 3 key ingredients to a really successful educational toy: It must be electronic, it must plug into a TV, and it must use TV characters (Dora, Diego, Barbie, SpongeBob) to teach the lessons. The Fisher-Price Smart Cycle has all 3 ingredients plus a 4th: It makes kids ages 3-6 pedal to guide their characters through spelling, counting, and problem-solving games. Which is probably why it won both the Most Innovative Toy of the Year award and the Educational Toy of the Year award. Kids can even race the clock, each other, and the cars on the screen. Sounds like a great way to prevent child obesity and prepare kids for real bicycles.

Winner of the Infant/Preschool Toy of the Year award, this kit lets kids ages 3 and up build their own adventure island. It comes with 3 different colors of sand and molds to make boats, huts, and animals. What's so awesome is that the sand never dries out, so kids can save their creations. Or mush them up and start over. It's all the fun of the beach - without the mess.

Guitar Hero is tons of fun, but it won't actually teach you how to play guitar. For that you'll need lessons, or a Power Tour electric guitar, which won the award for Electronic Entertainment Toy of the Year. Designed for kids ages 10 and up (way up), the Power Tour is a small electric guitar toy that has sensors instead of strings. When the sensors light up, you strum along, learning "Wild Thing," "Smoke on the Water," and other rock classics almost in spite of yourself. You can connect the guitar to your MP3 player and play along to your own music, adjusting a tone knob for a metal, punk, rock, or indie sound. The guitar comes with a strap, cable, and instructional DVD.

LEGO City is busy. The police are looking for thieves, the fire brigade is on the move, the ambulance is off on a rescue, the cargo train is fully loaded, and in the airport the passenger plane is ready to take off. The many different police, fire, emergency, airport, cargo, transport, and construction products that make up LEGO City together won the Activity Toy of the Year award.

The Rubik's Cube has gone super high-tech in the Rubik's Revolution, and it's won more awards than we can count, including the Game of the Year. The electronic cube (it runs on the included 3 AAA batteries) has 6 addictive, fast-paced games, complete with lights and sound effects. The "Light Speed" game challenges you to turn cube lights off by quickly tapping them. "Pattern Panic" has you memorize and repeat a sequence of lights. There's even a "Multiplayer Madness" game where you pass the cube back and forth between your friends and turn the lights off faster and faster as they speed up.

It's never too early to learn valuable skills. Snap Circuits, winner of the Specialty Toy of the Year award, are educational kits that help kids build FM radios, digital voice recorders, doorbells, burglar alarms, and more. All the parts are color-coded, so kids can follow the colorful picture in the manuals to build more than 300 different electronic gadgets and games. Train 'em early for the science fair!

Part skateboard and part snowboard, the Ripstik caster board won the Outdoor Toy of the Year award. Designed for kids ages 8 and up, the board has 360-degree inclined casters and a pivoting deck, so all you have to do is twist to make it move - even uphill. The concave deck and traction plates provide increased foot control, and the ride is amazingly smooth. But you should still wear a helmet and pads for safety.