A couple of years ago, I stumbled on the Boogie Board e-tablet while wandering the aisles of my local Costco. It’s a modern take on the chalk or dry-erase board but without the smearing or smell. Using the included stylus, you would draw on the tablet and simply hit the button to clear the screen. It proved to be an incredibly useful tool for practicing spelling words, math problems and, best of all, it didn’t have any additional apps like our kindle to tease or distract. It served one purpose and sometimes that is a much-needed simplicity.
So when we were offered the chance to check out the new Magic Sketch by Boogie Board, we got very excited. Magic Sketch takes their digital chalkboard a step further with transparent design and rainbow “ink”. As you draw across the tablet, the line will change in color in the various zones of the tablet. And with the transparent design, it can be placed over their provided templates to practice lettering or run through mazes. My little dude actually placed it over his own sketches to redraw them with the rainbow look. We also tried tracing each other’s faces with it — hilariously disturbing results.
The Magic Sketch is extremely lightweight — about the size of a half-sheet of paper — and the stylus snaps into the frame, so I was able to easily carry it in my purse throughout a recent family trip. It was great to keep my little dude occupied in the car and at restaurants. Additionally, a few aunts stole it for a bit of their own fun as we waited for our meals. Keep in mind, however, that even though it is battery operated, it doesn’t truly glow so you can’t use it in a dark room or a night car trip without an external light. It reminds me of the early e-book readers in that way and was a bit of surprise. And if you want to save the dinner time creation, you can snap a pic with your phone as there is no carefully transporting kids menu drawings that are deemed valuable by the artist… although quickly forgotten on the ride home. =)
We didn’t travel with the accessories, but as part of its Deluxe Kit, you’ll receive four styluses, 30 dual-sided template pages, one roller and three stamps. My little dude tried out the stamps and rollers with moderate success but preferred drawing himself with the basic stylus.
While we enjoyed the included templates of mazes, print letters to trace, word searches and images to trace, I tried creating my own template pages as my little dude is beginning to learn cursive lettering. It is more challenging to see the rainbow “ink” against a lightly colored background than the dark backgrounds of the included templates but it worked to my satisfaction.
If like me you have a budding artist who never has enough drawing room on the kid’s menu, the Magic Sketch makes it easy to draw on the go.