Shaped wheels: Shaped wheels come in a wide variety of shapes, including bar, quad, triangle, and oval. Like the round wheels, shaped versions also have multiple holes to vary the design.

A wheel must be placed inside a stationary plate or ring for designs to be drawn. Each plate needs to be held in place with Spiro-putty, magnets, or pins. Sets come with one of these three options (except for travel sets, which have a plate built into the lid). Each Spirograph wheel has several holes into which you place a pencil or pen to create a design. Some sets have larger holes than others, and newer sets tend to have larger holes than older sets. Larger holes allow for the use of a greater variety of writing instruments. While small holes limit instrument choice, they hold the pen or pencil tighter, which can make drawing easier. Little Martin has them all going round in circles' by William Greaves, pubished in The Times 4 December Limited continued to make creative toys. The company marketed Etch-a-Sketch in 1970 and also produced another drawingIn 1981 Denys Fisher himself developed another drawing toy called Cyclex. Cyclex was based on advanced trigonometry. On the box

Use a portable DVD player to play a movie that the children can watch and enjoy when they’re on the road. Super Spirograph was a deluxe version with extra cogs and shapes. Denys Fisher introduced Super Spirograph in 1971. Maybe not one for the driver, but it’s usually guaranteed to have everyone in the car laughing! Memory game With just one cog and one ring and the pen in position 1, the patterns varied between just two points in an elipse Challenge theme and get them thinking with a book of logic puzzles – Usborne has a great book of 100 Logic puzzles, or this Logic Workbook has number and word games in as well. HangmanSupply your younger kids with a magnetic face book. As it’s magnetic, there’s less chance of pieces getting dropped and lets children create different funny or crazy faces. So this fun On The Go Felt Activity Craft Set from Melissa & Doug comes with instructions, pre-cut shapes and lots of chance for younger kids to get creating. Busy Bags