So those were all my favourite finds before my phone died from over-enthusiastic picture taking! The main image at the top is of Lego’s prize-winning police station set – one of Toy Fair’s Best New Toys for 2014. You can buy them in different colours, but I quite like the neutral ones as you could then paint or colour them yourself! They are a similar idea to the wooden block game of Jenga, in that you build by just placing them on top of each other – no glue, nails or clips required. The scary spider in the bottom picture was built from KAPLA blocks. They are available online in several sizes and from a number of distributors – just search “Marbureka marble run” in Google.

Each set comes with a combination of pieces you can fit together to build your own marble run. I also loved the idea of the Marbureka marble run sets. They look like great fun, and are aimed at age 4 and up. They didn’t have an open box at the stand, but you can see inside two GoldieBlox games on the site. Good news, they now have a UK distributor! You can find them on the Interplay website. We had a flurry of queries about GoldieBlox engineering toys for girls when we first posted about them on Twitter. Nick Baker’s Bug Safari and Worm World are available from Interplay, and the Butterfly Garden is by Insect Lore. If you’re into entomology (that is, BUGS), you’ll love these! Learn more about the insects in your world by keeping them close by for observation. Their products are aimed at kids from 6-10 years, and cover everything from food and kitchen experiments, to gardening, dinosaurs and archaeology, chemistry, sustainable energy, electricity, climate and weather, and underwater and underground life. These science games are by toy company Clementoni.

How’s that for credibility? They have science games that combine fun and learning for ages 3-14 years, and to find your nearest stockist they suggest you get your dad or mum to tweet them or ask them on Facebook. One of the things I loved about this year’s Toy Fair was the huge selection of fun science- and biology-themed games! The kits above are by Portuguese company Science4you, and the kits are developed in collaboration with Oxford University. While I doubt anyone could see and sample all of them in three short days, I did my best to do a whistle-stop tour of the exhibition centre so I can show you my picks of the most exciting new releases. Toy Fair, which took place from 21-23 January at the Kensington Olympia in London, was an overwhelming experience – more than 280 exhibitors showcasing thousands of new toys and games. Can it just be my birthday already? I really want to get my hands on some of the amazingly cool toys, gadgets and new games for kids that I spotted at London’s Toy Fair 2014…

Best new games for kids 2016