Just push a button. That's all kids have to do to operate some toys -- push a button and watch it go.

	Thomas' Big Big Loader doesn't involve much action on the part of children, but it may still have educational value. Click photo for larger image.

For toddlers, understanding how pressure on the button triggers the bells and whistles can be a valuable educational experience. But for older kids, taking childhood curiosity -- and the educational opportunities of play -- out of playtime is of no practical benefit and, in fact, can be a bore. Some parents, educators and advocacy groups want to press a button and make non-participatory toys go away.

"You want to make sure kids are learning by participating," said Claire Green, president of Parent's Choice Foundation, which for 29 years has evaluated children's products and offered unbiased advice to parents. "Good toys are not one-trick ponies. Good toys engage a child to think and to feel."

Push-button toys have been around at least as long as the mechanical age. They've become more common with advances in electronics and computers, but they haven't taken over the toy store. Stroll through a Wal-Mart toy department and you'll find hundreds of toys with buildable components, malleable parts, add-on features, hand-held characters and other options that let the child dictate the course of play.

Even in movie tie-in toys, where a single scene from a popular film is replicated in miniature, kids can create their own stories with the action figures. Mega Bloks' "Pirates of the Caribbean" line includes a "Dead Man's Chest" set piece modeled after the movie's mill-wheel, sword-fight scene, but the figurines are removable, letting kids invent their own sequels.

The tie-in to a Disney movie points to some of the trends seen at last month's American International Toy Fair, where companies were working to compete with computers, video-game consoles and MP3 players that catch kids' attention at such an early age.

"The toy business has become an entertainment business," Jim Silver, editor-in-chief of Toy Wishes, a trade publication, told The Associated Press, pointing to a range of new products that include movie-making playsets and musical tooth brushes. "Children are on computers at age 2 and have iPods at age 7. Toy companies are realizing they have to step up what they are offering."

Among some of the Toy Fair highlights reported by The Associated Press were products tapping into children's increasing interest in the pursuit of fame and pop stars, fed by Fox's "American Idol" and preteen pop sensations like the Cheetah Girls. Other hot toys were those that interact with the Internet and preschool friendly gadgets such as toy computers and digital cameras, an acknowledgment that even 3-year-olds want to be tech savvy.

Some of the toys, however, offer no options other than "on" and "off " switches.

The Tomy company manufactures a broad line of toys based on the children's book "Thomas the Tank Engine," including a 52-piece Expansion Pack and 146-piece Giant Set, which let kids build their own worlds for Thomas and his friends.

But Thomas' Big Big Loader is what Green might call a "one-trick pony." Parental assembly is required. Push a button and a battery-powered engine motors around the track, automatically collects a payload of small rocks, swaps them to another vehicle that dumps them into an automatic elevator, which dumps them back into the engine. One version provides one option: The whole thing can happen in reverse. Big Big Loader is recommended for children 3 and older.

Green notes while two of Tomy's toys have won her group's Parental Choice Awards, Big Big Loader is a disappointment.

"Repetitive actions for the younger set should involve a parent or trusted adult, or an older sibling," she said. "It should involve clapping of hands or some action involving developmental milestones. Wouldn't it be more fun for the child to be involved creatively in making the track, or making the sound effects as the truck moves around, or putting the payloads in and taking them out?"

Tomy representative Alan Nowers said the company sees educational value in Big Big Loader.

"In this particular instance, we have had lots of positive feedback with this toy," he said, "especially with regards [to] educating children in sequential thinking skills, programming skills and attention span."

Robert Morgan, a teacher at a private school near Cleveland, posts creative teaching methods on his Web site (creativeteachingsite.com). While Big Big Loader may be a bore for a 6-year-old, Morgan uses the toy to teach sequential thinking skills to his class of middle-school boys.

"I try to find toys and ordinary objects and use them in ways that were not the intent of the manufacturer, but I find ways to use them for education," he said. "At the time I ran across the Big Loader toy, I was teaching beginners computer programming. It's sequential. One step follows the other. I set up this device in class and let them watch it repetitively doing its thing for about 10 or 15 minutes, then I asked, 'Why did I show you this toy?' Most said it's like programming in Basic -- you do one step at a time."

When Morgan asked his class to write each step the Big Big Loader takes, he got a variety of answers.

"Some listed eight or 10 steps, others listed 30 or 40 steps," he said. "We use that as a way of discussing how you perceive the steps in writing a computer program."

Morgan says he's not making a case for Big Big Loader as "a panacea for anything educational," and in fact has concerns that the toy may not be appropriately aged for kids 3 and older.

"I would think that parents might look for more participatory toys, kits that [the child] puts together," he said. "In my experience with my own children, what you may think may be a great toy sometimes fails utterly. You get them a great toy in a cardboard box, and they really love the box."