I bought this LeapFrog Learn & Groove Table for my younger daughter last year, it is for sale at a number of online stores. I have to say, that apart from a few small niggles, this toy is really very impressive. There is an impressive amount of features and functions attached to it. There are 15 activities with over 40 different songs, melodies and in a variety of different music styles. I actually already owned the Fisher Price equivalent of this toy, but had found that while my daughter played with it a little, it wasn’t all I had expected.
This toy on the other hand gets quite a lot of attention and she plays with it almost every day. I originally found this toy on the Amazon.com website because it had such a good ranking in the bestsellers list, and it also came with a huge number of positive reviews. I would like however to talk about one thing that I found at least to be not quite so positive.
When you put the legs on this thing it is almost impossible to take them off. This might not seem like a big deal, perhaps it is supposed to be used with the legs attached only, but in my child’s case there was the issue of the child not being able to use it properly on its legs straightaway, but when she started trying to walk we thought it might be a good idea to attach the legs to it, it was great until she almost pulled the thing on top of herself trying to stand.
I contacted customer services about this issue, and their best solution was to return this particular version of the toy and look for one which has “tabs” on the legs. Obviously with the tabs the legs come off, but seeing as the tabbed version is difficult to get hold of this didn’t really help me out. I think that as long as you are aware of this issue and only put the legs on the toy when you child is “really” ready for them, there shouldn’t be a problem.
That said however all the little gizmos that baby can play with here are really worth it in the end. They can slide, flip, spin, push , pull, open and close. The toy helps them with problem solving skills and with memory as well. The toy also introduces counting from 1 – 10 and can be turned to Spanish as well with the flip of a switch.
I would thoroughly recommend this LeapFrog Learn & Groove Musical Table to all parents who have children aged 6 months to 36 months. Although please be wary of attaching the legs. Thanks very much for reading.
Educational toys seem to be on the rise in recent years. Cheap Magnatiles Translucent Colors 100 pieces is just one more. Now that most parents are in agreement that play-time is something that can be both fun and educational, the demand for bigger and better educational toys has gone up dramatically. While you might think that playtime should just be about play, there is always room for them to learn something at the same time. This is a review of a toy that I think contrasts play and learning in brilliant fashion. Magna-tiles Translucent Colors (100 pieces) is a set of see-through magnetic tiles in different colors that can be put together to form all sorts of different shapes and patterns.
The set includes:-
- 50 – 3” x 3” squares
- 20 – Equilateral triangles
- 15 – Isosceles triangles
- 4 – 6” x 6” squares
- 11 – Right triangles
100 pieces in total. I would recommend this set over the 32 piece starter set, in the 32 piece set there is just not enough pieces for your kids to really get into it. Of course if you are not 100% that they will get into the set then the 32 pc. Starter set might be the way to go. But I can pretty much assure you that they will love this set anyway. The magna tiles are not just about geometry, these tiles can be put together in all sorts of different ways. My daughters for example build houses, police stations, fire houses, and sky scrapers (no schools though…).
The educational factor comes in when they automatically learn things like “2 right triangles makes a square” or “3 isosceles and you have a trapezoid”. This will almost definitely help them out when they get to school and begin math lessons. That leads me to the appropriate age for this toy. While the manufacturer recommends that this toy is best used by children aged 3 and up, it can definitely still be played with by children of a younger age than this. My younger daughter has been playing with it since she was just 18 months. I would recommend that you wait until they get past the “chewing everything stage” before you let them play with them, but after that they should be good to go.
The price of this toy is probably what puts most parents off making the purchase, but they are well worth it. Although at first even I wasn’t sure whether they would really get into these tiles or not, they have literally spent days on end playing with these tiles building castles, towers and almost anything you could imagine.
I hope that you are now a little more familiar with this toy and are like me, very interested in letting your kids learn while they play.
Thanks for reading this magna-tiles translucent colors 100 pieces review.
If you have been looking for a present for your children that will get them a little more in touch with nature then this is possibly one of the best toys that you can get for your child. The Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden is actually a “kit” or “set” if you like where you can actually grow your own butterflies. Your children can watch these little caterpillar larvae go through the caterpillar, then the chrysalis and finally the butterfly stage of its life.
I have to be honest here and even though I was hoping that this toy would be as interesting to my children as it would be to me, and really get them interested in science and nature, I did initially have rather low expectations. I am very happy to let you all know however that this toy lived up to my expectations and more. My kids nagged me almost every day before wanting to me come look at the caterpillar to see how it had changed.
The process gets even more interesting when the caterpillar begins transforming into the chrysalis. Once it has begun transforming you can then safely transfer the chrysalis into the cylindrical mesh chamber where it will eventually transform into a “painted lady butterfly”. The process takes anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks from the larvae arriving to it becoming a butterfly. It takes about 7-10 days in the caterpillar form and then a further 7-10 days in the chrysalis form.
Once the butterflies hatch from their chrysalis (apparently the manufacturer “guarantees” that at least 3 of the 5 larvae that you receive will successfully hatch into a butterfly. There is one thing that irks me a little about this Butterfly Garden and that is the fact that you don’t actually get any larvae with the initial set that you buy. When you buy the set, you receive a coupon to send off for your caterpillar larvae. While it does annoy me that the set is seemingly not complete, I have to remember that out local store themselves cannot stock the caterpillars and so this is the only way to know when a customer is ready for their caterpillar. The eggs that the caterpillar larvae hatch from are kept in a butterfly nursery. The larvae come in a special container and with enough caterpillar food for the journey.
Thanks very much for taking the time to read my review of this Insect Lore Live Butterly Garden. I hope that you can see what a present idea this toy is now.
If your child has ever watched “Yo Gabba Gabba”, or even if they haven’t, then this set of foam bath toys is a great way to keep them entertained while in the tub. I originally bought this set of foam “stickers” about a year ago now, and they are still going strong. I have two small children the older is now 2 1/2 and the younger has just turned 1 year old. The product description has this toy as only suitable for children of ages 3 and up.
My comment on this has to be that while I agree that it could be dangerous if a small child swallowed the toy, with children that small you have to be in the bath with them anyway, so the danger is greatly reduced. I was letting my younger daughter play with this toy and others like from 6 months old, sure she chewed it a little, but no harm done.
The “Yo Gabba Gabba” TV show has gained some serious popularity over the last few years and the characters have become big household names. My older daughter just loves to watch the show, and having all of her favorite characters with her during bath time actually makes her want to stay in the bath longer.
There has been plenty of screaming and shouting when I try to take her away from the place where she gets to play with these toys. I don’t let her play with the toys outside of the bath, because I just know they would get lost in the jungle that is her room. I thought it better to keep them for bath time only.
The stickers are made of foam, on one side there is a picture of the Gabba characters and on the back there is a 1/4 inch layer of foam. When you wet these pieces of foam they stick to the wall and to the bath. One thing that did irritate me was the fact that when they get bent they do not stick to the bathroom wall anymore and they are very difficult to bend back into shape. This toy has the #16 rank for “Toys & Games” on the Amazon.com best sellers list.
I would like to thoroughly recommend this toy to anyone who has kids that love the show Yo Gabba Gabba, but also for children who are not yet familiar with the show, the bright colorful characters will keep them entertained for hours.
Thanks for reading this review.
The Melissa and Doug Deluxe Magnetic Responsibility Chart is the latest addition to our household, and I must say that referring to this as a “toy” is a little misleading. This is a fantastic tool for motivating your kids. I recently bought a couple of these for my daughters, who are 4 and 2 respectively. I was thinking that it would be more of a “use at some point in the future” gift for both of them to be honest, but the 4 year old is already very much into getting rewards for completing the tasks. It’s not just getting the reward that she likes, but it’s also placing the magnets on the board and filling up her column for the day.
The chart comes with magnets with all sorts of different responsibility titles. Here is a list of the titles; get dressed, make bed, clear table, take bath, put toys away, keep hands to self (“don’t touch Daddy’s things” might have been better here…), brush teeth, stop whining (I haven’t awarded this one too often), apologize, say please/thank you, help with indoor/outdoor chores, no teasing, show respect, load/empty dishwasher, put clothes in wash, don’t use bad language, set table, take care of pet, do homework, make bed, clean room, take out trash and there are also 2 blank that you can write for yourself.
Of course not all of the tasks are appropriate for my daughters, I won’t for example as them to take out the trash, but I will reward “making an effort” in pretty much all of the other tasks. I think that a reasonable amount of responsibilities for one day is 10. You can also assign an allowance system for each task completed. For example if you gave 10 cents for every 2 tasks completed then that means they can earn a $3.50 allowance with 10 tasks a day 7 days a week. Quite a good system that seems to get my older motivated, but she has yet to earn the full amount.
I went for this product for a few reasons, firstly because I just wanted a way to get my kids doing positive things during the day, but also because this particular product is reviewed and ranked so well on Amazon.com. It has the No.7 rank just in the “Toys and Games” section, but it has the No.1 rank for Toys & Games > Learning and Education. I was finally convinced after looking over some of the reviews.
Thanks very much for reading this Melissa and Doug Deluxe Magnetic Responsibility Chart review. I recommend this as one of the best “toys” that you can buy for children aged 3/4 to 13 years old.
I had been looking around for a good shape sorting toy for my younger daughter for a good while before I encountered this toy. I had looked at the Fisher Price Baby’s first blocks among others, and was very worried with that one because of all the chemical warnings. After hearing that this toy was possibly one of the best toys for toddlers that you can buy, I went ahead and ordered one.
After giving it to my daughter (who was just 11 months at the time), she immediately began playing it and trying to figure out what to do. With the Fisher Price toy she almost always seemed to be able to open the end of the toy herself and then of course give up trying to get the shapes into the correct holes. With this Tolo shape sorter she was pushing the shapes into the slots within minutes of me giving it to her. Very happy with this.
Another thing about this shape sorter which makes it that little bit better than a lot of the other shape sorters that you can buy at the moment is the fact that it comes with 6 different shapes and each shape is of a different color. Most shape sorters only have 4 or so shapes and the shapes are typically of the same color. When the shapes are different colors it makes it that little bit easier for the child to determine which shape is which.
The whole toy, once loaded with shapes, even acts as one big rattle, each little shape makes a rattling noise when you move them, and so the whole toy rattles with a pleasing sound as well. My daughter delights in rolling the toy backwards and forwards across the floor, this can go o for some time as well, great fun for her, not so much for daddy.
Slightly negative points might be that there is no inclusion of a square shape, there is a couple of flower shapes included but no square. As one of the most elementary shapes the missing out of the square shape does lead me to believe that Tolo has missed a trick here. Also the circular shaped toys opening is a little wider than it could be and the spherical shape falls out from time to time. All that said, this is most definitely the best shape sorting toy that you can buy at the moment, I strongly suggest you check it out.
Thanks for reading this Tolo rolling shape sorter review.
This is a review of the shape sorting toy that seems to sell very well on Amazon.com. Whether this means this cheap toy really deserves the #22 slot on the best sellers ranking for Toys & Games is debatable. During the course of this review I will be taking a neutral position on this toy and hopefully not letting my bias affect the review too much.
There has unfortunately been a huge issue with this product regarding the use of dangerous chemicals. There was a warning on the internet of this product containing chemicals that “cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm”. This is frightening to every parent, and as for my recommendation regarding this I would suggest you look at the Tolo Shape Sorter instead. The Shape Sorter from Tolo also gets rids of the issue with the lid that won’t close as well.
After that I would like to talk about the product features and hopefully help identify whether this is even the kind of toy that you might want to buy for your child, forgetting that it has had a serious warning about damaging chemicals being used in its production. The Fisher Price Baby’s First Blocks is a toy that is designed for 6 months to 3 year old children. There are 10 assorted shapes in different colors that the baby or child can either slot into the holes in the side of the bucket or open the bucket and just throw them in from the top.
This kind of toy is ideal for getting hand eye coordination going in young children and is typically just plain fun at the same time. The children can learn to identify and match a number of different shapes and then later they can even begin to stack the shapes as well. That is the blurb on this product at least, the reality does leave us wanting unfortunately.
The biggest problem with the functionality of this toy is the fact that the lid on the bucket can be opened very easily by a small child, and while this might have been intentional it typically leads the child getting irritated with the holes on the side, opening the lid and just throwing the shapes in from the top.
Thanks very much for reading this review, I hope that you are confident about whether this product is suitable for your child or not now, and to read my review of the Tolo Rolling Shape Sorter, please follow this link.
I have two small children, one is now aged 2 years and 6 months and the younger is aged just 12 months. I bought this great toy really for the younger of the 2, but as inevitable, it was immediately stolen by the 2 year old, and being unable to explain to my 2 year old daughter that the present was not actually for her, and that the huge kitchen, which was much more expensive and heavy to carry up the stairs to our apartment is in fact her present, I decided to buy another one of these things. The Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube is really great little toy that will keep your toddler entertained for hours. I originally thought that the toy was best used by a smaller child of about 6-18 months, but my 2 1/2 year old has disproved this.
This toy comes with 8 musical compositions from Mozart and really does seem like it is building a strong musical foundation for my kids. Kids can learn how to combine the noises from different musical instruments to make Mozart masterpieces. As they push the different buttons on the machine they either add or subtract the noises from instrument such as the harp, French horn, piano flute and violin.
This toy actually has the best seller slot over at amazon.com in the toddler, music and sound section, so if you are looking for a great way to introduce your children to music then this is apparently one of the best toys for the job. The flashing lights as the kids push the buttons also helps to hold the children’s attention for that little bit longer as well. The soft rounded corners that this toy has also means that you could give it to much smaller children without risk of them hurting themselves. You will need 3 AA batteries.
Some slightly negative issues might include the packaging being a little awkward to open. The plastic ties that keep the toy firmly attached to the cardboard packaging mean that you will have to be very careful when opening it to make sure that the ties do not fall into the toy itself. Then there is the instructions which some reviews have indicated are not as clear as they might possibly be. From my own experience however and that of my 2 year old daughter, you shouldn’t really have too many problems when it comes to trying to figure out how to use this toy.
Thanks for reading this Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube review.
If you are looking for a toy that will stimulate and allow for your kids to express themselves, but without the risk of them taking the paintbrush to your wallpaper, then this could well be the toy for you. The Lego Duplo Building Set is a very nice pack that allows for your kids to build not just “squares” but rolling cars, houses planes and many other things as well. Included with this building “set” is a building plate used as a base for constructing houses and the like, 1 DUPLO figure, a wagon base, a window and of course all the building bricks. The user manual comes with a lot of great ideas for things that your child can build, and it would be my recommendation that you show the child how to build the things yourself, especially if they are only 2 or 3 years old.
The smaller items that come with the set, such as the flowers can be a real choking hazard and should be kept away from any child who is less than 2.5 or thereabouts, but this is a judgment call and of course the 3 years+ logo on the box is just a recommendation, if you feel confident your child can use the toy safely it is your prerogative. I have let my own 2 year old use this toy and she uses it almost every day, building towers mainly, she’s perhaps not the most creative of all children, but she enjoys the toy all the same. Even if it’s just build a tower and smash it to bits after it’s built, there is a great deal of fun to be had with these brick from a very young age. I remember having Duplo when I was small as well and I don’t want my daughter to miss out on the experience.
I actually live in Japan myself, and when it comes to trying to get hold of cheap toys from overseas it can be very difficult. The beast answer for me has on many occasions been Amazon.co.jp. But even then, there are some products that can only be bought in Japanese and in these cases I will buy the item (toy or dvd usually) from Amazon.com who have very respectable shipping to overseas addresses.
In conclusion I would say that this was a “can’t do without” toy for me and my kids, but even if you didn’t play with duplo yourself as a child I would thoroughly recommend this as your child will get lots of enjoyment out of it, no matter what their personality is.
Thanks for reading this LEGO Duplo Building Set-71 review.
The Melissa and Doug Standing Easel best price is available right here folks. For a quick review of this great toy please keep reading.
If you have been looking for a way for your pre-schooler to express themselves as fully as they like, then you may well have found it here with this standing easel from Melissa and Doug. This Easel comes with two sides, so two children can use it at the same time, this means that there will be a lot less arguments if you are only buying one easel. One side of the easel has a blackboard and the other side is a whiteboard. There is also a dowel in the middle of the two easel sides for a roll of paper (must be bought separately) that you can pull through and cover either side of the easel. There is also a number of large clips that you can use to attach large sheets of paper to the easel side if you prefer.
The fact that there is no paint included with this product might seem like a negative, but if you look at the price of this item, you can see that you are being given the option to choose whatever paints you like. Having it this way means that they are trying to meet the needs of as many people as possible. Some people might prefer to have more expensive paints, while some might want the cheapest paint possible to save on the cost.
The only real issue that I am seeing with this easel is the chalkboard. The chalkboard that has been provided has received consistent reports of customers not being able to write on it. Children on the other hand are even more so going to have difficulty writing on the board as it comes from the retailer. After contacting customer services you will most likely be told to “sand” or “prime” the board. This is a little bit of an inconvenience to say the least and definitely goes against Melissa and Doug.
I would recommend that this easel could well be for you if you either don’t mind a bit of DIY and or are not looking for the chalkboard in particular. Even with the chalkboard issue this is a very high quality and very low price toy that will almost definitely be a welcome addition to any playroom. I have also read reports that Melissa and Doug will replace the chalkboard if you find it to be unsatisfactory.
Thanks for taking the time to read this Melissa and Doug Standing Easel toy review. I hope that you feel more confident about whether to make a purchase of this easel or not.
