Squishy-Squashed Potatoes: TRU Review

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If you watched the video of the opening of the first box of toys from TRU then you will have noticed that The Boy kept referring to paint and wanting to open it up. Meany old mummy wouldn't oblige at first, mainly because the item (which was actually a Play-Doh board game not paint) is aimed at children five years or above, and I therefore wanted to review it with his cousins.

The Play-Doh Smashed Potatoes board game is a really lovely game which is very easy to understand, and The Boy's cousins (Boy Cousin – 5, Girl Cousin – 8, Fiery Cousin – 5) picked up the rules very quickly. The board has a 'kitchen' in the centre with various ways of turning a 'potato' into another form and a route around the outside of this which the (up to) four players must complete in one piece in order to win. Each player makes their own playing piece from one of the four different colours of Play-Doh provided, and using the Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head mould.

They spin the arrow on the dial to decide how many spaces they move and move that amount. If the arrow stops on a potato symbol then they must move to the nearest section of the kitchen and squash their potato using that device. Following this, they remould it and start again.

All of the children wanted to play it, we just gave The Boy a potato-head mould and lump of Play-Doh and he was perfectly happy. Boy Cousin (5) really got into the game very quickly and wanted to complete it, Girl Cousin (8) was very interested too and was enjoying it, but Fiery Cousin (5) was getting demoralised with it, mainly because her potato kept having to be squished. This is the element that might need to adapt depending upon the ages of your children; the five year olds weren't happy to have to keep making their potatoes. Another minor, and I mean minor, irritation is that the blue 'kitchen' insert kept sliding around while we were trying to use it and the scissors occasionally popped out of the guide on the cutting device.

The children said: "I like this game because it's delicious" (Boy Cousin was having a mad moment), "I like the mashing", "Chopping potatoes is fun", "The Play-Doh is nice and squidgy, it's easy to make the pieces."

Generally a good game, I personally feel it's suited to 6+ years due to the fiddly nature of the squashing, but that depends entirely on your child's skills.

Play-Doh Smashed Potatoes board game is priced at £24.99 and launches this month in Toys R Us stores.

Orchard Toys: Nursery Rhymes Jigsaws

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I cannot even begin to convey how big a fan I am of Orchard Toys. The British brand produces some of the best games and toys around on the market, and that's both mummy-voice and teacher-voice speaking there.

We were recently sent Nursery Rhyme: Four in a Box jigsaws to review, which came at the right time because The Boy has become very interested in puzzles lately.

The images used on the puzzles are: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star; Humpty Dumpty; Jack and Jill; and Hey, Diddle, Diddle. Which is, quite frankly, ever so convenient as these are his favourite rhymes at the moment! If you are unsure of the words (I'm certainly not, that much I can assure you) then they are written on the back.

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Snazzy Faces with Snazaroo: TRU Review

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One of the items that we were sent to review for Toys R Us was the Snazaroo Unisex Face Painting Sticks. This was quite convenient timing because a fortnight ago I spend a jolly (?) few hours painting butterflies and pirates onto the faces of my pupils at the Summer fayre. An ideal opportunity to test them out!

The pack contains a white, red, black, yellow, blue and green face painting stick, and is advertised as 'ready to use; no water needed'. Sounded promising, especially as we invariably end up with a big queue of impatient children, with little time to mess around. They are also non-toxic, and as with most Snazaroo products (except red, never red), are easily removed with soap and water. They are slanted on the end to provide a drawing point and seem to be of a good consistency.

I tried them out when drawing lines on the children's faces, for example the black silhouetted palm tree on the sunset scene, or with swirls on the butterflies, however they just didn't appear to provide enough precision to be used for detail. I also tried them out on a tiger faces and because the stripes didn't need to be more than a line of colour they were better suited to this type of painting.

An aspect that I wasn't keen on was the consistency. They say they don't need to be used with water, but I actually found that I was having to press and drag quite hard to get colour off, and don't forget these are children's faces that I am drawing on. I dipped them in water to see if that helped but it really didn't. If you are using them on older children or for lines that aren't precise, then they're fine. Otherwise I'd rather stick to Snazaroo's blocks of colour and a paintbrush.

Snazaroo Unisex Face Painting Sticks are priced at £4.99 and are available to buy in store.

We were provided with this product to review free of charge. My opinions are, as always, honest and unbiased.

Old MacDonald Lotto: TRU Review

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When we opened the first box of toys to review, I was absolutely delighted to find an Orchard Toys game in there. I am incredibly fond of the marvellous learning resources that they produce. We were lucky enough to be sent the Old MacDonald Lotto which is a stunningly attractive and traditional game.

Here's the blurb: Old MacDonald Lotto is aimed at 2-6 year olds and is for 2-4 players. It contains 4 bingo board and 28 cards which feature various animals, objects and people that can be found on the farm. The game is played in the traditional cards-face-down manner, with the added twist that in order to gain that card the player has to make the noise to go with that animal or object. If they don't have that card then they show it to the other players and then return it to the table.

  • reinforces object matching skills
  • encourages observation and memory skills
  • develops social communication
  • links with Early Learning Goals and National Curriculum Key Stage One

Obviously, The Boy is a little too young to remember where the cards are, especially face down, so we adapted the game. This is one of the features that I like about Orchard Toys games; you can adapt them to suit the needs of your child.

We played as a simple matching game with the cards face up. We had a fantastic time and The Boy learnt some new vocabulary through it as well. And of course we definitely made animal sounds!

This is a definite winner with us; I love the bright and attractive designs of Orchard Toys, the simple and traditional games, the sturdiness of the packaging and play equipment.

Old MacDonald Lotto is available from Toys R Us priced at £9.99.

I was sent this free of charge for review purposes, however my opinions are as always honest.

The ToyBox has Landed

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Being a Toyologist isn't all about playing with toys you know.

Well ok, it is 90% of it.

However, when The Boyhas gone to bed out comes the laptop and camera to upload all the photos and videos taken of him playing with the toys. I find myself sitting and playing with him, and more and more I am thinking "hang on a minute, let me just grab the camera because that would make a great shot… oh damn, you've moved!" After dark is when the brain starts whirring away to write up the reviews of these lovely toys.

Now obviously, my reviews sit here on my blog under this page. However, the rather clever Geoffrey Giraffe has come up with the idea to create a Facebook application which allows all of us Toyologists to post our reviews into one central resource. The idea is that it makes it far easier for everyone to access our reviews and therefore know an honest opinion of the toys before buying. It's calledthe Toys R Us Toy Box and as you can see it provides the ability to be nosey and find out who we all are, and browse the product reviews. I think it's a really rather useful resource and it can be found by clicking here.

Water Wheel: TRU Review

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With the sun blazing in the sky today, it feels appropriate to post this review of the Step2 Water Wheel Play Table.

This item came separately to the main box of products to review, and thankfully after The Boy's birthday because we had actually give him the Step2 Sand and Water table as his present! He was absolutely beside himself as daddy opened up the packaging to the Water Wheel Table, he really was desperate to get into it and tried to help as much as possible.

As with many of the Step2 products, assembly is extremely easy; the three sturdy legs just push up into the holes and click into place. That is the biggest bit of assembly required! The water wheel table (suitable for 1year +) is a large round table which sits very nicely at waist height (for my two year old) off the ground. It isn't height adjustable, however what I would say is that Boy Cousin plays with it alonside The Boy, and he is five and very tall. I also think that for younger or shorter children, you could remove the legs and have them sit on the floor to play with it.

Accesories that come with the table include a water wheel (obviously!), a blue cup that rests on the top of the water wheel to control the flow of water, a pouring cup and two small plastic sailboats. It is bright and colourful and very attractive. The water play area consists of two pools of water, one higher than the other, and they are connected together on one side by a slope which the boats can travel down. The water wheel is on the opposite side to the ramp so in theory a boat can be placed on the top pool, water poured into the water wheel and then the boat travels down the slope.

I've tried the table out now for the last three weeks with a variety of children; Boy Cousin, The Boy, Fiery Girl Cousin and my baby and toddler group. These children have ranged in age from just 1 year old to 5 years old. All have loved playing with it and have gravitated towards such a simple toy. This is an excellent recommendation by itself.

There are a couple of small points to make about the Water Wheel Play Table:

  • The 1 year old boy who played with it had great difficulty not knocking the water wheel out of position; it rests in place and really could do with a clip or catch of some sort to prevent it from coming out of place.
  • The boats take on water incredibly easily and capsize. They also don't flow down the ramp easily because the top of the ramp is a little bit too high for them to glide over, unless you fill the table to capacity.
  • Filling the table to capacity will make it extremely difficult to empty because there is no plug! As I've mentioned, we' ve got the Step2 sand and water table and there are plugs in both halves. This makes it easy to collect the water in a bucket and dispose of in a responsible and environmentally friendly manner. Emptying the Water Wheel Table is tricky and invariably wastes water.
  • There is no cover, which is something that Step2 supply on other products. This means that the toys need removing over night, and the table can get quite dirty.

These things would make the Step2 Water Wheel Table a '10/10', and easier for parents to use with their children. As it is at the moment, I'd give it a '8/10'. Initially I'd have said a '7', but The Boy has not stopped playing with it, so I'll be generous!

 


 

The Step2 Water Wheel Play Table is available from Toys R Us at the moment of the bargain price of £34.99 (was £44.99) and is suitable for children 1 years old +.

We were provided with this product for review purposes. Our opinions are honest and our own.

Sticky Stuff: TRU Review

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As a teacher, I deal with a lot of stickers: 10/10 for spellings, Good Homework, Positive Playground Behaviour, etc. The Boy hasn't really come across stickers very much so far. However, when we went to a birthday party three weeks ago he was given some in his party bag. Then the first box from Toys R Us for review arrived and there was a Melissa and Doug Sticker Collection inside. He was delighted.

In the large sticker book (14"x11") there are ten themed pages. These ten pages are crammed full of over 500 stickers! 500! That's an awful lot of "Mummy, help! Sticky off!"

The Melissa and Doug stickers are really lovely illustrations; bright and vibrant colours, good representations of the images that they portray. The Boy hasn't played with all of the pages yet; he is very fond of the dinosaur page, and the cars as well.

The theory behind the themed pages is that they can be used to create a picture or tell a story. For an older child, I can see that they would be of great use and provide hours of entertainment. The stickers are aimed at children aged 3 and over, The Boy is two and so isn't able to play with them independently.

I actually feel that these stickers would be better suited to a child who is four or possibly five years because they are so lovely it is almost a waste to use them on younger children who can't use their imagination properly to fully appreciate these stickers. Older children will also be able to create their own backgrounds to use the themed stickers on, but for younger children I feel that there could have been backgrounds provided which would make it easier for them to use, possibly laminated to allow the stickers to be reused.

Overall, the Melissa and Doug Sticker Collection is one of the better sticker sets that I've seen (and I've seen a lot!) and reasonably priced at £4.99. These are not currently available at Toys R Us, either online or in store, but they will hopefully soon be included in the wide range of toys they stock.

Competition: UltraSun Professional Protection

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Yesterday we spent the late afternoon at the beach building sandcastles in the sand and filling our buckets with salty water to empty into our moat. Yesterday it was boiling. Today it has rained, but yesterday was brilliantly sunny with temperatures of 28°C here in south Wales. Perfect weather to try out the UltraSun Professional Protection sun-cream we'd been sent to review.

As we are typically British in complexion, and therefore likely to burn at the drop of a hat, it is always extremely important that we cover ourselves in really good sun protection. I have suffered second degree sunburn from half an hour in the sun (in Dubai) and it's not a fun experience. There is no way that I am going through that again, especially as my skin now seems to almost have been tattooed with the shoulder straps from the swimsuit that I wore that day. I kid you not.

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Potty-talk!

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I've mentioned before that I think that The Boy is pretty much ready to start potty-training. All the tell-tale signs are there; he tells us when he has soiled, or recently just before he is about to, the nappies are more and more dry in between changes, he is very happy to always perform one way or another on the potty. However, as unfair as it sounds; he's just going to have to wait for various reasons. Mainly I want to try and get it done in a week, and the best time for me to do that is in the summer holidays straight after we've come back from a week away.

We've already got one 'throne' style potty, and a travel potty but not a 'traditional' style potty. This is mainly because I am sceptical of them; I think that they are better suited to girls rather than boys. However, the lovely mummies that are Jenny and Emma asked me to review that very style of potty for them for their fabulous 'Going Potty' potty-training carnival. Now who am I to refuse such lovely ladies, so of course I accepted.

Last week, I received a Pourty Potty through the post and I'll be honest, my scepticism remained intact. My theory behind the uncertainty of them lay with the fact that I didn't think that there would be very much room for a little boy's 'equipment' when actually in use, and that he may have had difficulty balancing on it, as he had with another potty. I was quite stubborn in my view.

That is until The Boy sat down on it.

The Pourty stands higher than the average 'traditional' style potty, and has quite a large 'seat' area. The back comes up to allow a rest for the child, which The Boy found really comfortable and the splash-guard at the front is quite high in order to prevent accidental tinkles. So, that's put pay to my first concern about the potty. In fact, there is loads of space which enabled The Boy to actually check what he was doing. Because the Pourty is slightly higher, he sits really well with his knees bent comfortably and at a good angle to help him to balance.

Scepticism squashed.

Now this is what is the big difference with a Pourty, and the reason for its name. It has a channel cut out of the back to enable you to pour the contents down the toilet. And, because we don't want to get icky hands whilst doing this, they have put a handle at the front underneath the splash-guard. Seriously, how clever it that?

The only thing that I would say about the potty is, and this is what The Boy does, not all children may do the same, he has a tendency to hold on to the splash-guard as he thinks it's a handle. I need to keep reminding him at the moment, it is early days after all, to put his hands on his knees. Like I said, it's a minor thing and that's my child, not all children.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the Pourty potty, and am very happy to have my mind changed for me by an innovative potty. Such simple alterations make all the difference to the world of a toddler who is undergoing a massive task. This is why the Pourty has won Best New Product 2010/11 from Practical Parenting Magazine and is currently one of the best selling potties on Amazon!

The best judge of it though is The Boy: he has now abandoned his throne potty for this one! When given a choice, he sits on it every time before his other one, even when he's still got his nappy on!

TRU Review: These Aren't Just Any Crayons…

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Last week, we took delivery of our first parcel from Toys R Us as part of the Toyologist programme. The Boy and I ripped it open excitedly and found a whole host of lovely products inside to review. The item that he kept going back to time and time again, and was most insistent that I open was a pack of crayons. I know! Crayons, I ask you.

However, these aren't just crayons, these are Melissa & Doug crayons.

Aren't they pretty? And look at the lovely hard-wearing case that they come in!

(I will say though that luckily, the pack we received had the colours arranged like a spectrum which pleased my OCD tendencies. The picture above disturbs me slightly).

Now I don't want you thinking that I am a crayon snob (because I'm not), but there are an awful lot of rubbish colouring implements out there: luckily these are not them. The Melissa & Doug crayons are really good quality, partly because of the fact that they are made of plastic, not wax, which makes them very durable. The colours are bold and the lines that come from them are fine and even (trust me, I rant in school about children's inability to colour properly, poor materials do not help them).

Using my teacher-head here, not only am I impressed with the materials that the crayons are made from, but also the shape of them as they are triangular. In the marketing blurb it talk about how this is good because they don't roll-away and this is true; however for me I can see that they promote the correct grip.

Accompanying the crayons was the Melissa & Doug Jumbo Colouring Pad. I really like this pad because each of the fifty sheets has a large picture drawn on it. Not cartoon-style drawings, which annoy me because they don't resemble the real-life images, but proper representations in decent outlines. They also are only printed on only one side so that if your child, unlike The Boy, did a super job of colouring in and you wanted to display it, you can! The paper is really good quality, doesn't crumple or rip while they are colouring, and it tears from the pad really easily.

The Boy got straight in there!

We had The Boy's cousins over on the weekend and this is what happened:


 

Girl Cousin said she liked them because "they are like pens so it makes you try harder". Boy Cousin said, "they are funny shaped, I like them". Fiery Girl Cousin said, "they feel nice to use and I like the colours." The Boy said, "colour this, YES!"

There you go: out of the mouths of babes!

The crayons come in a pack of 24 and are priced at £4.99, the same price as the jumbo colouring pad.

I was provided with these items free of charge as part of the Toys R Us Toyologist programme and for review purposes. My opinions are my own and honest, as always.

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