Posts Tagged ‘toy’

Do you have a little one in your home that loves to pretend to fix things or likes to take things apart? If so, they’d probably love the environmentally friendly Green Toys Tool Set that comes in boy and girl friendly colors! My children both a son and daughter, ages 4 and nearly two years year have been quite taken and play with this set daily. A huge continual playability factor for any toy is always win and a by a company we already love makes that even better!

If you haven’t heard about Green Toys, you should know they are doing wonders in reducing their carbon footprint. They offer a great collection of products made in the USA that are created from food-safe recycled milk jugs that save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions!

No more worries about what your little one touches or puts in their mouth with these toys as they contain no BPA, PVC, phthalates, or external coatings. Green Toys is doing every thing they can to save energy by focusing on transportation cost even when it comes down to packaging!

Let’s talk more about the toolset! This set is made up of 15 pieces which includes a tool box, phillips screwdriver, flat screwdriver, hammer, saw, wrench, pliers, 2 two-hole connectors, 2 nails, 2 bolts, and 2 nuts. The names of each of the tools are on the tools themselves which is great for word recognition for early readers! The toolbox has premade holes that the screws and nails are designed to go into which is great for practicing those fine motor skills!

My kids have been having so much fun with this set. They even had some friends over that are the same age and all the kids were pretty much glued to playing with the tool set. I will say that the set is a bit limited. If your child likes to build a lot you want to look for something else. This set is great though for children who want to practice their hammering and screwdriver skills or just for using it for imaginative play.

The pieces in this set are very durable! I can’t see these pieces breaking easily at all. There’s no rough edges and the set looks as new today as it did two weeks ago when I presented it to my children. The set is recommend for children ages two and up.

I really like this set and it’s perfect for my little boy (turns 2 in January). The only thing I hope for is to be able to buy more nail and screw pieces because they sometimes can get misplaced!

Buy it: You can purchase the Green Toys Tool Set in Blue on Amazon.com for 21.56 or on the Green Toys Website.

 Disclosure: I received the above mentioned products in exchange for my opinion of them. This review is 100% my opinion and has not been edited or reviewed by anyone. I was not compensated in any other way for this product review.

 

My son whom is about to turn two in only a couple of months has grown to really love Thomas the Tank Engine! And with that I knew for his Christmas and his Birthday coming up, that Thomas would be a fantastic choice in catering toward his new love of trains! As he’s getting older, I’ve been introducing him to new types of toys and activities that can improve his fine motor skills and logical thinking. And what’s better a way for both than the use of puzzles. And what’s an even more fun puzzle for my son to use? That’s right, a Thomas the Tank Engine one!

My family and I enjoy Ravensburger games quite a bit. We’ve always found this company to be of the very best quality and all the games and products we have from them have provided for a good time always. I was thrilled when I found out that they offer all sorts of puzzles for every member of the family!

We were sent the Thomas & Friends: Thomas & Charlie 24 Piece Floor Puzzle to review and spotlight during the Holiday season. This puzzle has been a absolute hit with both my nearly 2 year old son and my 4 1/2 year old daughter. I found the pieces to be extremely durable and they were large enough for my children’s little hands to handle with ease.

I love that both my kids have enjoyed this puzzle quite a bit. My daughter was able to put together this puzzle all on her own easily. My son whom is younger had a bit of trouble so I helped him find the right pieces and he easily put them in the right place. The puzzle is very colorful and the playability factor to use over and over again has happened quite a bit for us.

I would highly recommend this puzzle and other’s from Ravenburger. Puzzles are great educational tool in promoting the development of fine motor skills, association, task completion and independent play. We also thought it was pretty cool that the puzzle box itself is shaped like Thomas the Tank Engine as well!

 Buy it: You can purchase Thomas & Friends: Thomas & Charlie 24 Piece Floor Puzzle on Amazon.com for $15.00 & it’s eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.

Guest Review by: Justin Lowmaster

I’ve recently become a fan of Revensburger games. Make ‘n Break is a good edition to the set of games we already have, such as Castles of Burgundy and Seeland.

Make ‘n Break is a puzzle game where you have a card with a design that you build with the blocks included with the game. The timer starts, you draw a card, and build as fast as you can to complete as many cards before time runs out.

The cards show easy to difficult designs that are either colored to match the bricks or are without color. If you get a later type of card you can use any brick to build the design, otherwise your structure must match the colors. They also have designations so you can make an easier and a harder pile. This is useful if playing with less experienced players (probably kids) to level the playing field. This worked well when we played with my four-year old.

The bricks, or building blocks, are sturdy and of good quality.

Before you are done, each other player has a right to object if they feel you didn’t get it right. There is a lot of room for house rules here. If you see an error, do you wait until the builder is done, or tell them right away? On one of my rounds, I had an easy fix, but started knocking it down prematurely, and had to rebuild it when it was noted that I had two blocks swapped (it was a color matching card.) There is also no penalty to a player who says the structure is wrong when it is right, perhaps to slow you down. Again, house rules are good here. I would hope this wouldn’t be an issue with this game, though, as it is a test of yourself, and not a game of trying to mess up the other players.

The only thing I didn’t like about the game is the tokens they use for score keeping. They come in values of 1 and 10. I would prefer they came in 1 and 5. It would make for a less chaotic stack of point tokens and easier trading when you have enough for a larger token.

The tokens, however, have nice holders in the box, so if you don’t ‘follow the rules’ and put them in the center of the table, and keep them in the box, this makes the whole situation better. The box on a whole, as well, contains everything nicely.

I had a lot of fun with this game. It is fast paced, simple to learn, and provides a challenge. It is fun for young and old alike, and provides fun practice for cognitive and motor skills. It makes a great filler game too to add to your game collection.

Overall, it’s a  game the whole family can play and enjoy, it heelps reinforce logical and spatial reasoning, simple rules make it easy to learn right out of the box, multiple difficulty levels let kids improve building skills at their own pace, and it has a excellent replay value.

If you are interested in purchasing Ravensburger Make ‘N’ Break – Family Game, you can buy it on Amazon.com for about $20.00 and right now it’s free to ship.