Activity Toy Reviews

I have 2 granddaughters age 4 who play with this every time they come over. They have a great time. The castle is small enough to not take up too much room, yet big enough for the girls to enjoy. The pieces fit inside the castle, so everything is in one piece when put away. This is an inexpensive, fun toy that I recommend.

My daughter loves Dora, so this was a must get. She plays with it everyday. It is also great for traveling to because it closes up and has a handle.

I think this is one of the best Dora toys I have gotten my daughter for Christmas. She will be turning 3 in Feb. and is the hugest Dora fan. The castle is bright and colorful - a perfect compliment to the Dora Fairytale DVD. It has just the right amount of pieces that she has fun with and they don't end up lost all over the house! It folds up into the perfect size little carrying case with a star handle and has a handy little pull out "map" that has images from the DVD story. The only con is that it is a little hard for her to open by herself but that may be a good thing so the toys don't spill all over as you are carrying it! Overall a really great buy!

Trying to play these myself, I have to play pretty forcefully to get a decent pitch. It's not nearly as easy to play as a better quality, non-toy version of bongos, but then, it's a whole lot sturdier than a quality wood & skin drum.

The colors are vibrant and very appealing. These have withstood the abuses heaped on them by my kids from their toddler through preschooler years, and still look great.

Buy a pair of mallets or drumsticks to go with these: it makes it a whole lot easier to play, and gives children more immediate gratification.

I got this puzzle for my 3-1/2 year old daughter and even though she has played with it for almost an year, she still enjoys it.
It is a puzzle with pictures of 26 different places (restaurant,court...etc) in a town and cut-outs of people (A to Z)who work at these places. Playing involves putting the puzzle together and placing thepeople in their respective workplaces.
This gamehelps the kids in knowing the community helpers as well as learn A,B,C's. Good for preschoolers. The pieces are durable.

Like many other bath toys, the Car Wash Bath Activity Toy has lots of features and options. The whole thing floats, each car has a different water effect (squirt, strain, pour), and the orange thing in the center squirts water onto the cars. There's a piece that attaches at the high end that can "ferry" the cars around the tub - it will float with one of the cars on it. The hook at the low end is designed to hang - you can 'park' the cars in the net and hang the entire thing to dry. However, the hook is too small for a towel rack or tub spout, it would really only fit over coated wire items. The whole contraption is big, but fits fine when we have 2 boys in the tub. (I only mention this because some people don't like big bath toys). The "car wash" squirty feature is hard to operate, especially for my 2 year old, and even somewhat for me!

One thing that makes this toy unique is that it's not a stereotypical water toy - it's not a boat or aquatic animal. If your child loves cars, it may be a big hit - but otherwise, it's just another bath toy: fun but not fabulous.

I bought two sets of jump ropes in March for my daughter's school after watching the kids struggle for months with their old rope ones. I thought these would be great for the playground. Well after 4 months almost all of them are broken. There are approximately 30 kids that share them for a 1/2 hour a day. I really thought that they would hold up much better than they did. Granted they were not always used as jump ropes, sometimes tug of war, but these are 6-8 year old kids! Now there are red, white, & blue plastic tubes all over the place! I have to start looking for new ones for next year.