I was recently browsing the toys in ASDA looking for something different for my son who was growing bored of his toys. I wanted something cheap as his birthday isn't far off and this was just to provide a little bit of extra, and different, stimulation. I was pleased to find s promotion on ASDA own toys where certain toys could be picked up on 2 for £8, which I thought a pretty good price.

THE TOY

This is a simple ball-drop toy. You are provides with five circular plastic discs, each with a round hole cut out, that piece together to form a tower like structure. You also have three plastic balls that you 'drop' onto the top disc and they spiral round, dropping through the hole to the next level down and continuing on their journey down the tower working their way through the five levels.

The ball drop is priced at £5.97, so a good bargain in the two for £8 promotion. It is suitable from 12 months of age. The toy comes packaged in a cardboard box with a picture of the toy on front. Inside the box, all the plastic levels are wrapped individually in plastic bags and the three balls are also in a separate plastic bag. The toy is easy to assemble and, as long as you get the bottom layer correct (yellow), the rest can be positioned in any order. The discs just slot simply into one another.

The balls contained with this toy are a hard, clear plastic. Within each ball is a coloured plastic shape - red, green and orange - and several little balls. This means that, as the balls drop down the toy, they rattle.

PLAYTIME

My son enjoys watching me place the balls into the toy and watching them drop down. He seems to like the movement of the balls. After a while of watching me demonstrate how it worked, he got the idea and began placing the balls on the top level - clearly very pleased with himself as he did so. This has helped him develop understanding of demonstration and copying and also improve his hand-eye co-ordination and manipulation skills.

He also enjoys playing with the plastic balls separately from the main tower. He enjoys shaking these to hear the rattling noise they make as well as banging them together - discovering different sounds. He also likes to roll these along the floor and watch how far they go - so is learning about actions and consequences.

The tower is pretty lightweight and, while it stands well independently, my son will often knock this over when crawling past to collect the balls - causing him some frustration. However, as it is so light it does not cause any damage or any injury to him.

MY OPINION

This is a nice, simple toy and a good price. It is also different to a lot of baby/toddler toys available. I like that you can take the levels apart and rebuild quickly as this makes it much easier to store - flat discs can easily be placed in the toy box whereas the tall tower would have proved more challenging.

The balls particularly are well thought out and made and these are a nice toy individually as well as part of the set. These can be used to teach babies to roll balls and colours too. The tower itself is lightweight and stands well. We have found, however, that the balls don't always roll down the spiral easily - it depends on the surface it is stood on. On our wooden floor, it works perfectly and the balls whizz down. On our rug, the balls can sometimes get stuck halfway down.

The tower could also be improved by having a 'stop' at the end of the bottom layer as the balls just shoot out and across the floor when they reach the end of the spiral - leading to lost balls.

This is a nice, simple toy that I think my son will get more use of as he gets a little older. At 11 months, he does not quite understand the movement if the balls but, as he learns and develops I think he will gain more pleasure from placing the balls in the top and watching them drop down. It does have limited use though as it can become boring quite quickly so I wouldn't have wanted to have paid any more that I did for it. It's a nice toy to have in my son's collection though as it is relatively quiet and provides a nice changing from all his noisy, musical toys.