In my opinion the best way to learn about something and get to know what things are is to play with them which is why this cut and play fruit basket is so great.

We have a set of play vegetables and so I thought the fruit basket would be good too as in my opinion you can never have too many food items to play with, especially as we have all the props such as kitchens, shopping baskets and shopping bags.
I'm not sure why but I am obsessed with play fruit for my little girl. I remember years ago going to my cousins house and she had these wooden pieces of fruit that sat in the middle of her kitchen table for her kids to play with. They were in two halves and you could cut them up with a little toy wooden knife and every time we went over to her house my brother and I would play with these for hours. I always knew I wanted to get some when I had kids so was excited to find these in the Early Learning Centre.

The fruit is plastic and comes in a crate much like you would find on a market stall. The fruit is well made and does look authentic although I do find the plastic a bit thin and the fruit is quite basic looking and not as nice as some wooden sets of play fruit. It is still great for role play though and safe and durable for little hands to play with.

In this set you will find a banana. A strawberry, a pear, a slice of watermelon. An apple, an orange and some grapes. The fruit is in pieces and held together with velcro so when you "cut" it you are basically cutting through the velcro with the knife in order to split the fruit apart. The sound of the velcro coming apart actually makes quite a realistic cutting noise and I think makes kids feel like they are actually cutting up their food.

Like I've said above this set is great for learning about fruit and we also like to play with it in conjunction with our shopping basket and play kitchen as we can play, "going to the shop to buy our fruit," and then come home and play, "cook with our fruit in our kitchen."

The set is £12 from the ELC and they recommend it is not suitable for children under 36 months due to small parts but they are not that small in my opinion and I am happy for my two year old to play with them.