Not the type of cookies you'd want to eat! (Fisher Price Cookie Shape Surprise)

Member Name: JT86

Product:	Fisher Price Cookie Shape Surprise
Date:	10/07/08 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great for teaching numbers, shapes and colours

Disadvantages: Songs can get a bit annoying after a while

This was one of the (many) toys we got our daughter last Christmas. It's suitable for age 6 months upwards, but she only started taking an interest in it from about 9-10 months old.

It's made by Fisher Price which is a well know and trusted brand that's been around longer than I have!

The toy is modelled after a cookie jar, and is yellow, with a purple bottom and orange rim. There's a big smiley face on the front with a red nose that lights up when pressed and plays a tune or phrase. The lid is purple and can be taken on and off the top of the jar.

Around the jar are five different shaped holes. The "cookies" that come with the jar fit through these holes. They are: a red heart, a blue square, a yellow circle, green triangle and purple star, all of which are chunky and have a number from 1-5 on top.

Underneath the smiley face is a slider control to switch it off, or to one of two modes: shapes or numbers.

In shape mode:
When a cookie or other object is placed into the jar a sensor triggers and a catchy little tune starts playing... "Shapes are in my cookie jar, triangle, heart and star, there's a circle over there, here's a square!"
Push the cookie through its relevant shaped hole and the jar will tell you the name of that shape, followed by a "mmm" or a giggle.
Press the red nose to hear "yummy," "mmm," a giggle, a twinkle sound, or "I love cookies."

In numbers mode:
Put a cookie into the jar to hear "Would you like some cookies, here they are, five different shapes in my cookie jar, you can take them out, you can put them back, five little cookies make a yummy snack!"
Put a cookie into a hole to hear the number on that cookie.
Pressing the nose elicits the same response as in shapes mode.

The cookie jar is great for teaching baby lots of skills. They'll learn to identify the different shapes, numbers and colours. Putting things in and out of the jar triggers the music, thereby teaching cause and effect. Motor skills and hand-eye coordination come from handling the shapes and putting them in the correct holes.

My daughter will spend quite a bit of time taking things (not just cookies) in and out of the jar. She also likes putting the lid on her head! Occasionally she'll put the right cookie in the right hole, usually the round or square ones.
On the bottom of each hole is a little button that presses down as the shape is pushed through, triggering the phrases. But quite often, on some holes, this button doesn't press in as it's supposed to and will stop the shape being pushed through without it being at an exact angle, which isn't easy for a baby to do.

Overall it's a great toy that teaches quite a few different things, and I'm sure it will last for some time to come.

The toy runs off 3 x AA batteries. It retails at £14.99.

Summary: Recommended toy