I brought the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Cookie Jar for my daughter on her very first Christmas. I got it from Tesco (or was it Woolworths? Does it even matter!?) for around £15.00. It's still widely available in most toy shops and is currently selling on Amazon for £14.67 (July 2012) with free delivery.

The cookie jar is an electronic shape sorter. It comes in an open-fronted cardboard box (you can try before you buy) and requires 3 x AAA batteries, which are included - we never had to change our batteries. The age recommendation is 6 - 36 months and it's a unisex toy. It has 3 settings - shapes, numbers and off. The settings can be changed by a button on the front of the cookie jar (an easy task for adults and children). It is very visually pleasing and will appeal to all young children. It is a large size, mainly yellow in colour (with purple lid and base) with a big happy face on the front. The face has a red nose which flashes as the cookie jar talks and sings (you can also press to nose to make the cookie jar talk and giggle)!

The cookie jar includes 5 colourful plastic shapes (triangle, square, star, heart and circle) which are all numbered (1-5), these are effectively the 'cookies'. The main aim of the cookie jar is to get the shapes inside the holes which are in the walls around the cookie jar. Each time a shape is successfully placed in to the cookie jar, it makes a sound - either by saying the name of the shape (if on shape mode) or saying the number on the shape (if on number mode). It's very encouraging for little ones to get praise from the cookie jar when they get it right. The lid can also be lifted off to retrieve the shapes. A sensor is set off every time the child reaches their hand in to the jar and a song is played. You will get a shape song if the cookie jar is set to shape mode and a number song if the cookie jar is set to number mode (we slightly favoured the shape song, which goes "Shapes are in my cookie jar. Triangle, heart and star. There's a circle over there. Here's a square!").

Although our Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Cookie Jar has been sitting in our loft for a year or two, I still remember it clearly (as well as all of the words to the songs!) as my daughter played with it so much and was one of her favourite baby toys until she was around 2 years old. Some of her baby toys went totally unplayed with so I definitely got my moneys worth with this one. It's fun, bright and has catchy songs - something which my daughter loved and something I'm sure all children would love (babies and toddlers are captivated by bright/flashing lights and noise!).

From a parents point of view, the cookie jar is quite loud and can become very annoying (especially if your child keeps sticking their hand in and out of the jar to set the song off!). I like the fact it's an educational toy too, not only can it help to teach shapes, colours and numbers but it can help to develop fine motor skills (such as hand-eye coordination).

As I've already mentioned the age recommendation is 6 - 36 months, I personally think the cookie jar is a little too heavy and bulky for babies under 9 months. I would say the best age range would be between 12 - 24 months. The shapes can also be quite awkward to push in to the holes (the walls of the cookie jar are quite thick) and so may be easier for older babies to grasp, I had to help my daughter for the first few months.

Overall this is a lovely little baby toy that I'm happy to recommend.