I received these cubes as a gift when my child was about 2 months old (took a while for relatives in Scotland to get them transported down by my dad). These cubes retail for £8.99 and are available in Mothercare stores and on their website www.mothercare.com

The cubes are about 10cmx10cm and have bright fabric outers with a soft sponge inner. The cubes are machine washable on a cool cycle. They come in a plastic case with a handle for easy storage, but unfortunately this case then needs to be kept clear of the child due to suffocation risk - using an alternative material may have prevented this being necessary. In the pack I got 5 of the cubes have a crinkle texture and one has a bell on it. Each cube has 6 alphabet letters on it, each with a word which begins with that letter and an illustration.

The stated age range for these cubes is 6 months plus, but I began using the cubes with my son at 2 months. At this age we built stacks of two or three cubes beside him while he was lying on the floor and he would develop his swiping skills by knocking them down. Having a cube with a bell in it helped with this as he gained sound as well as visual feedback.

Since 4 months, he has been sitting supported and the cubes have helped him develop skills in picking up larger objects with two hands. He has enjoyed the crinkle textures at this stage.

From the age that a baby can sit independently - 6-7 months, I imagine these cubes can further develop motor skills and co-ordination by using them to stack.

As a child approaches 2 years I imagine these cubes will be useful in helping develop knowledge of letters and sounds. Many of the letter/word combinations are good for this r-ring, s-sun , j-jungle, w-worm, z-zebra, x-x-ray, q-queen, n-nut, e-elephant, r-robot, m-moon, d-doll, a-apple, t-teddy, d-daisy, c-cat, y-yoyo, a-anchor, m-money, b-bee, k-kite, l-lion, l-lemon, h-hippo, g-gate, u-umbrella, o-orange, e-egg, m-monkey, v-van, p-panda. Some are poorer choosing to use the sound as part of a constanent blend eg d-drum, f-flag. Some are using the letter where it makes a different sound than it's main phonetic one which may confuse young children - o-owl(ow, no o sound), g-giraffe (makes a juh sound instead of a guh sound), i-ice-cream (ay instead of ih).

From 3 years onwards the cubes have been constructed to create basic words from them. constanent-vowel-constanent (cvc) words include dad, mum, cat, dog, sat, rat, hat, pat, run, sun, hit, mit, ran, mug, jug, jog, leg, peg, met, set, sad, mad. There are also a number of more complex words that can be spelt but I wouldn't recommend it as a teaching tool as patterns cannot be seen.

Overall though, it is a very long lasting toy