I prefer to buy educational toys for my son to help him develop his skills. He likes animals and enjoys it when I make the sounds of the relevant animal so when I saw this toy I thought it would be ideal especially as I managed to buy it in the ELC sale.

Appearance
This is a well made toy with nice bright colours which appeal to children. There are three pop up animals which are activated in different ways. The monkey pops up when the button is pressed, the zebra when the dial is turned and the leopard when the lever is pulled. The monkey and leopard are the easiest for my son to use and the green lever for the leopard can be pulled either right or left. There is good attention to detail as the lids covering the animals match the colour of the popping mechanism and ach lid is textured with a different pattern. The monkey has a blue lid and blue button, the zebra a white lid and white dial and the leopard a green lid and green lever. There is a handle at one side so it is easy for my son to pick it up from his toy box. The expression on the animals' faces are good too and remind of the CBeebies Raa Raa characters..


Use
My son is enjoying playing with this toy and after seeing me pop up the animals has copied my actions with varying degrees of success. I bought the toy when he was 11 months. He finds it easy to push all the animals back down again. He particularly enjoys the zebra as there is a colourful wheel in front of it which spins when the zebra pops up or is pushed back down again. He likes pushing the blue button which operates the monkey and I would say that this is his favourite. It is also the easiest to use in my opinion. He also enjoys pulling the lever for the leopard but at present finds the zebra mechanism difficult. I hope that this means that the toy will still be of interest to him as he discovers how to turn the wheel passed the sticking point. The toy is good for him to learn about cause and effect as he discovers what happens when the different mechanisms are used and also improve his eye to hand co-ordination. Obviously babies develop at different rates so I would consider this toy suitable from the age when you child can sit up unaided and has some fine motor skills to activate the pop up mechanisms. The manufacturers guide age is 9 months.
The toy does not make a noise when the animals pop up apart from that of the wheel spinning in the case of the zebra. Although no doubt my son would like to have the animal sounds incorporated into the toy I prefer it without them as I tend to find repeated noise and music from his other toys irritating after a while. In any event I quite enjoy making the sounds myself and encouraging him to identify the animal which matches the sound I make. My son does enjoy picking it up by the handle and swinging it around so I can confirm that it does survive quite a lot of wear and tear.

Basics
This toy is available from the Early Learning Centre and costs around £10. As I said earlier I managed to pick up my one in the sale and it is worthwhile looking out for similar sales as it only cost me £8.

Overall
For the amount paid for this toy and the time my son has spent playing with it I think it is worth the money. It is my hope that the difficulty of getting the zebra to pop up will keep him engaged with the toy and he develops so it should entertain him for a while longer.