BALLS - a great xmas toy (Tomy Ball Party Bridge)

Member Name: jessfbell

Product:	Tomy Ball Party Bridge
Date:	09/12/01 (180 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: educational, stimulating, good quality

Disadvantages: storage

If you are stuck for a present for any child aged from about 1 year to about 3 i would go for this toy. It costs from around £17 (the cheapest place i found was Mothercare) and has a long 'play life'. It has been very popular both with my son and any visiting children some reasons for my recommendation are:

It is educational, helping to develop hand eye coordination and understanding of consequence of actions. You can use the different coloured balls as a fun way to learn colours and they are good to play with just on their own, as they are all different and some have rattles. Each of the levels has a different kind of texture and there are clear tubes as well as the brightly coloured levels. It is a visually interesting and appealing toy.

The bridge parts can be assembled
at different heights, so if your baby is just sitting they can play with a lower version of the ball run. I found that the ball tower actually encouraged my son to sit up and gave him support (obviously supervised) when he was starting to kneel and stand. The desire to reach up and put the balls in to the top really motivated him.
It is a really good toy for two to play, putting balls in different sides and trying to put loads in at once always gets the children excited.

The bridge tower can be joined to the Ball Spiral, another similar product, to make an even more complex ball run and keep interest in the toy.

The toy is really sturdy and well made - it is a well thought out, quality product. It fits together easily and comes apart into storable pieces - the only drawback i would say is that if you want to keep it assembled it does take up a bit of space.
An excellent christmas buy!

Summary: