The Moosical Beads Cow was bought about 4 1/2 years ago now when my eldest daughter was a baby, my daughters Grandparents brought her this toy back as a present from their holidays however they had actually bought it at the local Tesco as they hadn't been able to find anything suitable for a three month old baby whilst they had been away.

Availability

Although like i say this toy was a bought a number of years ago it is a toy which is still going strong and is readily available in the likes of Asda, Tesco and Argos and of course online from the likes of Amazon. The toy costs around the £10 mark however only a few weeks ago I saw it in our local Home bargains store at about £6 which is a great saving although I think the toy is pretty good value anyway as my daughter loved it.

Packaging

The toy came packaged in the usual beright blue box that comes with Vtech toys and I quite like this as it is easy to spot a Vtwech toy from the box and Vtech is a brand I often buy for my children. The cow was easy to remove from the box pealing back a small piece of sellotape and then unwrapping the usual plastic covered wires to release it from the box. The cow comes ready fitted with 2 x AAA batteries which i think is always a good thing for a childs toy although I always have a stash of batteries in the house for those presents that come without.

The Toy

The toy as you would have guessed by now is a cow, the cow part is a soft toy and really quite cute, the cow is decorated in the usual way a cow would be with the main body being white with black splodges all over his body and he sits down whilst holding onto a plastic ring. The cow is approximately 6 inches tall and is aimed at children aged from 3 months of age so he is about the right size for a baby to grasp hold of. The ring of plastic has two little rings which slide around it behind the cows head in bright colours and then there are three activities on the front of the ring.

The buttons at the front are a light up red button with abc on it, this button is circular, in the middle there is a solid coloured blue swivel piece with a moon and stars on one side and sun on the other and then the final button is a triangular green light up button with 123 on it.

When you first turn the cow on which is done so by a heart shaped push point on the cows chest the toy will moo at you and then play you a tune, as usual with babies toys the tune is catchy and will stick in your head and annoy you. The cow will make a noise if it is turned on but then not played with such as playing a little tune or saying hug me although it will say bye bye and turn itself off if still not played with so it preserves the battery life.

The cow plays a number of songs such as The Farmers in his Den and Twinkle Twinkle and some other tunes which we didn't know but certainly came to know, when you flip the middle section over it sets of tunes and songs too. All the buttons are easy for little hands to push and my this was the first toy my daughter managed to play with herself, we would sit her in her bouncer and she would happily push the buttons and seemed to love all the noise and babble away with the toy.

Our Thoughts

I really think this is a good toy which introduces numbers, letters and colours from a young age even though a baby has no idea what they are listening to and my daughter really seemed to enjoy the toy. The battery life of the cow was brillianrt and i would say it had about a years worth of play and we only changed the batteries once in this time, the toy shuts off when not being played with so of course this helps with the battery life too. The toy is noisy and flashes lights at your child so seems to hold their attention well and the only drawback of this toy is after quite a lot of play the stitching in the cows hand began to loosen and the cows hand came away from the ring although even myself who cannot stitch managed to fix it. This is a great toy and well worth the price a great beginner for baby.