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Meccano Sonic and Speed Star
by cha97mw
Since my son has been at school for a couple of years now, I find that his tastes in toys have changed considerably, with him being influenced by the friends he plays with, and he has also been watching older episodes of childrens TV shows on the netflix subscription we have. One show that has been a recent fascination is Sonic the ... Hedgehog. Prior to this, his experience of the character Sonic has come from playing one old game we have for the playstation two, so we have been surprised by this recent fascination.
When he had birthday money to spend, he spent a long time in the toy shop picking out what he wanted to spend his pennies on. There was not much featuring the Sonic character, but he liked the look of this meccano set featuring Sonic and a blue speedstar car.
Inwardly we groaned a bit when he picked this. I believe in letting children make their own reasonable choices with guidance, and we couldn't think of a good reason not to buy this. The price was £14.99, and for this price, the cardboard box was a fairly decent size. We could see from the box that this was a motorised car, with 15 plus pieces. Our reluctance comes from previous experience of cars you build yourself where they are not actually that good, and my youngest son who is only 4 always likes to tinker and take things apart.
Because of our reluctance, it took a while to get round to building this till we were sure we had a block of time to do it. We expected that this would take at least an hour of time to get it built up properly, with my son reading the instructions with help to interpret and act upon them.
What we found was that this really is not quite what we expected at all, and it was really quite a simple toy to build. We were expecting a lot of assembly, but this was something that was put together in less than ten minutes if I am being generous, and there were only two screws to put in.
Out of our 15 pieces, 4 were parts of the car. This came as the wheel base, a section that holds the seat, a white section which makes the lower body of the car, then the blue section that is the outer body of the car. This is held together by two screws, one at the front on the bonnet, and one on the rear section of the car. You get a screwdriver with a triangular shaped head to use with these screws.
Each wheel is then in 2 parts. A red inner section, with a black tyre. The tyre needs putting round the rim, before these are pushed onto the axles of the car. (So so far, 4+2+8= 14 bits.) You get a blue jewel to put on the front of the car over the screw head for decorative purposes, but nothing to cover up the rear screw.
Sonic is then in two pieces, his upper body, and his lower body. When assembled, he sits well in the driving seat, and his hands can fit around the steering wheel.
The toy is basically just a glorified pull back and go friction operated toy car. There is a small amount of fun in building it as it is quite simple to do and you get the result of your work really quickly.
As a parent, I feel a little swizzled. I think £15 is a bit high a price for what you get, £10 might be more reasonable. I also find it really hard to classify this as a meccano toy, as the level of assembly is really quite low in my opinion. It was so simple my 4 year old could have managed it really, and I think for a 6 year old who has experience of building lego and the like, then it is verging on a bit babyish. The recommended age of five might be ok for some kids, but for my two I think about 4 years would be better. Also, 15 plus parts is getting a bit dubious when you start counting the tyre and wheel as two seperate bits. Yes, there are, but only if you are pedantic with your counting.
My children have enjoyed playing with this car as they like trying to do tricks with it, pulling it back on my coffee table then letting it fly off and seeing how far it can go. To be fair to it, it is a sturdy car, and this type of rough play is not likely to damage it too much as the plastic seems tough enough. The sonic figure is nice. I like how he grips the wheel, though this is a little tricky to do for small hands.
This is ok for a fan of Sonic, and as long as you know to expect minimal building, then it shouldn't be a disappointment. I think if I'd known how simplistic it was, I probably would have tried to persuade my son to spend his pennies on another toy which he would get better play value from, but he seems happy with it as a bit of a role play toy rather than a construction toy. As a car, it moves well and fast across my smooth surfaces such as the table or the laminate flooring, and it is quite fun.
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Playskool Clipo Figure Bucket
by kat1234
My son loves building things so I wanted to find him some alternative blocks to play with. He owns regular wooden blocks and Megablocks and he has duplo coming for Christmas so I wanted something a bit different. From my childhood, I remembered owning stickle bricks and wanted something similar to this. However, I could only find ... sticklebricks on a handful of sites online and they were very pricey so I looked for alternatives. I came across a box of Playskool Clipo Blocks in Home Bargains for £7.99 and decided to get him these.
The blocks come in a red plastic tub with a yellow lid that can also be used as a base for building on. The bricks are similar to stickle bricks in that they are textures and can be pushed together at any point on their surface. The box contains 50 pieces in various shape, sizes and colours. The recommended age for these is from 18 months. Our box is the 'figure' bucket so contains two play pieces that are heads - you can also get vehicle and animal boxes.
The pieces are all chunky so ideal for toddlers. They are also bright colours so very attractive to toddlers too. They are different shapes too so help with shape and colour recognition. My son was instantly attracted to these as soon as we opened the box - the colours really grabbed his attention. He also loved the texture of them and they really encouraged him to explore what he can do with them. He understood quickly how these worked and knew he could push them together. However, in practice, he found them very difficult to stick together. They actually are quite stiff, with some pieces fitting better together than others but they need quite a bit of force to slot together. This isn't a very good requirement for a toy aimed at toddlers and we have experienced quite a bit of frustration with these!
The bricks are sturdy and well made (other than the stiffness) and stand up to the general wear and tear that a toddler inflicts. They can be washed but are difficult to clean due to their textured surface. They also come in quite a small box for the amount of bricks you get so packing away can be a bit frustrating! You need to ensure that some of the blocks are stuck together so that they take up less space and that you pack them in a correct order or the lid will not close.
For the price, these are a nice alternative to other types of building bricks. They do keep my son amused for prolonged lengths of time too. It is just the general frustration that they cause him that makes me hesitate in my recommendation. Perhaps as he gets older and has a little more strength and understanding of how these work the frustration may reduce. I am glad we didn't pay much more for them though - the same box sells at over £20 on Amazon! I would definitely say they are not worth paying this much for!
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Mega Bloks Building Blocks Bag
by lights84
Mega Bloks are the only toys that my daughter absolutely loves and will play with in whatever mood she is in. She has had them since about 15 months old and she is coming up to 18 months now and still likes to play with them. In the beginning I would build the bloks for her and she would knock them down. Now that she is older she can ... build them up into towers, slowly, though she isn't at the stage where she can make definite things yet like castles and boats. When my 4 year old nephew comes over he makes all kinds of things with the bloks and his only complaint is that there are not enough of them! My daughter likes to help him which is really sweet as some toys cause children to fight but these don't, I guess because it the building process itself is so much fun.
The bloks are bright plastic blocks of varying colours, basically think giant lego pieces except they are 'softer' and not as sharp. They still hurt your feet though if you step on them and this has happened to me a few times as a few pieces inevitably go rogue whenever we clear them away- so be warned! The bloks are made up of rectangled and squared pieces. They vary is size and there is some variety with a few bloks having curved edges. They come in a useful clear plastic bag to pack them away in and the zip on this case is strong enough that little fingers can't open it or break it which is also good. I wouldn't recommend leaving a child of any age alone with the bag.
This Mega Bloks set cost me £9.99 from Toys R Us and although the bag and the pieces have been thrown about, stepped on and one even went through a wash (!) they are all still in good condition, not dented and fine to play with. The bloks are also very easy to clean as the plastic is smooth and also any dirt is easily spotted on the bright colours. I'm not sure why the recommended age is for a 3 years and over as they are clearly suitable for smaller children, far too small to swallow no detachable parts. I don't normally like bright coloured toys in my household but my daughter loves them, probably because they are not at all restrictive and can be played with so easily, eg she will not just try to build with them but also put them into other toys, boxes etc, and take them out again. She is also starting to tell a difference between the colours as some days she likes to carry around only blue bloks for example.
To summarise, I highly recommend these for pretty much all children as they really invite a child to use his or her imagination and they are clearly good at improving hand-eye coordination. My daughter always looks so proud when she has built a small tower. That's before she's knocked it down of course -- they she looks about as impish as an almost-18 month old can look ;D
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