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Casdon Little Shopper - Fruit and Vegetable Basket
by princesschickpea
My twins sons were desperate for a play kitchen at Christmas last year, and Santa was very obliging and brought them one, complete with pots and pans. The only thing missing was the food, so my mother-in-law bought this basket of fruit and vegetables for them.
There were two main reasons I asked her to buy this particular set ... rather than any of the other similar play food sets available. The first was the low price - she found it in a local shop reduced to £3.50. The second reason is that one of my sons has a real problem with eating paper and card that we are trying to help him get over. Most reasonably priced food sets comes with little card boxes that are printed to look like fish fingers or cereal or the like. I knew this would be a complete waste of money in our household, as even though I keep a close eye on him when he is playing with these sorts of toys, I knew it would end up eaten or a soggy mess. The hard plastic food meant it was safe if he or his little brother decided to chew on it.
There are 21 good quality plastic fruit and vegetables in this set, and as of yet, none of them have ended up crushed or 'burst' as some cheap plastic toys of this nature tend to do. The variety of food has also meant that they have learned a lot about fruit and veg, as well as colours, as we sometimes play games where I ask them to indentify items in the basket. After learning about asparagus from this set, they then asked for me to buy asparagus when they spotted it in the supermarket (they didn't end up eating it though!) The little shopping basket has also proven to be quite tough, and hasn't cracked anywhere. The yellow handles do sometimes come off, but they are easy to put back on again.
Overall, this basket has been a hit! They use the fruit in their kitchen (boiled lemon anyone?!) and also sometimes set up a little shop. It is perhaps not as interactive as other food sets - I have seen some where the carrots are velcroed together so as the child can 'cut' it up - but as a basic set of play food for young children, it's fantastic value for money.
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Zanussi Pack Away Kitchen
by Mama-Q
I thought it would be a great idea to write some reviews for the presents we bought for my son last year for any parents or others who are looking to buy presents for children and are unsure of what to buy ;). Last year my son was two months away from turning two and I decided that he was old enough to use and enjoy a toy kitchen. My ... in-laws then bought this kitchen from Tesco and kept it at their house where my son goes every weekend to play with cousins and he fell in love with it!
I went to Tesco a month before Christmas and managed to get this kitchen for around £18 or so in their sale and was very chuffed with myself - points mean ClubCard prizes and every little helps, after all ;). I was a little daunted with the task of wrapping this toy as it was in quite a large oblong box so my husband suggested we simply set it up on Christmas Eve and stick it in the corner, ready for it's big reveal on Christmas morning.
Upon opening the box we had to assemble the kitchen ourselves, which is fine. It was a case of slotting the right parts into the right slots - technical, I know, but this step wasn't overly complicated or difficult. Once it was set up we then attempted to 'pack it away' into a carry case that is part of the design of the kitchen, with the handle discreetly placed on the bottom of the kitchen cooker. This was a complete faff! It should be a case of fold here, here and here but it was more a case of going on a wild goose chase with the instructions. Eventually my husband did manage to fold it down into a carry case but I couldn't tell you HOW he did it as the whole thing annoyed me too much. As it goes I don't see any need to pack it up and use it as a carry case because well it's not going anywhere and if I need to ever pack it up for storage then I'm sure I'll work out how to fold it all up but as it was just going to be permanently set up for my son to play with this isn't a necessity for us.
Once assembled and put into the corner for Christmas Day (though left neglected until Boxing Day and we'd worked our way to the kitchen over the mountain of other gifts given by family and friends) the kitchen looked a treat. It stands about the same height as my son, with everything at his level so he can play with the tap (not working, obviously), sink, hob and cooker. The tap is removable and comes off pretty easily but is also quite sturdy and won't sustain any damage unless you have a herd of elephants coming to play ;). The sink is just a shallow pretend play feature on the kitchen and works as a nice place to dump the plates, cups, pots, pans, utensils and plastic cutlery that come with the kitchen for 'washing up' pretend play. The hob sits above the cooker/oven and has two hot plates that light up and say various phrases as well as making cooking noises. For this to work you'll need two AA batteries - it doesn't eat up a lot of the battery power but it does get annoying! The hob also has a 4 dial feature that kids will have a bit of fun with, I imagine. The cooker/oven is brilliant, with a removable grill tray and one slot where the grill can sit in. My son has a lot of fun taking this in and out as well as 'cooking' the various plastic bits of food that came with the kitchen and sometimes I'm served up roast chicken, a cooked egg or fried lettuce ;) - I just never know what's coming next!
There are also little hooks for the utensils and cutlery to sit on, just above the hob, and the hooks sit on the side of a shelf where the grey plastic cups can be kept. With this kitchen we also got a few bits and bobs like a kettle that 'boils down' and a toaster with two slices of 'toast' that pop up and out of the toaster...though for the life of me one of the bits of 'toast' has seemed to have gone missing and I have no idea where my son might have stashed it! So they're hardly the biggest or best bits of pretend food, but they do. I'd suggest supplementing what you get with the kitchen with some little pretend play food from ELC or even Tesco because you only get a few bits and bobs with this kitchen. Also supplied with the kitchen were the Zanussi brand stickers so you *could* leave these off if you're not a fan of branding. Usually I'm not but it didn't bother me to slap on a few stickers here and there showing off the brand - after all we're only playing indoors with it and I do like the 'mini me' novelty of this kitchen with the brand stickers on ;).
So...what about quality? The whole thing is made from a durable hard lasting plastic that has yet to show signs of wear and tear on our end after a year of heavy playing, bashing into, knocking down, throwing around and sitting out. In fact this toy looks as good as the day we set it up in our living room so I really have no bone of contention with the quality or build of this toy.
The kitchen itself is a gender neutral mix of greys, dark greys and yellow and the utensils and such follow suit in the colour coding so this could be a present for a boy or a girl as well as something you can keep for a younger boy or girl sibling to inherit. Overall I'd say it was a great gift - an under £30 gift, which is ideal as a main present supplemented with other little things or as a gift to a friend's child or a wee family member. My son loved - and still loves - it as a gift and I found it entirely suitable for his age group but if I were buying it for someone else I'd say the suitable age group would be 18 months to 5 years, depending on the child and what their interests are. The noises get annoying but the batteries can be taken out so this shouldn't ever really be a huge deal and it *is* fiddly to pack up into a carry case, however the pros of the dials on the hob, the cooker/oven and the many hours of fun your child/intended recipient of the gift, plus the decent and fair quality of the product, far outweigh the minor cons of this toy kitchen and on that basis I would highly recommend this.
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Peppa Pig Tea Set
by emmad5689
My Mam bought my youngest daughter this for her second birthday even though we already have 2 different play tea sets in the house my Mam decided she needed this one as it is Peppa Pig which is one of her favourite characters.
My Mam apparently bought this from one of the local supermarkets but having had a look on Amazon you ... can buy this set for £8 and that includes free delivery which is always a selling point to me as I find shopping online much easier but don't want to pay a bomb on the postage.
The set came packaged in a cardboard box with the Peppa Pig logo on it along with the characters George and Peppa pictured, the front of the box is open so you can see what is inside but the items are covered with a layer pf plastic packaging so they are held in place in the box. The box was pretty easy to open and get the pieces out which is a good job as my daughter wanted it out immediately.
Inside the set you get 4 cups, 4 saucers, 4 spoons, a milk jug, a tea pot and lid and a sugar bowl with lid. The items are all bright pink and purple in colour apart from the lids for the sugar bowl and tea pot which are bright yellow, the lids are shaped differently too so they will only fit on one of the items. Each piece of the set has a little Peppa Pig sticker on it, some of the pieces have a sticker of Peppa behind a table and on the table are 4 cups which she is filling with the tea pot in her hand, some of the pieces just have Peppa pig holding her teddy on them and the tea pot also has the Peppa Pig logo on it.
The set is nice and brightly coloured but is certainly aimed at a girl rather than a boy from the colours and I haven't seen a boys version which seems a little sexist. Each piece of the set is made from plastic and I have had quite a hard time convincing Emily that she is not actually supposed to put the spoon in her mouth, the pieces are all highly durable and have bee bashed around by my little lady and they are still in one piece and still all shaped how they started.
Emily loves this set, she is forever making us cups of tea although she must think we all take lots of sugar as she spends ages spooning something into the cups befoe we get them,, she also likes to use the spoon and plates to pretend to feed her babies or her Fireman Sam soft toy which must always be hungry.
This is a really good set, it sells for a decent price and is going to be loved by any Peppa Pig fan. The set promotes imaginatory play and hand eye coordination, the set is supposed to be for ages 3 and up but apart from her trying to eat the spoon we have had no issues with our 2 year old playing with the set.
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