Meadow Kids is a company we came across only recently but they have a great range of educational and fun products for young children. I love that you can search products by developmental benefit on their site. This is really handy if you want to work on a specific area with your child, or to make sure you have all developmental bases covered in your toy selection.
We were sent a selection of toys to try out, which were great particularly for Mr R (2) & Mr T (4)
Build-a-train wooden threading beads
This set comes in a case with 12 chunky train beads and two laces for threading. The train theme is perfect for my boys and definitely grabbed their interest. I love how bright and colourful they are.
This activity helps with fine motor skills, hand-eye cordination and also gives a great chance to work on colour and number recognition.
Mr R concentrated hard to line up all his trains on the string and has been playing with this set regularly since it arrived. The boys also take the little trains and play with them on their tracks from time to time. 
These wooden beads are great quality, and being on the larger side they don’t get lost so easily and wouldn’t be a choking risk to any younger siblings. They look great and look like they will last really well!
Shape Fabric Book with Water Pen
This book covers the simple shapes on soft pages and also comes with a water pen so that children can copy each shape onto the fold out drawing section at the back of the book. This section extends so that it can be used alongside any of the shape pages, and has a rainbow design underneath so that when the children draw their shape will come out in a rainbow design.
Copying the shapes is great for children learning their pre-writing shapes and the book includes circle, square, triangle, diamond, and rectangle with a few different designs for each, for example: Triangle for an ice cream cone.
The pen screws open easily allowing you to fill it with water, so that it can write on the special page. If you have an aquadraw mat, it seems to work in exactly the same way so you should be able to easily get hold of extra pens if you did accidentally lose it.
There is a space for the pen to fit on front of the book, and the whole set comes inside a carrier which is great for keeping it all in one place and making sure the pen wouldn’t get lost.
This alphabet floor puzzle is perfect for little ones learning their alphabet, which Mr T and Mr R currently are. It creates a long line of alphabet over 2 meters long so you will need to clear a space to make it! Each letter comes along with a picture to help children remember the sound eg I for Igloo, J for Jellyfish and the letters can pop out from each space too making the puzzle 52 pieces in total. Once you pop out the letters, you can use them to spell simple words or your child’s name to add an extra dimension to the activity.
As the puzzle is so big, all three boys were able to work on this together and Mr Z enjoyed quizzing his little brothers on the letters. There are lots of games you can make up using the finished puzzle, like calling out a letter and asking the children to put a counter on the correct one. The little ones also liked to sing the alphabet song while they worked!
It’s great for letter recognition and working on phonological awareness, by saying the words and saying the letter sounds, and then listening out for the letter sounds within the words or seeing if the children can recognise them.
We think all three activities are great! My ultimate favourite would be the threading trains, just because they are so cute! What about you? Let me know in the comments.
See here for more educational and fun products for young children
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
I love the trains! And the water pen is such a good idea, I’ve never seen it with a fabric book, a great idea for little ones in the pram xx
I haven’t heard of these before but their products look great. I will have to have a look into them for F as she is starting to learn colours at the moment.