Toy Reviews

Whenever parents ask me, where should they look to get toy animals for their child, the first brand I always mention is Schleich. With Schleich animals, you know that you are getting brilliant quality, realistic animals, and they last for years and years. We have built up a great collection of Schleich animals over the years, and they are perfect for children who enjoy imaginary play and making up their own stories with their toys. We were sent a couple of products from the Schleich Wild Life Collection to review, and these two sets work very well together, and also may compliment other sets or animals you already have in your collection.

The first of these two sets is the Wild Life Starter Set, which includes four life-like animals with elaborate detail stimulate children to play creatively, allowing them to come up with their first adventurous stories from the wilderness of the safari. The animals included are a zebra, chimpanzee, elephant and lion.

This set is available for RRP 14.99 from retailers including Smyths.

This set is recommended for ages 3 and up (recommended 3-8 years) and I found my kids at both ends of this age range played really well with the animals, engaging their imaginations with the play straight away. These are ready to play with straight out of the box.

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Over the Summer we’ve been having fun with lots of different types of Rubik’s Cube. I had never realised there were so many different types available beyond the original 3×3 Rubik’s cube! It’s been great fun to try out these varieties with the kids, and challenge ourselves to figure out and complete these mind bending puzzles.

The Rubik’s products that we’ve been playing with are…

• Rubik’s Cage
• Rubik’s Edge
• Rubik’s Orbit
• Rubik’s Block
• Rubik’s Match
• Rubik’s 3×3

I will take you through each one by one..

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Shimmer Stars are a new range of collectable plushes from KD Toys, with added sparkle! They can be customised with sequins using the shimmerizer styling wand which comes with the pet, and has plenty of accessories that can be shared between your child and their Shimmer Stars pet. My little girl N loves all things sparkly and glittery so we were sent a Shimmer Stars toy for her to try out and she has been having loads of fun with it.

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Get Packing is a fast paced and puzzling game from Asmodee where each player races to pack the required items in their suitcase, but that’s not as easy as it sounds as each set can only fit in if every item is perfectly placed. This game is the perfect theme to fit in with summer holidays, as we have all been through this familiar scenario trying desperately to make everything fit in! Packing is the worst thing about preparing for holidays for me, but not in this game!

We were sent this game to try out for the Blogger Board game club via Asmodee, and it was a hit with our kids aged 8, 10 and 11, as well as with us parents. I found it’s a game where you keep wanting to try “just one more round” so could keep going for ages, as it’s really satisfying when you solve each level.

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Exploding Kittens is a hilarious and quick paced card game, which is really easy to pick up and was a huge kit with our kids. I had heard a lot about Exploding Kittens (the game was the #1 most backed Kickstarter ever!) so was eager to try it, and was really happy to receive this game via the Asmodee Blogger Board Game Club this year.

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Cat Crimes from Ravensburger is a great logic game which can be played collaboratively or by a single player. The aim of the game is to deduce which cat is guilty of each mischievous crime, using the clues provided.

The game includes a play board in the shape of a table, along with 6 different cat characters. You get a pack of challenge cards in four difficulty levels ranging from beginner to expert, icons for each crime eg spilt coffee or the bird eaten from the bird cage, and a booklet to help with instructions.

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Hape have a brilliant range of educational toys, games and puzzles for young children. Using their level system, you can easily see which products could be the most suitable for your child as they learn and grow.

Hape puzzles ranging from levels 1 to 6 allow children to progress through the levels, encouraging a continuation of age appropriate critical thinking, hand/eye coordination and dexterity with Hape’s ever growing collection of puzzles which combine one of a kind design and characterful illustrations that help fuel a child’s enthusiasm for out of school learning.

The Level 6 range for older children of 5 and above includes some lovely puzzles on topics such as world geography, or the solar system. We were sent the Hape 2 in 1 World Tour Puzzle and Game to try out and it is a really engaging way for young children to develop their familiarity with maps of the world.

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Orchard Toys have been one of our favourite toy brands since the boys were young. The games and puzzles are so good for helping children learn and pick up valuable skills while they play, and it’s great to be able to revisit some of the their toddler and preschool range again with N. She is the perfect age at 2.5 to get started with more of these kind of activities, so I was excited to try out some of the new Orchard toys games and puzzles with her.

We were sent a great selection of Orchard Toys products, including newly released game Let’s go Lotto, an alphabet game, and puzzles for the older and younger kids in our family.

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