Little Genius Inset Shape Board (Small) with Knob

If you have been reading my blog, by now you would know that A loves animals. That's why we got animal shape sorters from little genius(Little Genius wild animals) and from skillofun (Skillofun animal alphabet tray).

But as I had mentioned in the reviews, putting the animal shapes back in the correct slots is tough for a 12 month to 18 month old. Hence I wanted to buy something using which A can learn shapes and can learn inserting the shapes in the right slot by trial and error.

That's the reason I bought this Little Genius Inset Shape Board (Small) with Knob

Link on amazon:

Little Genius Inset Shape Board (Small) with Knob

Link on flipkart:

Little genius Inset shape board

A is now 14 month old. She is not as interested in this tray as in animals tray but with a little help she can place all the shapes perfectly in their slots. I am pretty sure that in like a week, she will master this :) I am now using the same shapes to teach her colours. Well that's being too ambitious but a little extra words for the kid never harm. I just keep repeating the stuff to her. The best part is these kind of puzzles are fun cum learning, especially the animals puzzles. A spends like 30 minutes to 1 hour with these kind of puzzles. And I don't need to put in much effort. She is interested on her own :)

There are other similar puzzles available both from skillofun and little genius. You can go through the above links and see similar products. The reason I bought this one is because I didn't want anything too complicated. I just wanted a simple tray with not too many shapes.

Verdict: Buy it but you should consider checking similar products based on your requirement.

Little Genius Wild Animals with Big Knob

This was A's first animal shape sorter. It has 11 wild animals. Quite big in size.

Link to amazon:
Little Genius Wild Animals with Big Knob, Multi Color (Large)

A's dad used to show her these animals and used to make corresponding sounds.
For eg: For lion he used to roar. For monkey, he would say ku ku ki ki ka ka( sound copied from this toy Monkey chase). Similarly, different sounds or actions for different animals. A picked it up quite fast and soon she was trying to put the animals at the right places in the tray. She still can't really insert these animals properly. Well its tough for a 14 month old. But has learnt so many new words talking about these animals. I later got Skillofun animal alphabet tray too for A(you can check the review here Skillofun animal alphabet tray).

Seeing how much A has learnt from these toys, I have become a big fan of these kind of toys. Later i got many more shape sorter puzle trays for A. Will be posting reviews of all soon.

I like this product, but you can actually buy only one of these, either Little Genius Wild Animals with Big Knob, Multi Color (Large) or Skillofun animal alphabet tray

Fisher Price Wobbly Fun Ball

This was one of the first few toys i bought for A. I wanted to buy her a ball which makes sound when she moves it. She was just few months old. I was concerned for her safety too. So, decided to go ahead with a well known brand "Fisher price"
To my disappointment, when the ball came i saw that the holes are not smooth. They can hurt kids fingers.
And when it moves, it makes noise. Those bells which they describe as jingling bells are just noise. I would rather give a rounded vessel to play to my kid than this ball. Fisher price disappointed me this time.  Interestingly, A now has lot of balls. She plays with every single one of them except this. She hates it. It was kept inside for months together. Then i took it out. She got excited. Touched it, moved it and decided to never touch it again. Looks like our tastes matches ;)

Fisher Price Wobbly Fun Ball

Verdict: best avoided

Tom And Jerry Tunnel Tent House

This is a tent which can be folded for storage. It is open from top. Has two holes on opposite sides. The tunnel can be connected to these holes. It comes with 50 colored soft plastic balls. 

It has one basketball basket inside. I got it when A turned one. This was one of her birthday gift. For dimensions etc you can check the link given here

Tom And Jerry Tunnel Tent House on snapdeal

When we got it, A was scared to enter inside. So i made her sit in the middle of the tunnel. And she hurriedly crawled outside. Since then there is nothing which will stop her :) She keeps entering the tunnel, plays for sometime with balls and then comes outside. And the loop goes on and on. Great for encouraging physical activity. She has still not got the hang of putting the balls in the basket ball. As of now she just enters, picks some ball, come outside, plays with it till the time it reaches a place she can't enter. And then enters the tent again to pick another ball. Her dad keeps moving the tunnel over the futon and A actually learned climbing the futon just to pass through this tunnel. It looks like she has lot of fun playing with it. I think as A grows i will use it for her to practice aiming the balls at the basket and it may act as a nice 4 sided covered area for all kind of pretend plays (may be i will setup my ice-cream parlor inside it with A ;)

It is a good to have toy. Definitely not a must have. More useful for a kid who han't yet started walking. Once they start walking, instead of entering the tent from tunnel, they can actually drop it/fold it to enter from the top. So, if your kid is walking etc, you might want to consider a separate tunnel toy or a fully covered tent. For A, this wasn't an issue as she was still in her crawling phase. Though the basket ball feature and ball pool is usually not available with other tunnels

Also, there are alternatives available which you might want to consider. For example:

Cross tunnel
Tent to Funny - Play Tube Tunnel Tent for Kids Educational & Fun Toys - Crawl Tent
Intex Baby Tent House 

Search for "tent"on amazon.in. I have added a search bar for amazon.in on the right hand side for your convenience. When we bought this tent, these options weren't available.

 
Verdict: Good to have, not a must buy

Skillofun Animal Alphabet Tray with Knobs

I am very very happy today. It was a long hectic day but then A's little act has made me super fresh and is compelling enough to review this little toy of hers.

I got A this toy few weeks back.

Skillofun Animal Alphabet Tray with Knobs
and When i got it, i thought A has no interest in it. So i packed it and kept it inside. A has no interest in keeping the animals on the tray. So, instead sometimes what we do is she keeps taking the animals out of the sack and then puts them back in. Of course, i keep telling her the names of the animals when shes taking them out and putting them in. But it never looked like that she is paying attention.

Over time i have seen she has preference towards some animals. So, what we did was this. A's dad quickly arranged all the 26 animals on the tray and then we asked her to get us monkey to put in the sack. She got it :)
Similarly she got us quail, whale, elephant, cow, parrot, yak, and a few more. After that she lost interest.
What this indicates is that shes really learning. Also, whenever she picks up the lion, she roars like one. I think this is good for her age considering the fact that i just bought it and she got to spend very less time with it. This one was recommended by a friend to me. I see it being very useful for A.

A also has animal another sorter. Here is that one:

Little Genius Wild Animals with Big Knob, Multi Color (Large)

I got this one first. And Even this is quite good. Good quality. A knows most of the animals in this one.

I got her the skillofun one as i thought it would be good to know one animal from every alphabet. And anyways more the better :)

If you have to choose one of these, i would say buy the skillofun one if your kid is more than 1 year old. For younger ones, probably little genius one is better as the animals are relatively much bigger in size. One more thing A loves to put little genius wild animals in the tray and tries to get them right but she doesn't even a single animal from skillofun in the tray. May be too many slots confuse her. Anyways, I am sure she would figure it out with age.

I feel its expensive for the price. But then it was worth it. I bought it from flipkart as part of an offer. Checkout the flipkart link here:

Skillofun Animal Alphabet Tray from Flipkart.com

Verdict: Buy it

Ambi Toys – Lock A block (Best Shape Sorter For Babies)

 
A has lot of shape sorters. But this is by far the best for her age. From 8 months onwards till may be 18 months, this can be used. Unlike other shape sorters, it has just 3 shapes(2 pieces of each), red ball/circle, yellow triangle, blue square and a small key. Shapes are perfect for the little hands and simple enough to keep them interested.

Here you have:
Ambi toys lock a block on amazon india

For reviews, check:
Schylling Ambi Lock A Block
The same product is available on other retail sites like firstcry, flipkart but I am a big fan of amazon.


Also, if at the time of writing i compared the price on each of these sites for this product, they were same.

Funskool Nesting Eggs

A has a fascination towards eggs. When she wasn’t crawling, by chance i showed her eggs and to get those she pushed herself from one end of the bed to other. So, we bought her Funskool nesting eggs from amazon. If you have been reading my other posts, by now you would know that i like quality of most of funskool toys. Cheap but good quality :)

Funskool nesting eggs

It has 5 colorful eggs i different sizes. I just leave them in front of A. A opens them all. Sometimes rolls them. and then tries to close them. She hasn’t started nesting them yet but she has learnt to close them.
Great toy for learning matching colors and sizes. Good for developing hand eye coordination.

Verdict: Must buy

Funskool Stacking Cubes

Another cheap but great toy A has is Funskool stacking cubes

Funskool stacking cubes
Got this for 113/- from amazon.. Have posted the link above..
Very good quality plastic.. Funskool has barrels and drums too..
While nesting drums can be placed inside each other a lil more easier than cubes as they are circular.. but for cubes they need to align it perfectly with the cube below it.. So, thought a little more logic might be good :)
these are 8 cubes, useful for teaching stacking, nesting, colors, for developing hand eye coordination.
Dont expect your lil ones to learn it in a day.. it will take long.. A can now stack like 2 cubes and can nest 2 cuubes too.. but gets frustrated if i confuse her by placing bigger cube over the small one :) So, patience is the key.

Links to barrels and drums:
Funskool stacking drums
Funskool stacking barrels

Verdict: Must buy

Funskool Play Doh

There are lot of varieties available for play doh’s. A is just 1 year old.. and on the products its always mentioned that they are for 3+. So i wasn’t sure if my lil one will enjoy this.. but something told me it might be fun.. and if not now, i can always use it later.. The next question was which brand. I have lot of products from funskool and have no complaints from any one of them. Hence went ahead with funskool play doh.

I bought this for 89/- from amazon
Funskool Mini Playdoh Factory on amazon india
Funskool Mini Play on flipkart

Loved it. A can play with this for like an hour..  You can let your imagination run wild with this these.
A makes me put the doh in the extruder again and again and make various shapes out of it.. Its an excellent way to teach colors to kids and an awesome way to improve their fine motor skills..
We created caterpillar, fish, cookies, ostrich.. :)
Cons:
1. Whenever i am not looking, A tries to put the doh in her mouth. So, if you have a kid who is likely to eat the doh you will have to be very careful & keep seeing them (may be thats why they say recommended for 3+, but then the hours of fun and play it brought to our home, it was worth it
2. It had only two colors of doh(blue & yellow) but it was good enough to give us confidence that we are & will enjoy it.. So, i will be soon buying more colors and variety..
You can consider buying these variants:

Funskool play faces
Funskool birthday cake

I recently bought this too:
Funskool Playdoh Case of Colours
Its good but i feel it has mostly lighter shades.I wanted black, brown to make eyes etc but they aren't present. When i get those from where, I will update.

i wanted to make a list of toys here but its getting late and A is starting to get up. So i will add more toys later.

Here is a pic of few items we made.



I forgot to take pics of other items.