Around the Rails with Thomas

We have just started to collect the take-n-play sets. We started off with the Cranky at the docks and I was very impressed by the set. Buyers in Chennai as far as I know are very less and I feel partially so due to the prices associated with these toys. I know this shop which deals with Thomas and Friends sets and he gave me a call to give us this new play set, AROUND THE RAILS WITH THOMAS. This was released towards the end of 2012. Priced at Rs. 1499, this set instantly attracted us to buy it. 

Firstly, the set contains 11 pieces, The tracks containing the destinations (Elsbridge Station, Sodor Airport and Ffarquhar Quarry), two gates, two craters, two direction signs, one Elsbridge station, one crane, a barrel and die cast Thomas.

All the pieces can be fixed on the slots provided and once played, the pieces can be stored in the set itself.

I think this is one of the most thinnest take-n-play sets that has come to the market. 

This has a good theme selection but I should say this set is a bit of a disappointment. Especially considering the fact that the other take-n-play sets are very sturdy, this is made of cheap plastic for the price that it is being sold at. The die cast Thomas has lost his weight from the other Thomas engines that has come until now. Thomas is very light weighted.  The pieces that came with the set can be stored inside but the box is not strong enough, the clamps give way if my two year old walks off with it. One nice thing about this set is that it can be played on both the sides if you can have more of imagination. Overall, the concept is good but not worth the cost it has come with and needs betterment especially with the storage box.

 

Tomica Tracks and Trackmaster Engines

I was introduced into the Tomica world by a Japanese friend of mine who gifted me a Tomica Plarail set which I shall be discussing in another blog. I am an avid collector of Thomas and friends playsets and engines, though in India, the variety is very less available. These are awesome to keep your kid engaged, especially with train crashes. My son loves to crash the trains than to watch them just running around the track for a long time. There are loads of youtube videos with such train crashes.

Thomas and his Friends as I can see is pretty much a recent concept here and are very expensive. May be that explains why they are less available in this part of the world where I live in. So are the Tomica rail sets, promoted by Funskool. Many kids prefer cars and Hot Wheels are famous here. But it has to wait until my son gets crazy with cars. For now, I am happy collecting trains and tracks as it is my son's favorite too!

Here is a layout that one can make with the blue Plarail tracks. Very simple to assemble, of course, my 2 year old assembles it very well with help from my brother. Shinkansen (The Japanese Bullet Train) is running on it which comes with the Tomy Tomica 85412 - Hypercity Road and Rail Crossing Set.  I will come up with more ideas for track assembly in future. Until then, here is a Youtube video of the assembly with talking Trackmaster James and Henry on it -

Digger, The Dog

Cats and Dogs, they are typical and faithful kid teaching materials!!!

I never knew of Digger until I saw him walked by a 4 year old in my family physician's premises. My son was instantly attracted to this yellow toy with floppy ears and a red cap.

I did not know what this toy was called and Google instantly educated me about this toy and now my son owns one. He loves going for an evening walk with digger running faithfully behind him.

I found that Digger has been existing since 1970's and you can see that in this age old commercial,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6J0a9vaAw0 . I especially like the jingle that the ad features, Digger the dog, digging he goes with you when you explore, just pull his leash and go for a walk, he's your dog for sure!" 

The search for digger made me find other variations of it, the Fisher Price Little Snoopy,  and Walk 'n Sounds Digger the Dog from Playskool with more sound variation. But then, as they say old is gold, Digger gets my vote, a beautifully designed pull along toy with sniffy, detective like look!

LEGO - The Nurse's Car

A friend of mine came to India to visit me during the February 2012 and gifted this to my son. Before telling how awesome this toy is, I should describe this...

This duplo set (Code: 5793) comes with 10 toy pieces, a car (comprising of 2 inter lockable pieces and the the blue flash light block for the car's rear), a brick with medical decor, a flower, a Nurse figure, a small medi-kit (a carry case as one might also call it). The pieces are brightly colored perfectly fit into the little hands. No dearth for imaginations. My little one was 15 months old when he got this toy. This toy with just 10 pieces kept him engaged for for hours together, even today. A best gift one could give for a kid's first birthday. 

When this toy came in we started getting him blocks and construction sets available at our local market. Our knowledge in the toy market was at a very primitive level, and the blocks at the local market were the most affordable. Firstly, that we were not aware that LEGO had already taken charge of the Indian toy market and secondly they were not affordable. I still remember we had the small blocks and construction sets available to us and we were always looking for the ones like that. My son of course would play with them all but would be tired of them since they kept falling, they wont snap strongly with each other and were made of cheap plastic materials. So FAILED ATTEMPTS to keep him engaged!!! Now name the block toy and we had it all. To add to the misery, neither imaginative figures or accessories came with them nor were they compatible with each other. We landed up only spending a lots of money on nothing. 

         

But then, one good thing such construction toys, name them, cheap or expensive, they will definitely help build the motor and imaginative skills of your ever growing and ever learning bundle of joy! Here is his first construction tower (of course not Lego but one of my experimental toys on him!)

Nesting Toys

I will have to perfectly agree with Prashant, http://www.yellowgiraffe.in/blog/toy-buying-habits , on his blog. The parents really decide on the toys the child plays with.

I am already a Lego and Thomas and Friends fan now, and you will see that in the next posts to come. May be my son will also become one. I shall tell you how these toys have improved his swiftness in learning. 

The bump-and-go toys were really getting bored, rather for the reason that he would pick up the moving parts and break them up! Thanks to my Brother-in-Law who brought him the stacking rings! He just gave me the idea. My brother and I are toy-manics looking out for new toys in the market that we think will help my kid play better. And once we really started making survey on what we should be buying, we did find that there is a whole lot of toys that can help a baby to develop a variety of skills. 

So we bought the Funskool toys, nesting eggs, stacking barrels, stacking drums, chain links at very affordable prices and of course we already had the stacking rings!

All the 3 toys, nesting eggs, barrels and drums are vividly colored (blue, green red and yellow). The barrels come-in with one extra color, purple. The barrels and the eggs are made of very low quality plastic. Most of the time they would not tightly close. My son would always play with each of it separately but not put together. The very purpose was not complete. Was not worth a buy!

On the contrary, the stacking rings and the drums were the best. The drums have animal pictures on them to add to the fun. My son loves both stacking rings and drums a lot. He also used them as bath toys! new discoveries....


Next is the Funskool Chain links. Looks like a simple toy although it is not. The box says, it could be played from 6 months onwards. Unfortunately, it is very difficult even for me to link and snap off the links in the way it is described on the picture. How would a 6 month old do? A better way is as seen on the right, just link 2 pieces separately which is much easier. Of course, the colors are attractive and the links are strong. My son used it as a teether rather than a toy! Funskool also has the C- links and the activity ball, and now they also have launched the nuts and bolts. Should be worth a try!?

The Bump-and-Go toys...

Teethers, Rattles, Tummy time and Play-Mats...We had almost run out of ideas to buy new kind of toy for my little one, since he had already started to crawl when he was 6 months old! We were looking out for new toys something for him to identify vivid colors and at the same time to play. Battery operated toys were getting more attractive, so that he will watch them and get distracted!

And kids are kids... even the most expensive of the toys were broken within no time.

And what did these toys do? You put in the battery and switch it on, they have colorful flash lights and music. When they hit something, they turn around and move in other direction!

So I had a heap of such type of toys, Helicopter, Cow, Winnie the Pooh Train, Ferrari, a small dog, A Chariot driven by Horse, Winnie the Pooh Boat, a Monkey, and more. My son crawled down always to catch them from moving and broke them.


Most of them have have very loud music (preloaded rhymes or some crazy music) that drives you even more crazy. Furthermore, have no volume controllers, they have sharp edges, and not made of child safe quality materials. They do attract the kid at the first instance but they do not have any role to play but to run around making so much of noise. Imagine two or three such toys at the same time running around here and there! After sometime, they start giving you a headache [Laughing]. They are strong battery suckers. I had to run to the stores every now and then to buy them as each toy required a minimum of three.

I would never recommend them to babies who have already started crawling. You might wanna try on kids who are yet to crawl to bribe them to crawl come to the toy!

My Toy Blog...

aaaaaaand Lo!!! I could not do without a toy blog. I have been pushing this far too long to start but not to all the toy fans out there, Welcome to my toy blog!