Especially since we live in a smallish apartment, we look for longevity in toys both in the quality of materials and in multi-age appeal. We recently purchased a small cube puzzle for our 9 month old. He's too young for the puzzle aspect of the toy, but the blocks are a perfect size for his small hands and, for now, he has a grand time banging two blocks together or rattling them around in their wooden box.
We recently had a 4-year-old visitor who, looking around at our small selection of "baby" toys, immediately honed in on these blocks and began to put the different animal puzzles together so we feel good that this toy will be hanging around for a few years. It's also super cute to display on a shelf when not in use.
This particular puzzle, called the Backyard Buddy Puzzle ($12), is made by one of our favorite companies, ImagiPLAY. When it first arrived it seemed smaller than we'd thought, but the 1 1/4" blocks are just right for our son. (We should note that the website we purchased this from lists the toy as 2+ years, but we don't believe this is for safety reasons.)
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Those are cute and I have a similar set from Selecta with vehicles, but without the box.
I have to say though that imagiPLAY toys are pretty low quality in the long and sometimes even the short run. The paint chips off very easily and sometimes pieces come out of the box or shrink wrap already broken. I find them the same quality as Melissa and Doug brand. I'd rather pay slightly more for quality wooden toys, like Haba, Selecta or Spiel and Holz, or Maple Landmark and Whittle.
view FrogsPet's profile
great idea! And thanks to the previous commenter on the brands, I'm always looking for good brands so that helps!
MM @ http://www.themodernmom.net
view ExperiencingMotherhood's profile