I can’t make up my mind about Chuggington. It seems oddly placed, geographically, and the mystery of its mid-Atlantic vocabulary bugs me. But frankly little of that matters when you’ve got a colourful, robust and entertaining toy like this remote controlled Wilson to play with.
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Classic toys and gifts – and everything’s under a tenner!
Looking for something special? Check out our very favourite toys of 2011
Perfect gifts for the littlest members of the family, from cuddly friends to exciting new toys to explore
We’ve tried and tested the very best toys and games for children aged 5+. Good times guaranteed!
Because the best things come in small packages. Our guide to the best Playmobil play sets, from pirates to princesses and everything in between.
Spring has certainly sprung and I am currently in the process of cleaning out the boys playhouse here at The Mad House after a winter unused. There are many different types and styles of playhouses, it can be something of a mind field to choose the right one for you. Most children love playhouses and want a place to call their own. Whether you are looking for a small portable playhouse or a giant Victorian mansion, there are a number of companies that sell a wide variety of playhouses for your children. Working windows, porches, window boxes, bookshelves, and skylights are just some of the features that the modern-day playhouse provides. You really need to think about how long your children will use the playhouse for, where you will put it and how much money you want to spend.
So with this in mind we have put together a list of pro’s and cons for currently types of playhouses.
Wooden
Plastic
Canvass
Paid for post
A very cute little toy train in soft velour fabric featuring Miffy as the train driver. Each section has a different feature and can be detached from the others by Velcro tabs. The teething ring and rattle are good for younger babies while children who are into trains will enjoy pushing it along. Despite all this, it did not manage to hold our baby’s attention and he tired of it very quickly.
The Fuzzy Felt Starter Set comes in a neat storage and display case enabling you to keep all your felt pieces and examples all in one place. You can also use it to store and display your masterpieces.
The Phineas and Ferb Secret Notebook and Pen is a wonderful way to encourage boys to write, a fantastic, but simple idea
Buy online: Toys R Us
£7.99
*****
Initial Thoughts: I really wasn’t sure that a notebook and …
The Playmobil Giant Dragon breathes fire and what could be more exciting than that? Both boys have recently watched how to train your dragon and were keen to start training their own.
The Salter kids in the kitchen baking set has been a welcome addition in our kitchen, even if the colours are a bit garish for my taste. Obviously, it doesn’t offer anything that you couldn’t already find in your cupboards, but it is really appealing to children to have decent kit of their own. And anything that encourages them to become proficient fairy cake makers is no bad thing.
Baby Annabell is a great doll, well made and just perfect for a little person. Squidge has never been one to play with baby dolls but Baby Annabell appears to have changed that. The doll is just interactive enough to keep her engaged and entertained. Those Baby Annabell people are on to something!
Hiku is a fantastic read again book. A real winter favorite with the children, there is something different to look at every time you open it.
The illustrations in Cub’s First Winter are by the renowned artist Rebbecca Elliot and they really appealed to Mini (4) from the moment he saw it.
I have to admit that I wondered why anyone would need a book to doodle in, but upon passing The Boys’ Doodle Book 2 to Maxi my voices were silenced.
The feel of the boys annual 2011 is very now, it has a real retro boys own feel to it, however, once you take a look inside it is very current and Maxi couldn’t wait to get his hands on it.
The Boys’ Christmas Book is a fantastic buy. With magazines for children costing in excess of £2.50, it really is exceptional value for money and engaged our 5 year old very easily. There is even a recipe for Christmas mocktails!
This sweet little interactive stray play and train puppy came delivered in bright cheery packaging and certainly got the attention of the children straight away. The puppy comes with a clicker to start and change puppy functions. Puppy can sit up and beg, bark, stand or walk, and even eat treats. What made it it seem all the more appealing for my little ones is the fact that the puppy poops after eating his treat! What child wouldn’t love that function.
A very lovely, high quality item that would capture the imagination of any young child, beautifully presented, with a vintage feel to it and certainly has the wow factor. You get the feel a lot of love has gone into putting it together for the children’s market and is something I would go out and buy myself as a special gift for someone and would certainly prefer my daughter to unwrap a gift of this high quality handmade/homemade nature than computer games or such like any day. Thumbs up from us.
If your child is a fan of Justin Bieber then I’d say this book is a ‘must have’ present for Christmas! At £7.99 it makes a nice stocking filler.
The girls annual 2011 is pink and silver which scored it well with my daughter before she’d opened the cover! Inside, the book was packed with magic tricks, things to make, puzzles, baking ideas and stories aimed at girls.
The Girls Christmas book has a very Christmassy look with a red and green front cover and snowflakes etc. As it is a ‘Christmas Book’, everything in it was themed toward Christmas so you could learn how to turn your bedroom into a Christmas Grotto and keep a list of all the presents you received. You can also colour in, learn how to make gingerbread cookies and read short stories, so there is plenty of variety between the pages.
I know that a lot of people are put off painting with their children due to the fear of mess, so I was intrigued to see how the Crayola Colour Wonder Magic Light Brush worked with the special paper and clear paint provided and the boys argued as to who would use it first.
The Maileg Mouse in Matchbox is delightful, she (yes ours is called Matillda) comes in a matchbox, which is 11cm long and is where Matillda goes to sleep.
The Ladybird Wind Up Torch makes a great stocking filler and what child doesn’t love a touch and it is made even better as you never have to go hunting through drawers for a spare battery.
The Find it game comes in a sealed clear plastic tube filled with tiny colourfull hundreds and thousand style plastic pellats and the aim of the game is to find the objects on your sheet and tick them off. The boys initially loved looking for the objects in the tube.
The Street Glider Predator Scooter is fantastic value for money and was such a hit with my niece (as we reviewed a pink one), that I purchased two black ones for the boys
Buy online and …
The Paper Jamz Guitar was a real revelation for us, the wonders of a guitar made of card that you never have to re-tune.
Buy online: Argos
£18.74 (normally £24.99)
*****
Initial Thoughts: Upon opening the Paper Jamz …
Jojo is a rabbit who drives around in his car, playing music and talking. If he bumps into something then he is ejected from his car.
I think the Wild Eyes dinosaur toy is probably too young for a five-year-old. Certainly our tester lost interest pretty quickly as apart from making a noise and waggling its feet around, the dinosaur doesn’t do much. Most toys aimed at this age group would have pose-able limbs or a mouth that opens and closes. Also, it’s hard to be fierce when you’re cuddly. However, I can see for a 3-year-old this might have a bit more entertainment value.
The premise of Table top origami is great; more fun at the dinner table which, if you have children, can be quite a stressful place. Of course, you can use this anywhere but a flat surface is a must. I had visions of us creating and laughing and being generally very clever with paper. We also liked the wide variety of things you could make from a paper aeroplane to a samurai hat and from a croaking frog to an ice-cream cone.
Loopz seemed, at first viewing, to be quite a simple battery-operated game that wouldn’t really offer much of a challenge for the children aged seven plus it was aimed at. There are four plastic loops on a stand, two on one side and two on another that light up in a variety of games to test your memory skills. To play, you have to wave your hands through the correct loops.
Tomy’s Tomica range and our family are old friends. We have bought the odd Thomas the Tank Engine bits in the past and the Tomy trains. However, they appear to have revamped it and we were introduced to the Hypercity range that would surely gladden the heart of any transport-mad child. The Big City set contained a pick-up truck, train, person, as well as a garage, station, track and road.
These mirrors are a little smaller than I expected, so I’d advise parents to take measurements first to be sure of what you’re buying. Despite that, Flea loves her pirate mirrors and I’m a fan of anything that encourages her to dress herself appropriately in the mornings. Great value for money, and there are heaps of designs if your little one isn’t a pirate fan.
What does a train mad four-year-old need? His own station that’s what but not just any old one. He needs a mega station that comes complete with a car ramp and two vehicles that let the train go past, flashing warning lights and sounds, and a dashboard that lets him be master of all he surveys which, thanks to the Tomy Hypercity Mega Station set, is quite a lot. It includes a large track layout, a shop, person and a train.
Smallest loves this little dog, and she quickly figured out how to push the buttons to make him make the noises herself. She particularly enjoys music so the lullabies go down better than the environmental sounds, which have unfortunate amounts of water noises in them as far as I’m concerned.
My 5 year old, who is quite numbers orientated, thought this was the coolest thing ever and sits on his own rolling the dice and doing the sums very happily. It was a bit advanced for my 3 year old, but that isn’t a huge surprise and the game is really aimed at 4-6 years.
thought the Little Bird Told Me Bumble Bee Activity Toy was a nicely packaged, good sized soft toy suitable for a new born. It’s colorful but not too garish, in this day and age that makes a nice change. This is one of those toys that is classified age group 0+, but really only interests children up to the age of about 1. It has lots of features aimed at stimulating a baby, much better than your average cuddly toy!
From the moment the Little Bird Told Me Curious Caterpillar Activity Pull-Along toy arrived we all fell head over heels in love with it. Not only is it exceptionally cute, it’s lovely and soft, makes a pleasing rattle and is really unusual. The packaging gives it quite a wholesome feel which made it seem really quite special.
Super Scribblenauts is a challenging, fun game that had my children hooked. It encourages them to use their imagination and, if more than one has the game, they can play it together making it more sociable to
Stinky has been heavily advertised on Channel Five kids show Milkshake. Each time the advert comes on the Toddler stops what he is doing and looks wistfully at the screen. That’s why Stinky was always going to be on our Christmas List. When it arrived we were all really excited, it looks exactly as you would imagine and it even interacts like it does on the advert!
When we unpacked the book we were pleased to find a lovely hard back book with a sparkling cover with characters that you can only recognise. Forever Friends characters always have that cute factor and the cover of the book is definitely very cute.
We’ve had a few cubes of this format over the years, we all find them utterly fascinating in how they work – there always seem to be more sides than there can actually be.
On first sight I found this bear appealing and once I got my hands on him I could find little to disappoint. His fur is beautifully soft and very strokable, while the contrasting mittens and scarf are attractive to look at.
As soon as I saw this, I knew it would be perfect for my eight year old daughter as she’s starting to outgrow her ‘baby’ dolls. We’ve always been a fan of Baby Annabel dolls and this is a lovely teenage version with her own stylish outfit and lovely long hair that you can style.
The game is really well made and will last the test of time and 2 small boys. You can either play with it like a puzzle (just selecting which pieces go with which, either put together the correct people or to see who can make the silliest combo). There is a game which goes with it, but the 3 year old preferred using the toy like a puzzle rather than a game. The 5 year old enjoys the game but prefers just to see what ridiculous combinations he can put together.
Very sweet, pretty, gentle looking cloth photo album with plastic sleeves to record a baby’s first Christmas. The toy would work well for a baby, plenty of scope to be thrown around, stuck in mouths, with different textures, colours and pretty prints. The book opens easily, has bows to be played with and is bright and colourful. There are suggestions for different photos to include, I particularly like ‘Santa brought mummy a silent night’ as I live in hope.
The Mod Machines are very well made and robust. The individual machines all have interchangeable parts, so you can customise each and all of the vehicles. The beauty of the Tonka Mod Machines is that Mini and Maxi could do the building, taking apart and customisation all on their own. The boys loved the fact that one of the vehicles was motorised and that they could drive it over the floor to each other, but the best bit for them was the wheels, yes big ones, little ones, wide ones and thin ones!
The boys were very excited to get Jolly Octopus as they have seen it advertised on the television a lot recently. It was easy to assemble straight from the box and the rules are very straight forward, so we could play this pretty much immediately.
Zingo is picture bingo, with a special Zingo dispenser to show you the plastic picture tiles. I loved the fact the tiles are plastic and, therefore, durable and long lasting. The tiled help with shape and letter recognition and it is a game that you can play with all the family. The Zingo Cards are double sided to allow for different levels of play.
What a blast from the past! Happy Hopperz are inflatable animals that your children bounce on. They are reminiscent of 1970’s space hoppers, but with feet for balance and decent handles (usually the ears). You can choose from various brightly coloured animals, ranging from elephants to pandas. Happy Hopperz even have reindeer due in for Christmas.
Jigsaws develop hand-eye co-ordination and manual dexterity as well as being fun for children and since my son completed this for the first time on his own he has gone back to it again and again. Each time, he gets the same look of excitement and pride when he slots the last piece in (shortly before breaking it up to start all over again).
These are well made, fun socks that represent excellent value for money. I’m sure we’ll get lots (and lots) of wear out of them in December. I’m positive that all children would love a pair of these to wear at Christmas so I would highly recommend them to anyone. In fact, I quite fancy a pair myself.
This is a bright, fun toy that really does encourage children to learn. It helps develop numeracy skills and both my children could play with it quite happily as children can work at their own level. There is a leaflet included that shows you how to play 14 different games and there’s even a nice little tidy bag with it so you don’t lose any of the pieces.
These skipping ropes are perfect for some good old fashioned fun, my daughter loves them and took sthem to school to show off her new found skipping skills to all of her friends. Within 3 days …
What a great way to spend time with the kids, this pack of 2 light up yo-yo’s are excellent value for money and gave us hours of fun practicing our tricks (not very successfully). They’re …
