Activities and Learning Reviews

My son recently received the Circus Train for his 2nd birthday. He was really excited to see the animals, and loves to put them in the cage cars and drive them around the track. He has been very frustrated, however, because his train can't fit through any tunnels or bridges when the animals are on board - the animals are just too tall. I think the Circus Train would be a great addition to your Thomas Wooden Railway IF you don't have the bridges or tunnels to worry about. If you do have these items in your layout, I'd suggest the Ivo Hugh zoo set instead, as it is made to fit through those low clearance areas.

Why would they meke a train that won't go under their own bridges?

I took the advice of the reviewer below and got the Alphazoo Express line instead of this, and I am so pleased. My nieces just love the little plastic animals. They are much better then these cut outs. THANKS!!

the rockets i usually launch go about 1500-3000 feet inthe air so this to wasn't as good ,but then the rockets i like have fire come out of the bottom and are more fun yet the get lost to easy you have to go a big place to luanch them and the engines are sold separtly. Then again this has to do with house old items and is cheaper.

Our 9-yr old son is a baking-soda-and-vinegar nut, so this rocket was a must-try. We did find it a bit picky to put together, but we haven't had any durability problems. Clearly, one is paying for the rubber stopper/plastic tube design, which certainly could be improved (I agree it's hard to get the wing nut to tighten properly), but still is the only one I've seen that gives a real rocket-sized blast. Our trouble has been getting it to stand upright for launching -- we had quite a few horizontal launches before we found a just-right sized plastic cup to stand it in. All in all, we're pleased.

This toy is one of the better toys I have found. My son (7) with a little assistance put the kit toghether. It flew first time much to the amusement of the family. The fins bend easily but if reinforced with some extra foil they keep the rocket upright for launch. This is an intresting'family' toy.

I ordered 12 of these toys and the quality was just horrible! Some people complained about the paint fading fast. . . how about - some of my blocks didn't even come painted!!! Yeah, terrible quality control. Also, I did experience some problems with splintering as I carefully examined each piece. Out of all of the blocks in one wagon, I can honestly say that on average only 2 to 4 were in perfect condition. . . that's pretty bad considering that I have ordered 12! You're almost better off going to Home Depot and buying some wood and paint to make them yourself; I'm sure those will last longer. Unfortunately, I can't even rate this product for fun - since my god son and his friends never even got a chance to play with the toy. . .

I never wrote a review of a product that I bought via Amazon before, but I just had to write in about this one.

I remember these wooden blocks from when I was a young girl, and loved them. When I saw them at Amazon I bought them for my 15 month old grandson.

When we opened the package and took the blocks out, there were two major problems.

1. I got a splinter from a block.
2. One of the blocks BROKE!

These blocks are not of the same quality of the alphabet blocks of old. The toy went right into the garbage.

My sixteen month old son plays with these blocks every day. They provide him with enjoyment as well as teach him motor skills as he stacks them and then knocks them over. He now will stack a few and clap after each one. As far as the letters go, by the time he knows them, the paint will have worn off. That is my only problem with this toy;The colored letters should be more permanent.

I bougth this model and my children are just thrilled with it. I called Citiwell Customer Service and they called me back that day and took me through every step and explained all my questions to me. We are looking for an affordable telescope we can use and this is a great model at its cost. My father is an astronomer and Orion, Meade and Celeston sell more expensive models and not what we were looking for. Meade does sell lower cost models that are comparable to this model but Citiwell was the best cost. As a matter of facts the tripod was strong and the optics great. We saw very clear and again my children just love it. I give 10 out of 10 for this model.

I suggest to skip this telescope because it's mount (tripod legs) are not movable. It HAS to move because the Earth will rotate, so the objects in the sky will also move, too (If it dosn't, the object will be out of sight in few minutes!). Also, why should this telescope be at a cheap price? Any good telescope for children and begininers should at least be around $80. Oh, and the Star Searcher? I don't think it will work. Even a planisphear would work better that telescope's Star Searcher! After a while of researching, I found out that telescopes offered by department stores are simply lower quality that the stores who make opitics such as telescopes, microscopes, binoculars ect. for living. I would recommend Bushell, or Orion telescopes to by instead of this. Even though I'm a beginier astronomer, I strongly recommend to skip this telescope, please!

This telescope rocks. It is so easy to use. I love the star cards lets you know what you are looking for and allows you to look for stars that you didn't even know existed.

I have to say, when we first recieved this 'toy' it was exciting for my son to think of and research the ants. We ordered the supplies and ants and then waited... they arrived a few weeks later (that was a long, "Are they here yet" experience) and the bonding began. It was a very fun and exciting time when they arrived and started buliding their little tunnels, my son is 5 and he was enthralled with them, and to be honest I too found it fun to watch and keep track of their building progress etc. But now for the unfortunate part of this story... my son woke today to find little black ants had invaded the dome through the air holes and wiped out our red ant colony! It was a VERY sad expereince, I have NEVER seen my son more distraught in his life. He sobbed and cried for the entire time Mommy was trying to get the little ones out of the enclosure. When all was said and done there are only 3 big red ants of ours left standing... they are tending to their fallen friends and we are trying to figure out how we can keep that from happening again! We have never had any indoor ant issues and this took us by surprise indeed. We live in California, so if your up for the whole ant farm experience please be sure to take into consideration the 'little' ant problem. Like I said, it was the worst day of my sons life when he found the invaders killing his 'friends'. My heart is just broken for my son and I too sat and cried with him over the loss... I called the company and asked why the 'skate park' would be designed that other ants could get in and why it did not have a warning in the informational book about that possibility. They said because, though they have had calls before about this type of thing happening, it does not happen too often. I wish I had been warned, I could have at least been prepared for that possibility. Anyway, be aware, because of the food and such for your big ants, it WILL bring little ants and the little ones CAN wipe out the big ones. It is all very sad for this broken hearted Mom and son.

I was looking for a simple pet to add to the family. We had fish but they were too much work.....We tried a bird......I think we returned it the third day due to our cat. Hamsters smell....Dogs are too much work, etc. etc. etc. Then I thought of an ant farm...perfect!! They are little mantinence and my son loves them. He is only 2 but he loves watching them...even kisses their little dome and says bye and goodnight. It is really neat to watch the ants make their little tunnels and bring sand way up from the bottom to the ramps and bmx park. I'm certain it is educational for him to watch how they thrive, and as he gets older he will be able to learn even more about them. And I don't have to listen to a single bark or chirp....and of course there is no mess!! Yay. I recommend this product over the other boring ant farms, and who can resist those ants on skateboards....

This is a great toy! My son received this for his 6th birthday last year. The coupon to send away for your ants is included, and they arrived pretty quickly. However, by the time they arrived in the mail, last October, we had misplaced the instructions on what to do when they got here. I emailed the customer support people (info at unclemilton dot com) and they quickly emailed us back some basic instructions, which got us going.

Looking at the tube, we did not see a frenzied, angry mob of impatient ants as we expected. Rather, they were all pretty quiet. Too quiet. We tipped them into the ant habitat, and they lay there in a heap. Two eventually struggled to their feet and staggered around a bit and drank some water. We phoned Uncle Milton, and the customer support folks at Uncle Milton were great. It's almost like talking to actors in character because they seem to really care about their ants and even anthropomorphize them a bit. Could they really love the ants this much? I couldn't tell for sure, but they sure were convincing. Anyway, they told us that sometimes the ants are a bit listless at first, but to give them 12 hours. If they were indeed dead, then the living ants would "see to their burial."

Twelve hours later, it was pretty clear that most of them were dead. The two living ants moved all the dead ants into a pile in the center of the central part of the habitat, then they themselves expired shortly thereafter. We rang the folks at Uncle Milton back up, and they were extremely solicitous about our ants having "passed away." (I just love these people.) They sent us a coupon to order a new tube of ants.

Fast forward six months and we got around to ordering a new tube of ants. They arrived a few days ago. (Uncle Milton only ships certain times of the year, and they check the weather reports for the route before they ship.) These ants were all alive and active. We stunned them with a 15 minute visit to the refrigerator then dumped them in the habitat and they set to work reshaping the landscape, after an initial confusion over the rock climbing wall (they all piled up at the bottom for a bit, but figured their way out soon enough). They moved the dead pile of ants from the first batch to the BMX biking arena (the lower portion down the road). This area we have termed "the mortuary." About twice a day they might move half of the ants around in here, perhaps from one trough between the motocross jumps to another, or bury them with sand and then unbury them. Most of the dead ants are kept down here. Two are kept in the upper part of the habitat and moved around almost continuously, somewhat like the Olympic torch.

Of course, you need to read all the directions and never let your kids touch the ants. (You probably don't want to either.) My kids (ages 4 and 6) are really good now and won't try to carry the ant farm around, although the 4-year old did carry it once when we first got it and received a lecture about how it would make the ants carsick to be moved around like that. We just leave it on the kitchen island for everyone to watch and enjoy. I don't think you need to send away for any of their extra things, like food. They are happy with a few drops of water, plus a tiny crumb of bread damp with water, a pinhead-size piece of apple or other fruit, a tiny bit of hard-boiled egg white, a drop of honey mixed with water, a single dead fly, or a tiny piece of hamburger. They don't need much.

They are bringing us much enjoyment. We love to go back and check-up on them and see what they've been doing, or follow one ant's activities for a while. It's funny when one ant is on some sort of mission ("must carry this piece of sand downhill") and another ant bumps into him, he seems to forget where he was going or what he was doing, drops his sand and starts on a different project. Then, of course, there's Flik's tunnel within a tunnel project...

The caterpillar "wheels" on Terrance's regular wheels are removable which, any Mom will tell you, is a pain in the rear to continually have to keep putting back on. We finally ditched the caterpillar covers and just use Terrance as a regular train car. Unfortunately, he has no magnetic button on his front, so he always has to be the front "engine". This is more of a filler toy for your set should you decide you really want him. Thankfully, ours came as an extra with a LTD EDITION video. There are so many other great cars to purchase, I'd say skip this one and purchase another.

Well, I bought Terrence a long time ago. As soon as he was taken out of his box, his treads were off. After spending numerous hours looking for them, I decided to leave them off & put them in a safe place. That's the best thing that one can do. Besides, it's really no fun to have a Thomas train that you can't use with the others. So, take my advice, just take the treads off as soon as you take him out of the box. Good luck!

My three year old son wanted this train specifically because the treads or tires as he calls them were removable. I understand this might not be a good thing if your child likes to put things in his/her mouth (fortunately my son does not) however, it does work on the track without the treads (Terence does have a magnet in the back). My son loves to take the treads off and use the train on the track to pull the other trains. He puts the treads back on and uses Terence outside the track. He loves the orange color and thinks it's a pretty neat train. I don't particularly find this toy as educational but it is fun and works great with his train set.

I recently bought this toy for my 10 month old son. I was wanting a toy for his stroller. When I took it out of the box and tried installing it on his stroller I could never get it to securely fasten and the toy is WAY to big. I let my son play with it anyway and he seemed to like it but not worth keeping.

I am going to return this item because of two reasons: 1) To big for the stroller and 2) Don't like the fastening straps.

we received this toy as a gift for a 1 year old daughter who liked to pretend she was driving. it didn't attach to a 20lb+ car seat. so obviously, it didn't stay in our child's lap for very long, and it would drop to the side. it wasn't entertaining either. we ended up selling it at a garage sale for $1. and instead we bought the mickey mouse driving wheel roadster that lights up and plays tunes, and it was an instant hit.

We got this toy for our daughter when she was 11 months old and we were going on vacation. She loves keys and phones and steering wheels, but for some reason this toy never did really interest her. For one thing it is very difficult to play with while sitting in a carseat. She kept pushing it over the side, and I couldn't get it positioned well so that she could reach it. Even when it was on the floor, though, she didn't play with it. I finally put it up in the closet. A few days ago, she discovered it again (she's 21 months now) and wanted to play with it. She looks at it for 3-4 minutes at a time and then is through with it. It was a pricey toy and definitely was not worth the money for us.

The one good thing I can say about it is that if you can get it positioned well, it really could be a good car toy because all the pieces are soft. I think for our daughter, though, it just didn't look realistic enough for her to be interested.

The springs on this toy are extremely tight, making it very difficult for babies and toddlers to operate. Althouhg it is nice to see dinosaurs instead of all the other familiar characters, all of the other pop-up boxes I've seen "reward" the child by popping up with much less hand strength required.

I purchased this toy for my son's 1st birthday. I looked high and low for a pop up toy that didn't sing long annoying songs, or have lights, noises, etc. We have plenty of those toys. I wanted a simple, yet entertaining and educational toy. And that's what I found with this one. My son loves to work the buttons to make the dinosaurs pop. Even my 3 year old likes to play with it too. She helps him by pushing the tops back down. The entire toy is very sturdy. Others have mentioned that the tops break off, but I even tried to break it with my hand and couldnt, you'd need a hammer! Best of all, it doesnt need batteries!

once you get this toy in your hands you can see the cheap construction--the buttons don't work smoothly and the egg-tops are easy to pull off: just the right size for my toddler to pop in his mouth! i chucked this one right in the garbage....

My 16 month old daughter loves ducks. This toy was fun at first, but the back of the mother duck is very hard to open, even for me. Once it's open, she leaves it open which causes it to fill with water. The little ducks are easily lost in a bubble filled tub. So the mother duck gets most of the action. Overall it's not that great a toy. It's stiff and hard for wet hands to manuever.

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Why do so many bath toys have holes in the bottom, allowing bath water to enter and moulder and render the toy disgustingly no fun?

Hurray for BRIO and their sweet duck family -- no holes!!

My 14-month-old got this toy for her birthday and she loves it! With a little help to hold momma duck's lid open, she has no problem putting the baby ducks away, then taking them back out, then putting them away again.

Hands-down, our favorite bath toy!!

So you buy Music Blocks thinking this is all you need? Wrong, they plug into something else, not even shown on the same page, now try to find the block they plug into!
Products that require something else to work should be referred to that item, so the complete package is available!

I have three children, 11yrs, 9yrs and 16months and all of my childen have fun playing with music blocks.

I bought this 3 in 1 cartridge in spite of the reviews I had read that panned it...and the whole product in general. We have the music blocks as well as the giant block. I would hardly describe it as 15 seconds of music. On the giant block, the ENTIRE Tigger song is split into large chunks that each get activated separately on each side of the cube. There are slight pauses in between the phrases (because the cartridge works differently for the other products), but it's not disruptive to the rhythm. They come exactly where the pauses normally do in the song. On the music blocks, it works differently. Each of the large chunks are broken down into smaller phrases - 1 for each side of each of the 5 separate cubes (30 separate parts of the song). You can really make some interesting combinations.

Also...I have yet to find the screw in the cartridge case that makes it soooo difficult to change the song on the cartridge. All you have to do is open the velcro flap and pop open the hinged cover that opens with one of the pressure tabs (for lack of a better description) - a whole 2 seconds I think..maybe 3. The only thing in this area on the giant cube that requires a screwdriver is the battery compartment - which is separate from the cartridge compartment. The ONLY problem I have is that sometimes I try to put the cartridge in backwards, but it doesn't fit that way...so I figure it out. I like that it doesn't fit so you can't accidentally destroy the cartridge.

With the Tigger song, I prefer the Giant Cube, because the kids can roll the cube around to see if they can get the right order of the song. Plus, it's fun. They jump up and down and dance around the cube. The giant cube is GREAT for taking out frustration too. The music blocks require a little more thought and the cartoon sound effects are really interesting on the music blocks.

I'm REALLY happy I bought these, and I'm glad I didn't let the other reviews scare me away from this set. They are simply a great addition to your Neurosmith cartridge set - and a bargain considering what you would pay to buy the 3 songs individually direct from Neurosmith. I also HIGHLY recommend the Music from Around the World 3 in 1 cartridge - some really great rhythms.