Sunday, October 7, 2012

Sets the Fun in motion





You can use this toy right from the minute you open the package. Each letter has a sound associated with it. My favourite is the Elephant's sound. When you touch the letters a voice sounds out the letter and a sound associated with it. The exploration phase where you are given a sound and asked to guess the letter it sounds like is tough for me, but once the kid learns the letters and sounds through the touch, it will be fun to guess the letters. The music is fun too, with the keys at bottom, your kid will go crazy running the fingers across it. Then there's the famous ' Now you know your ABCs' song. If you do not use the bus for a while, it switches off by itself.

Convenient if you dont use camera too much





The phone fits well into the armband. Its not a great looker. The band has a dizzying pattern. On bare arm it does stay but so does the sweat on the inside of the band. That limits how long you can put it on your arm. Its a great convenience that you can slide the covered phone from the band and carry it around with a minus of covering up the camera. But that is not as inconvenient to bring the phone out of the case to take a picture as much as to take the phone out of a plastic guard to put into the Belkin armband.

Colourful zone





Once assembled, the Spinaroo is a great center for the kid or in reality the kid is the center of it all. The seat with the wheels makes it very convenient to move the baby around, so the baby can give his/her attention to all the toys. Most toys have very intuitive rotary, scroll, slide motions that you dont have to teach your child to perform. Put them in there and you will be surprised to find them on their own.
The height is adjustable.
I have Cheerleadered my baby to pull the string on another toy that produces music. That is a feat.
The feat part with this toy is acquiring batteries that dont seem to be that common. Assembly is sometimes cofusing but that could be me trying to touch the nose, going around the head.

This is not going to hurt even a little bit





I see that many reviewers didnt like the noise but I am here to say its organic. The mixer drum rotates as the truck moves along and makes a noise with tiny bits of pieces moving inside. It works well on and off carpet. It is fun to drag along the truck with its vibrant colours and cute Ricky. With its size, kids will get a real feel of playing with a truck than with a tiny toy car. With the bollard, an enthusiastic parent can mimic the department of transportation realities by dynamically moving it and creating hurdles that your little tot will be challenged with in rerouting his/her journey and getting the cement mix in time to construct the awesome building. Wow, so now you have to come up with an imaginary road and a time limit for the task.
I also like the WOW line with its Lift it Luke, Dexter the digger, Dudley Dump truck, Roll it Riley. Now can I get them all in one?

4/5

Almost hypochondriac





As soon as I opened the package,I was amazed at the size of the doll. I saw the 'Try me' pointing to the stethescope. A gentle press led to a disco throb. The sick baby doubles as a beautiful doll as well as a great baby who knows whats wrong with her and asks the little mommy/doctor leading questions so she can be nursed back to feeling better. I didnt recognise the ear thermometer when I saw it. In that matter, the packaging was good with names of each of the instrument that the little doctor will need to make the baby feel better. I hadnt expected the sick baby's face to go red with fever. Luckily the insert had instructions on how to heal the baby with the medicine. Your little doctor can provide cure on the go with all his/her instruments that fit well into the doctor bag.
The sick baby talks in full sentences and struggles with words like stethescope and tongue depressor. A fun game that will teach the kids about identifying problems and solving them.

Tower of Hanoi





Some time ago I had seen a kid play with stacked cups and I pointed out to the parents that the base of the cups had animals on it. only recently did I learn of the advantages of a stacking cups both as a play and educational toy.
These stacking cups are colourful, made from recycled milk jugs.
Not only do the cups have numbers on them based on their sizes but also add up in volume. Fun and math can go hand in hand when the kid can learn 1+2, 1+3, 1+4, 1+5, 2+3, 2+4 filling water or sand and emptying into bigger cups.

Manual needs a rewrite





I started assembling it thinking it would be intuitive. I followed the instructions. But there was no spray. I did see some dust collect on the walls of the collection tank. It does do something in the way of cleaning. I consulted the manual and there it was spray trigger on the top. Thats the only mention of it in a picture naming the parts of the machine. Wish it was included in the instruction that the spraying needs a manual input. And then just when I was about to give up, HTBK's comment about pulling the handle all the way up for the spray action to happen, it worked like a beauty. Its fun to watch the collection tank pull up the water and it seemed like a flood in then and made me wonder where is the water source.
Coming to the actual job. The stain is turmeric stain from the curry. So a great challenge considering that its mixed with oil. After repeated spray and power, the stain has definitely reduced. The convenience of it is once you press down on the power lever, you dont have to be on it.
Once over the hump of getting it to work, Bissell ReadyClean is easy to work with for stains lighter than curry stains.

3.5/5