Love love love love this toy. Santa brought it to my then 10-month-old son, and I thought he wouldn't really get into it until he was older. But within a couple of weeks, he was happily banging the balls down with the hammer, and putting them back into the holes. FANTASTIC for both gross and fine motor skills (takes a bit of aiming to get the ball back into the holes). What do I love about this toy?
1. Unlike flashy plastic toys, this actually keeps my son occupied for 30 minutes at a time. I can actually cook an entire meal because of this toy.
2. Extremely durable, fantastic craftsmanship. All wood, dovetailed construction and Plan Toys guarantees the safety of their toys. Unlike other drop and hammer toys, the balls are not plastic (generally, the plastic balls are squeezed through the holes). These balls are wooden and are kept up inside the holes by an additional gear-like piece, which the banging shifts until the balls fall through.
3. At first, I didn't like how there is not "catcher" for the balls when they roll out and go scattering across the kitchen floor, but well...he so loves this toy, he will crawl after the balls, bring them back and continue banging, which gives me even more time to maybe even whip up dessert. Sometimes they get lost under sofas and behind curtains, but oh well.
4. Educational: teaches cause and effect, tool usage, gross motor skills, aiming, colors. Gives him a real sense of accomplishment.
cons:
1. Not sure if ours is defective or if it's a design flaw, but with one of the holes, the ball gets wedged inside about 50% of the time and does not roll out. A little frustrating for him at first because he would think the ball had rolled off somewhere, but once he figured it out, it did add a new interesting twist to the puzzle for him.
2. No storage for the hammer. The Plan Toys miracle pounding toy has a neat little notch for the hammer, wish they had done the same here.
3. Love the wooden balls but man, they sure do some damage when thrown.
I got this toy very early. At 4M my son liked to hold the balls. To date there is no other ball (he owns many) that is so pleasurable to hold. By 6M he enjoyed putting them in the hole (I would retrieve the ball for him sometimes). When he was learning to crawl he would drag himself about holding the ball and pounding it into the floor. He would try carpet then wood. Sigh, I try to remind myself that this will be the first of many pits in the floors while raising a rowdy boy. He is almost 9M and he loves this toy. Sometimes the balls roll away under furniture and will either try to put other balls into the box (doesn't work) or he will play the box. I still haven't given him the hammer yet. I intend to save it until he is older.
The most interesting part of this toy is how long it will hold his attention. I have seen him play with this toy for an alarming amount of time. 35 consecutive minutes has been the absolute longest. Albeit doing different things with the toy not just the punch and drop part. He was particularly interested while learning "in" "out" kinds of concepts.
This means I can take just one toy with us when we, say, fold laundry or do dishes.
Another surprising aspect of this toy is that we can play together. Three balls and two hands makes it easy start teaching sharing. The joy seeing all three balls drop far exceeds his need place each ball in the hole. However, sometimes he does need to push each ball.
I have seen this little boy do many harsh things with toy. I don't think one would be able to tell by looking at it. Very well constructed. There is nothing about this toy that makes me nervous. This includes the color stains of the balls.
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I read the good reviews before purchasing as a Christmas present. My 12 month old grandson is extremely active and I thought he would enjoy hammering. The set is well made and heavy. We had to take the hammer away as he was trying to use it on the house windows. The wooden balls are heavy and he throws them which he thinks is great fun, however the dogs now avoid him. I think this may still be a good toy once he is a little older.
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My one year old son loves this well-made wooden toy. He pushes the balls with his hand for now & keeps putting them back on top to push through again. He also loves to play with the balls. He'll carry them around, bang them together, try to use them with other toys & we'll roll them back and forth. I think later he'll use the hammer to hit the balls & it will be fun all over again. For now, he uses the hammer on his xylophone!
He has so many plastic disposable toys, many of which are already broken in one way or another, but this is not one of them.
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Below is what I wrote yesterday. I contacted Plan directly right after and within 24 hours the president had received my email and had someone send a new one to me. I hope they make the bottom sturdier in the future, but the responsiveness is impressive. I will keep Plan on my list of toy companies.
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This was the first "Plan" product that I purchased for my then 10 month old daughter. When I received it, I was concerned because the bottom is made out of cardboard (you can see it peeking out in the picture) and the holes required such force to get the balls through that my 6 year old didn't want to play with it. Within a month, the bottom was crushed so the toy is unusable. I don't know if she stepped on it, which is my guess, or she hit it with the mallet in frustration because the balls wouldn't go through, but given my daughter is very small and light for her age, the cardboard had to be cheap for her to crush it in. Really, Plan, can't you put plywood on the bottom like you have on the top so it's less likely to break?
Unfortunately, I was too busy until now (3.5 months from purchase) to see if I could get this replaced and now I've missed the window for returns. So, learn from me.
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I was skeptical of the product until we opened the box. Once we looked at the instructions carefully putting the blocks together was a snap. Our 7 year old granddaughter only had to be shown twice and she put the majority of the blocks together by herself. She and her sister were building forts and "cafes' together almost immediately. A great idea to get the kids away from toys that need batteries!
