Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Click Clack Snore
Posted by Missy W. @ 8:04 AM
Andie’s son Max got this Click Clack Tree by Plan Toys for his third birthday. Andie and I were playing with it and we honestly could not figure out where the “hours of fun” would come from. I’ve never seen a Plan Toys toy I didn’t like, but there is a first time for everything, right?
This toy is beautiful: a little wooden “tree” with tracks for the bug balls to roll back and forth along. And that’s all it does. The bugs roll back and forth and then you pick em up and do it again. It says three and up, most likely for the size of the bug and possibly dexterity of putting the bugs back, but most three year olds I know would do this about three times and then be off and running onto the next activity. Andie and I played with the bugs while the kids were on the floor doing something else. Sy, queen of the long attention span, sidled up and watched for a minute before skittering off to the next thing.
Here’s what the site says about the toy:
“The Tree is like a playground for the ladybirds, so parents can use the ladybirds to tell stories and teach children about safety while playing.
Children will enjoy watching the ladybird roll along the tracks which helps to stimulate vision and also emotional development which is important.”
Hunh. See, even the people at Plan Toys couldn’t come up with a good reason to play with it. Teach about safety? I think a book or a story with puppets would teach Sy a hell of a lot more about safety. Even better, all she has to do is watch one of her pals get reprimanded for laying a toe in the street and she’s learned her lesson. Watching some wooden bugs back and forth on a track probably wouldn’t translate so well to her three year old mind.
Snapshot:
I’ve never met a Plan Toys toy I didn’t love...until I met the Click Clack Tree.
For $45.95, I would like the toy to be more than a five minute distraction for my three year old.
Limited use, limited imagination.
I’ll pass on this well made yet completely boring device.
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June 30, 2008 @ 12:42 AM
Andie said:
Andie here...It was also not the easiest toy to put together, according to my mom. And she’s handy. It would probably help the toy’s appeal if my house wasn’t so slanted, therefore affecting the mobility of the balls. If you have a house with settlement (older houses generally have this) this toy is downright frustrating. I had to laugh at the description of the toy--it made absolutely no sense to me either. Lost in translation, maybe?