Christmas Gift Guides for Pre-School Children

Christmas Gift Guide for Pre-School Children

I find buying for pre-school children quite tricky since they all have very different capabilities. There’s a sticky point between age 2 – 3 where they may have outgrown the ‘baby toys’ but aren’t quite ready for the 3+ range.

However, it goes without saying that I think a Tuff Tray is a fantastic investment for pre-schoolers as the play possibilities are endless. I think we paid around £75 with a stand when we bought ours for Freddie for his second birthday but it has been played with so many times that I would recommend them to parents without fail.

Kid Knex Zoo Friends Construction 30 Piece set

Kid K’Nex Zoo Friends – RRP £18.00

This cool set comes with 55 K’nex pieces that can be made into more than 30 zoo animals. The pieces are brightly coloured and great for small hands. We recently reviewed this Zoo Friends set and it was a huge hit!

cocomelon wooden peg puzzle for toddlers and preschool children

Cocomelon Peg Board Puzzle – RRP £9.99

Great puzzles to keep little one’s entertained with their favourite characters.

Let's Learn Trivia board game for preschool children

Let’s Learn Trivia – RRP £12.99

This thought-provoking game is a great way to allow your kids to use their imagination through learning.

Dinosaur Colour Sorting set with coloured dinosaurs and cups

Colour Dinosaur Sorting Set – RRP £13.99

We got Freddie a Tuff Tray for his second birthday so sets like this are really great when you’re looking for a quick play idea that will keep them busy for a while.

Superwings Jett Supercharged Deluxe toy with lights and sounds

Superwings Jett Supercharged Deluxe – RRP £17.99

Freddie absolutely loves any toy that transforms from one thing to another and this is a TV show as well. This one has lights and sounds which is doubly awesome!

Playdoh Cash Register with four pots of Playdoh

Playdoh Cash Register – RRP £19.99

We have a lot of Playdoh cutters, rollers and other bits and bobs but this set is really fun. You can even make your own play money.

Yellow Scrambler Ducati Balance Bike for toddlers

Scrambler Ducati Balance Bike – RRP £40.00

We bought this for Freddie for his second birthday and he loved it. It’s the perfect size for toddlers and is lightweight which makes it perfect when you inevitably have to carry it when they’ve had enough.

Tuff Tray play tray on a stand for toddlers and children

Tuff Tray and Stand – RRP £59.99

A Tuff Tray has endless possibilities. You can create play ideas both inside and outside and the stand makes it far easier for your child to stand and play. It can be as basic as filling with water and giving them a selection of cups and bottles, or you can set up amazing play scenes with themes such as sealife creatures or construction.

Owl Waterwheel toy for toddlers and preschool children. Pour water in the top and watch it come down the wheel to the truck waiting at the bottom

Owl Water Wheel – RRP £12.99

This is great for water play on the Tuff Tray. Fill the top with water, turn the tap and watch the water make it’s way down to the truck waiting at the bottom.

Wooden animal bead threading set

Jaques of London Animal Threading Bead Set – RRP £12.99

This set is great fun for little ones who need a quiet activity that will keep them busy for a while. Freddie is also really good at stacking them up as well as threading them.

Kitchen Sink Playset with working Tap

Kitchen Sink Playset – RRP £23.99

Another huge hit for us was this water playset. You fill up the bottom and it has a working tap by pressing the button, and it empties back into the bottom so recycles the water time and again. The set also comes with accessories and fruit and vegetables that you can chop.

Colourful Plastic Tea Set in case

Play Tea Set – RRP £12.99

We’ve used this tea set so much. We’ve had tea parties, used it in the bath and have also put it in the paddling pool in the summer.

Happy Shopping x

*This post contains items I have been gifted as well as affiliate links which means I receive a small payment if you make a purchase following one of my links at no extra cost to you.

Review: Kid K’Nex Zoo Friends

Kid K’Nex Zoo Friends

We were so pleased to be given the opportunity to review the Kid K’Nex Zoo Friends set. We already have a box of K’Nex so we knew that we were going to have a lot of fun with this Zoo Friends set.

K'Nex Zoo Friends Set opened and spread out on a table

What are K’Nex?

Essentially they are a type of construction toy that comes with lots of different brightly coloured pieces that connect together almost like jigsaw pieces. These are great for smaller hands and the models can be made easily with a little bit of help from an adult.  K’Nex help develop fine motor skills, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination. They’re pretty indestructible, we’ve yet to have a broken piece.

Four year old boy playing with K'Nex Zoo Friends Set

Kid K’Nex Zoo Friends

The Kid K’Nex Zoo Friends set comes with 55 pieces and the ability to make 30 models. Your kids can of course go rogue and create their own animals using the various eyes, tails, and feet pieces. This set retails at around £18 on Amazon and is suitable from age 3.

K'Nex Zoo Friends Set giraffe

Putting K’Nex to the Test

Freddie loves construction toys and is particularly good at building and creating models. He was very pleased when I gave him this set and had his sights set on the giraffe as soon as we looked at the model sheet. There aren’t details instructions to build each model, but the brightly coloured pieces make it very easy to work out what pieces you need and how to put them together.

Freddie only needed a little bit of help to make each model and it wasn’t long before we’d made all of them.

K'Nex Zoo Friends Set

Our Thoughts

Freddie – ‘I love it’ were his exact words. He was very excited that he would be able to mix it with his existing monster set to make some very unusual creatures. The K’Nex Zoo Friends set gets a huge ‘massive’ thumbs up from Freddie.

Mine – This set also gets a huge thumbs up from me. I bought our first set as a non-messy tuff tray option that would keep Freddie busy when he needed to be entertained and I needed to do something like make dinner. The pieces are a good size even for toddlers and are easy to put together and pull apart. I’ve bought K’Nex sets as presents for other children as I know they will be played with and are a good price.

K'Nex Zoo Friends Set

If you enjoyed this review and are looking for some recommendations then please take a look at our other Toy Reviews.

* We were sent the K’Nex Zoo Friends for the purpose of our review. All thoughts and photographs are our own. This post contains affiliate links. 

Review: Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck

Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck

Last week in the depth of our covid isolation we were very pleased to hear the knock at the door that signaled the arrival of the Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck which we were kindly sent to review. Freddie has inherited all of Isabelle’s Playmobil recently and loves to set up little scenes and play with the various characters.

All three of my kids have been fans of a Rubbish Truck and like to watch the weekly bin collection out of the window (at 6.30 am I might add). They even get a wave some weeks when they spot Freddie’s face pressed against the window watching their every move.

If you’re a Playmobil fan then you will know that there is a little bit of set-up required for most of the Playmobil sets. I was quite pleased that the setup for the Rubbish Truck was minimal. The trickiest part being the stickers which I really wished were done for us, but it’s not much of a hardship.

I did, however, manage to put the wheel part on the wrong way round which meant that the wheels didn’t go round.  This was easily fixed.

Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck Review by Freddie

What you get with the Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck

You get the Rubbish Truck of course
A big yellow wheely bin
A green wheely bin
A brown wheely bin
Two Dustbin Men
A fire extinguisher
Walkie Talkies
Some rubbish for your bins which includes a couple of fishbones

A toddler boy sitting next to a Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck

The Truck’s Features

This set comes with everything that you need to set up a great refuse collection service. The bits of rubbish to put in the bins is a great feature.

The wheely bins attach onto the back of the truck and can be emptied by pulling the lever up just like in real life

You can remove the front window for easy access to put the characters in and out of the truck

The whole back end of the truck tips up when you reach the rubbish dump, just like the real thing

The flashing light is a great addition to make this a realistic role-play toy

Toddler boy unboxing the Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck

A Bit of Info

You can buy the Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck at most toy retailers.

This set is aimed at children aged 4 – 10 years as it has small parts.

It retails at £24.99

Toddler boy playing with the Playmobil City life Rubbish Trck

Our Thoughts

I thought that the actual Rubbish Truck would have had the biggest appeal, but Freddie was very impressed with the little wheely bins. The set comes with tins and fishbones and the wheely bins fix onto the back of the truck so that they can be emptied. That was until he spied the light on top of the truck which can be pressed for a proper dustbin lorry orange light. Not many of the Playmobil sets have lights or sounds so this was a huge thumbs up in terms of role-playing for real-life play.

From a Mum’s point of view, the Rubbish Truck gets a huge thumbs up from me. It’s a lovely addition to our existing sets which include a house and playpark. I also think that the price is really great for everything that comes with it.

Toddler boy fixing the wheely bins onto the back of the Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck

You can have a look at some of our other reviews and recommendations here.

*We were sent the Playmobil City Life Rubbish Truck for the purpose of this review