Hippychick Wooden Toys Review

I have always been a big fan of wooden toys and they are often something I would choose to buy Lily over plastic ones. I think that wooden toys often look prettier and look so much nicer painted.

So when Hippychick asked me if I would like to review some of their wooden toys I could not resist. I had a good look on there classic and modern wooden toys section on their website and then chose 2 of their new toys that I liked the look of and that I knew Lily would enjoy. I was also keeping education in mind when making my choice. 

I chose the Classic World Crocodile Balancing Game and the Classic World Alphabet Abacus. 

As soon as Lily saw them she was really excited to be getting new toys. She was very excited and we had to open and play with them right away. 

We started by playing the Crocodile Balancing Game. 

The game comes with a wooden crocodile, 18 cylinder shapes, and a dice with a coloured spot on each side.

The game is quite simple. You have a rocking wooden crocodile and you have to take turns to place the cylinder shapes onto the crocodile without him tipping or them rolling off. You roll the dice and then you can choose which size of that colour you want to place onto the crocodile. It is actually really good fun and Lily understood the game really well. She also managed to place the pieces on easily. It seems she has quite good fine motor skills which is something that this game helps. 

The game is also really good for hand and eye co-ordination and balancing skills. It is also a good game to help a child get thinking about which piece they should pick up and where to place it. 

I love how beautifully painted it is and also love how bright the colours are. It is a really good quality wooden toy and will attract any child to play with it.

After we had finished playing the game, Lily wanted to play again. After that game she then spent ages just playing with the toy on her own. She made towers out of the cylinder shapes and then practiced putting them onto the crocodile. 

This game is only £8.50 to buy and I think it is well worth the money. 

I then got out the Abacus for her to play with.

The abacus is a classic toy in itself and perfect to help a child learn. This abacus features the alphabet on both side of the square. One side has the upper and lower case letter and the other side has the letter along with a picture. So for example... G for Giraffe.

On the last row of the abacus you have the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 and also the numbers written into words. 

I love the quality of the abacus. The wood is finished with such a smooth appearance which is great for younger children to handle. I have had wooden toys in the past where I have been frightened about splinters as the wood was rough. But I really don't have to worry with this toy.
Again the colours of the toy are really bright and contrasty, which will appeal to any child and they are all painted so nicely and in such detail. Even to the point of putting apples onto the tree's.

Another feature of the abacus is that each of the poles come off it, and then the little bricks with the letters on also come off that. This means that the child can use the abacus how they would like, they can place the bricks back on to make words or they can put them back on in order when learning the alphabet. As well as the child learning literacy with this toy, they are also using there hand and eye co-ordination when putting the bricks back on the pole. 

Lily did find this a little tricky, but managed to put them back on. She did get very frustrated though when she lifted it up to put it back on and they all fell of again. This was something that I had to help with. She also doesn't know the order of the alphabet and so puts them back on in any order. But children learn best by just discovering toys how they would like to and so its fine for a child to be left to place them in the order they like.

They great thing about an abacus is that it grows with a child and it is something that they can use to help aid them with their literacy skills.

The abacus is £17.99 and because it is a toy that will grow with your child and that will also last, it is well worth the money. 

You can buy these toys and more from the Hippychick website. 

Which of these 2 toys do you like the look of?