The second toy we were send from the lovely The Toadstool was the gorgeous Haba Smart Fellow Pegging Game.

The concept is really simple, there’s 18 tactile wooden blocks and the kiddos have to use them to  make a 3D representation of the picture on the card.

Annie absolutely adores this game. She worked her way through the 1 and 2 star difficulty cards the first time she sat down to play and the look of achievement and pride on her face was immense.

I love the look on concentration and determination in these photos. She worked through all the cards one by one like a machine, pausing at the end of each build for us to admire her handiwork before starting on the next challenge.

Ez Bear loves playing with this too. He is obviously too young to make the pictures on the cards, he just has fun making shapes and improving his hand eye coordination through pegging. He also enjoys stacking two blocks and trying to thread a rod through them.

He is also learning about cause and effect with this play, he puts one of the smaller rods into a block and pushes it out from the bottom until it falls out, he thinks it’s hilarious and now expects it to happen rather than looking shocked.

Wooden toys and games always look lovely and inviting and this one is no different. The paint is bright and the blocks are nice and sturdy, which is lucky as Ez has a habit of catching them with his elbow and sending them crashing to the floor! The blocks are smooth and weighty and feel really nice in the hand.

I like the added level of difficulty that comes from matching up the decorations on the blocks, for example the silver one has different patterns on two of the sides. The solutions for the shapes are on the back of each card and show which rods connect the blocks, and how.

The two blocks with heads on are the favourites for both kiddos, Annie likes to make a stage for a puppet show, while Ez likes kissing the faces and talking to them.

It can be used as an absorbing way to spend an hour or more, or to fill the 5 minutes waiting for dinner to be served up to distract the whinging masses!

I really wish there were an add-on pack for this, maybe some more cards and additional blocks, though, saying that, the ‘re-play’ value is high. Annie has gone through all the cards a couple of times and shows no signs of being bored with it. If anything it’s encouraging her to make up her own shapes and towers.

The price for this on The Toadstool is £27.20 which seems just right, the blocks are really well made and the cards are still in one piece despite Ez trying to eat one of them which suggests how well made they are!

This is one of the few toys I plan on keeping until we (hopefully) have grandkids so they can play with them too, I don’t foresee beautifully made, wooden pegging games going out of fashion any time soon.

We were all really excited when we heard that Annie and Ez had been chosen to be toy testers for The Toadstool. We were even more excited when a parcel arrived, wrapped with, ‘awesome sticky tape’. Inside was the Haba Sand Play Spilling Funnel XXL, perfect timing, given the weather.

This toy is a bit like a (basic!) 3D printer, you fill it with water, add sand and then you can make towers, walls, words and shapes with the wet sand.

Annie thought the way it came out looking was very funny and spent the first couple of goes, ‘making poos’ with it, but I guess that’s what you get when you put this in the hands of a poop obsessed 3 year old!!

I was quite impressed that Annie kept letting the wet sand run over her feet as she sometimes has problems with new sensations and textures, but she handled this like a pro.

I quickly learnt not to fill it up too high otherwise it became too heavy for her to lift.

After lots of playing and practice, Annie managed to make a round walled tower that she then dripped little bits of sand in, to be people. She was really proud of herself and afterwards enjoyed stomping the tower, ‘into sand again like a giant’.

The concept behind this toy is really simple and I think that’s why it’s so effective. It’s easy to make tall shapes and towers and even at 3 Annie could lift this and play by herself.

I think next time we play we might try and write her name with the wet sand to practice her letters and writing skills.

This is on The Toadstool website for £6.80 which seems to me to be great value, especially when you consider what a novel idea it is and how much buckets and spades can go for.

While this may not be brought out every time the kids play in the sandpit I can see Annie returning to it often, to make castles for her toys to live in (as long as Ezra the giant doesn’t flatten them!)

What is your kids ‘go to’ toy in the sandpit, bucket and spade, tractor or something more unusual like the Haba Spilling Funnel XXL?

Disclosure: I was sent the sand spiller free for the purpose of conducting this review. My participation is voluntary and my opinions, as always, are my own. No monetary compensation was given.

We made the most of the dry weather this weekend and did some more work on the garden play area. We moved the wood chips through and placed the sand pit ready for the sand to arrive on Wednesday.

Like every good parent, we utilised child labour Annie’s help. It was a bit chilly so she insisted on wearing her gloves as well as a sun hat, crazy 3 year old logic. She really enjoyed wheeling through tiny loads in Ezra’s wheel barrow but her placement left a lot to be desired. I found more on the stepping stone into the play area than actually inside the play area!

Of course as soon as the sun came out for 5 minutes Annie ran inside and changed into a summer dress (she changed her clothes 8 times on Saturday).

The play area looks so different, no gaps in the wood chips, the climbing frame and the sand pit off to one side by the spot we’re going to put our bench. Next weekend we want to paint the wendy house like a beach hut, summer stripy colours and as soon as next door fix their fence we can put it in place.

We have been outside every single day this last week, no matter the weather the kids and I have been in the garden running about, playing and having fun. The kids are loving spending more time outside courtesy of the Actimel Family Well Being Fund and I am loving the distinct lack of stress attached to going outdoors with the kiddos.

Seriously, if you’re a blogger, head over to the Actimel Family Well Being Fund page and apply for funding under the CONNECT fund, our funding has had a massively and positive impact on all our lives and I’m really grateful for their help.

I cannot wait for the hot weather to turn up, our summer bucket list is focussed on outdoors activities quite heavily and I can’t wait to unveil it at the start of May.

What did you get up to this weekend?