Moon Dough Barn

A word of warning - do not show this box to your kids until you have found a big plastic play mat or unless it's a nice day and you can play in the garden or on the patio. It WILL make a mess - even more so than the Moon Sand that some mums were complaining about the other day on twitter ! - but the kids will have great fun getting creative and using their imaginations.

As you can guess from the name, Moon Dough comes from the makers of Moon Sand, the "magic" sand that stays permanently moist and mouldable (which I've just reviewed here) and it has the same "never dries out" formula. For anyone (like me) who gets sick of throwing dried out plasticine and play-doh and other modelling clay in the bin when it's gone rock hard, this will be music to your ears. It's not only lighter on the pocket, it's also better for the environment because it's reuseable.

Moon Dough comes in various sets - Playful Puppies, Diner, Pan Pizza and the Barn set that we received. 5-year-old Juliette instantly squealed "Oooh it's the Little People barn !" and I have to agree, it does look very similar so she wanted to use her Little People figures with it. But even without adding any extras, the set has plenty to keep your kids amused. You can make bales of hay, fences and best of all, farm animals, by turning the handle on the barn.

The Moon Dough itself is strange stuff. Before handing it over to your little ones, you need to knead it and squish it about for a while so that it fluffs up a bit to an almost marshmallow-like texture. This does help but it still remains a bit crumbly - hence the mess I mentioned in the opening paragraph. I helped keep mess to a minimum by giving the girls a big Tupperware box that they could keep the dough in when they were squishing it about - this also meant it was quick and easy to tidy away at the end.

The girls absolutely loved the feel of it, saying quite rightly that it felt nothing like any other modelling clay they've ever used before. Parents probably won't like it quite so much because of the mess factor. Just keep a big plastic mat and the vacuum cleaner handy and it should be smiles all round !

star rating : 4/5

RRP : £19.99

Other reviews you may be interested in :

Moon Sand Ice Cream set