The Easter Bunny will soon be paying us a visit here at The Madhouse and he'll be finding an awful lot of little squishy bunny friends to talk to because the girls have been busy testing out the Moon Dough Bunnies playset that we were sent to review.
Now, we first discovered Moon Dough last year, when we reviewed the Moon Dough Barn set (a review that you can read here). I mentioned (as did a lot of other bloggers who were reviewing Moon Dough at the same time) that it was extremely crumbly and messy so a big playmat was an absolute must. Spinmaster got back to me, saying that it shouldn't be that crumbly and that they'd ask their arts & crafts department to check out why.
I don't know if they've changed the secret formula or if we just had a slightly faulty set last time, but this time the Moon Dough doesn't seem anywhere near as messy. As you can see in the top photo, there are little "crumbs" of Moon Dough on the play mat and stuck to her jeans but nowhere near as much as before. If you're new to Moon Dough, it feels very soft and squishy and spongy - like a cross between marshmallow and a stress-relief ball so it's actually very therapeutic to play with ! - and you need to squish it and knead it for a while for it to puff up and be mouldable.
The playset contains a special bunny-moulding tree (you put Moon Dough in the top, push the handle and out pops a cute little bunny), 3 food moulds (carrots, turnip and cabbage), and 2 x 42.5g bags of Moon Dough (one white, one orange). I thought the box seemed quite big for what was in it.
6-year-old Juliette and 9-year-old Sophie both had great fun making dozens of rabbits. They also made vegetables using the little moulds but the Moon Dough is actually quite hard to get out of the moulds (tapping it on the edge of the table to dislodge it seems to work well) and Juliette was also slightly perturbed by not having any green to make the cabbages !
Nevertheless, I have been amazed at just how long the girls have spent happily churning out rabbits, and Juliette has started making up stories and doing bunny voices about going to the vegetable shop to buy carrots and having bunny races and tea parties ! I love it when toys inspire this kind of creative and imaginative play.
The great thing is that the Moon Dough Bunnies playset will be a great addition to the Moon Dough Barn set, and joining the two will give greater scope for inventing stories as well as using different colours of dough. The Moon Dough from last October is still in perfect condition so their "never dries out" claim certainly seems to hold true.
If you want an Easter-themed alternative to a chocolate egg, look no further !
star rating : 4/5
RRP : £9.99
for more information : http://www.toysrus.co.uk/Toys-R-Us/Learning/Creative-Play/Moon-Dough-Bunny-Tree(0084376)
Other reviews you may be interested in :
Oh fab, pleased to hear it is less crumbly , i was put off buying last year as so many friends complained of it crumbling! Looks great fun! @goriami
ReplyDeleteIt's great to see they actually listened to customer feedback and sorted out the problem :)
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