Noisy toys. Two words guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of many a parent ! Just like Messy Play. But both are integral parts of a child's development so when the postman dropped off this rather funky-looking Melody Xylophone from Plan Toys, I breathed a sigh of resignation and expected to have a headache within half an hour.
But it didn't actually happen ! The fabulous thing about this xylophone is that it comes with song sheets for popular nursery rhymes and children's songs - Jingle Bells, Mary Had A Little Lamb and Ode To Joy (you'll know it when you start playing it !) - so rather than tunelessly bashing it to make as much racket as possible, kids will actually sit down and try to follow the colour-coded music sheets to play a real tune. All of the Madhouse Mini-testers (aged 3 - 11) managed to play the tunes quite successfully, which they were incredibly proud of, so for giving them a taste for music and a real sense of achievement, it's brilliant.
Pierre also liked naming the colours and striking them in order, from biggest to smallest, then smallest to biggest, which is all highly educational too, especially as we followed on by creating a "water xylophone", lining up glasses with different amounts of water in to show that the tone changes each time. The Madhouse Mini-testers were very impressed that you could make a musical instrument with glasses of water !
The xylophone itself is sturdily built and has a sleek design. It is the perfect size and weight for placing on little knees and the manufacturers also get a brownie point for creating a space to store the stick (or should that be hammer?) on the underside of the xylophone so it won't get lost.
They get an even bigger brownie-point for the fact that they an eco-friendly company. Plan Toys' Facebook page carries the slogan "We pass on the spirit of sustainability through our toys" and they explain that they use the wood of "retired" rubberwood trees (that no longer produce latex) to create their toys. And that is a lesson that is just as important to pass on to our kids as the initiation to music !
star rating : 4.5/5
RRP : £31.99
Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.
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the Wooden Xylophone is one of my toddlers fav toys at the moment
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