Early Learning Centre Spade & Rake Set

Living in Cornwall, we are never far away from a beach. My daughter didn’t take the beach, and still has problems with sand now. I thought buying her a sandpit to have at home could get her used to the feeling of sand a little better. But with a sandpit, you need a spade!

I seen these in my local Mothercare and thought they would be perfect to try and introduce my daughter to playing with sand. They cost around £4 back in March.

Both the spade and rake are brightly coloured in yellow and blue, fantastic to get my daughter to pick them up and play with them. They are made from a from strong plastic, meaning vigorous play wouldn’t snap them. Each one is around 20cm long.

When I first bought these my daughter was around 16 months old. She took to them straight away, ripping them out of the carrier bag to give them a closer inspection. We went outside and opened up her sand pit and she didn’t know what to do. This was my cue to step in and build sand castles (yay for having an excuse!).

As both of the tools were built from a strong plastic it meant they were quite chunky to grasp so Kacie didn’t have any trouble holding on to these. After about 10 minutes of me building a huge fort in her sand pit, she decided it was time to knock it down and picked up the rake and gave it a shove, this was the closest she had ever been to actually touching sand with her hands, I felt like crying.

Ever since then she has also picked up these tools to play in her sandpit, she still hasn’t got round to touching the sand with her hands yet, but we can walk along the beach in open sandals now with no tears or tantrums, and I really do believe having these tools to use in the sand has helped.

Ofcourse spades and rakes can be found almost everywhere in the right season, quite often at a cheaper price, but the quality of these cannot be faulted and I’d definitely recommend these if you want a strong durable set that will last a long time.