Ravensburger Thomas the Tank 8 Piece Wooden Playtray > Reviews (4)

Ravensburger offer a wide range of toys for children. They specialise in jigsaw and puzzle type toys.

Thomas The Tank Playtray

This playtray measures approx 30 x 20 cm and is aimed at children over the age of 3. It is made of high quality wood pieces. This particular playtray features 8 characters from Thomas the Tank.

The characters are presented on wooden pieces with a small knob for your child to grip them. The characters that are included at Bertie, Spencer, Emily, Harold, Thomas, Percy, Fat Controller (and the thin one on the same piece) and James.

The actual playtray features different sized slots which your child must place the relevant character in to in order to complete the puzzle. This playtray is designed to develop a childs concentrate, character recognisation and shape matching skills. It also encourages your child to use a pincer grip in order to manipulate the character into the slot.

Price

The Thomas playtray is available from Amazon and is priced at £7.99 with free delivery.

Our Thoughts

Being an avid Thomas fan, my son was pleased to receive this playtray for Christmas 2010. He was a few months short of the recommended age for this toy but was always supervised and I do not feel that there is any hazzards associated with this toy.

This is a classic toy which was well loved by my son for several months but he has mastered and completed it so much that he no longer shows an interest in it and has agreed for it to be taken to a friends home for her son to get use from. Our playtray was a gift though I do feel £7.99 is a fair price to pay given the quality of this toy.

Quality and Play

It doesn't require assembly or batteries and is ready to be played with straight from the packaging. The wood used to create this tray is lovely and smooth with smooth edges and corners. It is of a high quality and is fairly lightweight. The tray is a decent size for one child to play at anyone time. The character pieces are a good size and the knob on top is rounded and perfect for a young child to pick up without dropping all the time.

The character pieces are very colourful and of a reasonable thickness. They are made of a smooth textured wood and have a glossy finish. The size of the characters varies with Emily and Percy being the smallest pieces and Spencer being the largest and taking up quite a bit of room of the tray. My son appreciated that whilst Thomas, James and Percy were present, there was a good mix of the less well known characters. He adores Harold and was pleased to see him there. The character names are written on some pieces so that Mummy knows who is who. The variation is good.

The first time my son played with this tray, he was a bit unsure what to do. He was only 2 and a half at the time and needed guiding so Mummy showed him how to do one character and we went from there. Now he could do it with his eyes shut! The wooden pieces vary in shape and I find it good that they are facing different ways too as it allows more scope for my son to concentrate on where a piece should go.

At first my son got a little annoyed when a piece wouldn't fit into any space. It took a while for him to identify the different empty slots and it encouraged him to keep going and find a way to make a character fit. After several attempts, he was more confident and would try to place a character in a shape then lift it back up and try it somewhere else until he got it correct. It got easier for him when most of the shapes were in place as there were less obstacles. My son was always proud (and so was Mummy) when he completed the puzzle.

The characters fit neatly into their slot and the completed tray looked good. Each character looks exactly as it would in the show and great attention has been paid to the small details of the engines and other characters. They can tipped out ready to start again.

Conclusion

After a year or so of owning this playtray, the wooden and pieces are still in excellent condition and the colour is intact. My son enjoyed playing with his playtray and was able to do so from 2 and a half. He got bored after a few months and wanted something more challenging so moved on to proper jigsaw puzzles which encourage his mind to work a bit harder.

Overall a basic yet fun toy which encourages developement and well worth the cost as it will last to be passed on to other children.