January 24th, 2008 by Stinkhead
Here is an infant toy I’ve really come to love. The Chime Garden plays soothing tones when the heads of these playful flowers are pressed. The petals are all different textures that are fun for the baby to grab. Here is one toy that the kid will enjoy, that won’t drive you up the wall after repetitive play. Check out why this is one of my favorite toys…
The Look
The first thing that grabbed me about this toy was the overall look. Here are a bunch of flowers that don’t look lame or overly feminine. It’s color pallete is truly gender neutral. The faces are playful, the different textures and patterns on the petals work together, and after you start handling it, the object is easy to understand. (Anyone else getting frustrated with finding the hidden extras on the Elmo TMX?)
The Touch
The two large leaves, and one of the flowers are silky to the touch, squeeze them and they have the ubiquitous crinkle noise that seems to be in most baby toys these days. All I have to do is lightly start crinkling one of these and my little guy immediately turns his head and wants to play with what I got. One of the other flowers has a washcloth type material for petals. My son enjoys squeezing and grabbing this one just as much as the crinkly one. Another flower has ribbons for petals, however my boy hasn’t quite gotten hooked on ribbons… I know, I know… soon he will be all about the ribbons. Another flower has stiff felt petals, and the last one is just silky.
The Sound
There are three different play modes. The first notch has the flowers simply play a tone and light up when they are pressed. You could legitimately learn which flower plays which note, and play any five note song like a piano (or Muppetphone).
The second notch starts a “Happy and You Know It” tune (no words) when you press any flower– but it stops at and you know it….. leaving a bit of “tension” to press any other flower to finish the clap your hands part of the tune. It’s much like that scene from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the “Shave and a Haircut” scene. I don’t know if the baby feels that tension, since he doesn’t have the Happy and You Know It song engrained in his mind, but he likes getting that extra “payoff” (in more of a show) from hitting just one flower.
The third notch plays much more of a song, for a longer duration after pressing any flower. This is great for the kid that needs a bit more of a show to get attracted to the toy. But as their brains develop more and they learn the all important cause and effect they will most likely enjoy the instant interactivity of the press a flower hear a tone, press another flower, hear another tone.
Ages 6months & Up
It says ages 6months&up on the box, but my kid is really smart for 5 months, so I got it for him anyway. Well he loves the interactivity, but to play with it, he needs to be sitting in his Bumpo seat, or on my lap… and he may enjoy this even more once he sits up on his own (we’re getting really close now). So if your kid likes hitting things and then the toy makes noise or lights up, this is nice.
When it comes to buying toys for a less-than-one-year-old… I’ve been attempting to reward or encourage specific actions. When he first tried to grab things, we got the O-ball which is very easy for teeny fingers to hold, light-weight enough for them to hold on to, it’s soft so it can’t break or hurt anything, and it’s dishwasher safe. We bought textured balls for him to grab once he started reacting to touching different surfaces. Right now he’s getting better at slapping at things. (He just learned that he can make quite a splash by slapping his bathwater), so I thought I’d get this toy that rewards pressing large buttons.
About that Cause and effect thing… a lot of toys are passing themselves off as extra developmental if they teach “cause and effect.” Sure… whatever. I press something, it does something, woo-hoo I just learned “cause and effect.” I think most toys should do something… I don’t think they should get a gold star from some parenting institute just because it does something. I feel that the chime garden does deserve a gold star for making something that is appealing to adults, and not at all annoying. We have a lot of toys that are annoying after repetitive use, but between having the three modes and the soothing sound, I like when the little guy gets wrapped up with this toy.
I do have to warn you about that second notch… you’ll have a hard time turning it off if the last thing you hear is if you’re happy and you know it, and you really want to show it, if you’re happy and you know it
Other than that, this is one of my top favorite toys of his right now. You can pick one up from Amazon.com or your local toy store. Visit the Learning Curve web site for more information.
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Posted in baby, Boys, Girls, kids, review, toys | Comments Off on Chime Garden by Lamaze
