I love watching her imagination take flight and I can see it begin to take root within Dexter's personality too. I think it's really positive because I believe it helps to develop a child's creativity so I try to encourage role-play wherever possible. That's why, when I was approached by Big Game Hunters to review one of their products and spotted the Le Toy Van Honeybake Cookie Set on their website, I jumped at the chance.
The cookie set is a wooden toy set made up of shape-sorter cookies, interchangeable toppings, baking tray, rolling pin and oven mitt. It's designed to encourage cooking-related role-play. Children can pretend to roll the cookie dough flat; lift out the cookies; decorate them how they like with the different toppings (they attach to the cookies using velcro); place them on the baking tray and put them in an imaginary oven to bake while wearing the oven mitt. Once 'fully cooked', they're ready to (pretend) eat.
The toy set isn't overly chunky but it's not flimsy either. It would have been easy for a company to compromise on the sturdiness of a product in the pursuit of profits but that's not what Big Game Hunters has done at all. As you can see from my photograph below, the toy set isn't about to fall apart any time soon.
What I like about the toy, from a parent's perspective, is that it does two things. Firstly and most obviously, it encourages role-play. Secondly, it can help to develop a child's knowledge of shapes. This is certainly something I'll be using to encourage Dexter to fit the cookie shapes in the right spaces. I'm a big fan of multi-purpose toys.
But, I'm sure you're wondering if this is a good toy for your child; if it's worth its £20 price tag. Well, that's a pretty important question, which is why I put it to my children (or rather, Sophia. Dexter likes to let his sister do all the preparation work before pretending to eat them afterwards). Here is Sophia demonstrating the Le Toy Van Honeybake Cookie Set and what she thinks of it.
Please note: I was sent the Le Toy Van Honeybake Cookie Set for free in return for writing this review. All opinions are, as always, 100% honest.
