Edushape Marbulous Marble Run Review

The Marbulous Marble Run from Edushape is a fun marble maze toy that will help your child's imagination zoom. This fun, action-packed marble track set is loaded with extra marbles so there is no need to purchase them separately. The sturdy colorful plastic tracks fit together a lot of different ways so that the child can build a different track pathway every time. It is so much fun loading the marbles and watching them twist, turn, and roll down the track. Develops fine motor skills, socialization, spatial relationship, logic & reasoning, hand-eye coordination, visual sensory development, creativity, imagination, and more. Includes 80 pieces and 20 marbles. Compatible with all Edushape Marble Runs and more! Appropriate for 4 years and up; $39.99

What Is Included:

• 80 Pieces: including bells, spinning pieces, bases, straights, tunnels, slides, shoots, etc. These are sturdy plastic and have vibrant colors.
• 20 Marbles: These are colorful glass cats-eye marbles.
• Instruction Booklet: has different designs that you can build from start to finish. These designs range from easy to hardest and more complex.

My daughters having fun with the Edushape Marbulous Marble Run.

What We Thought:
We loved this awesome marble run! The pieces fit together well and easily, even for my 6 year old. I loved that this set had marbles that already came with it because so many do not. The instruction booklet was mostly easy to understand and comes with pictures for each of the builds in it. Some of these builds were a little confusing because the pictures missed steps in between others, so you had to really try to understand the pictures well to get the pieces together like they had it in the booklet.  My kids loved putting the tunnels, shoots, slides, bases, etc. together mostly on their own to make the ultimate obstacle course for the marbles to shoot down and sometimes they would race marbles to see who would come to the bottom first. This is a great toy for them to play with together. Putting these pieces together they learned that some designs work better than others. I loved watching their faces as the marbles raced down the run and made it to the very end of the track! So priceless! My little engineers love this and so do I! It keeps them occupied and entertained.

I highly recommend the Edushape Marbulous Marble Run! I do not, however; recommend this to smaller children because of small pieces and choking hazards. It would make a great gift for a child 4 and up and is part of my Holiday Gift Guide!

BUY IT


DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I received this product for free to facilitate this review. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for doing this review. Affiliate links can be found in this post. Thank you for your support of this blog!

ReindeerCam, Track Santa With NORAD, Lighting of the National Christmas Tree, etc.

• ReindeerCam is a fun website that lets your little ones see Santa's reindeer. They can even see Santa feed the reindeer at 10 am EST and again at 5 pm EST. My kids love to watch them and so do I. They are adorable!

• Track where Santa goes during Christmas to deliver gifts with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Volunteers at the Tracks Santa Operations Center in Colorado Springs are monitoring Jolly Old St. Nick's progress around the world since 1955. You can also track his journey with Google's Santa Tracker.

•  You can watch the lighting of the National Christmas Tree and see the White House Christmas Tree.
 

• At Elf Yourself you can magically transform yourself into a dancing elf :)

• Some families have adopted an Elf On The Shelf. The pose-able elf figurine watches over your kids in the day time and reports back to Santa at night whether they were naughty or nice. You hide it at night and have your children find it in the morning. You can also pose it in so many different ways before your kids wake up. Children love playing hide and seek with the elf and it is a great discipline tool for parents during the holiday for their kids.

• Get a FREE personalized video from Santa for your child at Portable North Pole.

What websites do you love to visit during the holidays?  

DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I am posting about these fun websites because I love them and thought you might enjoy them too. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any compensation for posting about these.

Melissa & Doug Magic Mine Train Tunnel Review and Giveaway

The Melissa & Doug Magic Mine Train Tunnel is a wonderful toy for kids this holiday season! This toy is so much fun and is recommended for ages 3 and up. It comes with a train engine, two magic mining cars, one 8" (203mm) ascending track piece, and wooden mine tunnel (5 total pieces). The mine cars enter the tunnel empty and reappear through the gate loaded with gold and gems. It features realistic train and mining sounds that are activated when the train enters the mine tunnel. Batteries are not included. Requires (2) AAA batteries. Additional track sold separately and this set is compatible with popular wooden railway sets.

My kids love trains and have quite a few wooden railway sets that go together well. This one caught my eye in the available free toys to pick to review from Melissa & Doug's Terrific Twenty Holiday Gift List. We installed the batteries and tried it out. The train has sounds that come from the tunnel as the train presses a large button down as it goes through. The sounds are a train whistle, the train going down the track and also mining sounds like pick axes hitting rock and the treasure being loaded. The sounds; however don't correspond well with the movements of the train through the tunnel and since the tunnel is on a hill the train goes through fairly quickly with the sounds still trailing behind it. In my opinion all toys that make noise should have an off switch...this one does not have one. In order to turn off the sound of this toy you have to take out the batteries completely. You also have to flip the gold and gems over manually and one of our mining cars was finicky and wouldn't stay empty unless you pressed it exactly in the right spot. Once flipped over to empty you can send the train through the tunnel and the levers on the bottom of the mining cars will flip them from empty to full automatically as soon as it passes through the tunnel. The tunnel is constructed mainly of wood and painted with a very nice mine in a mountain scene. The train cars are made of mostly plastic and the train engine of mostly wood. They hook together magnetically.

Here is my son, Jaedan, trying out the train:

My kids really enjoyed this train set and have added it to the sets they already have. It is a great addition to them. They love the tunnel and watching the cars go from empty to full. I also think this set is pretty ingenious. It would definitely be a great gift to buy for someone who loves trains.

BUY IT
Purchase the Melissa & Doug Magic Mine Train Tunnel for $29.99.

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Prize: Win a Melissa & Doug Magic Mine Train Tunnel.

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DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: For my participation in this Melissa & Doug Review I received the toy above and another one of the same to offer as a giveaway to my readers from their Terrific Twenty list. Thanks to Melissa & Doug for providing me this free product. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for posting this review and giveaway.