Little Tikes Lil’ Ocean Explorers

Last week,  Little Tikes invited Yo and I to Maggie and Rose in London, to explore their new range of toys! Most people with children will know Little Tikes for their iconic toys such as the Cozy Coupe, or play houses, but the new toy range is aimed at tiny tots 6 -36 months for each developmental stage – sitting, crawling and standing. Yo is 13months, and has just started walking, so she suits the standing toys perfectly, I’ve previously found toy shopping for her age group difficult, so I wondered what she’d think of the toys!

I’d seen an advert for the 3 in 1 Adventure course before we arrived at the event, so I  was keen to see what it actually did, and how big it really was! Yo loved it, and we spent most of our time exploring it! The adventure course is in 3 parts, and children can crawl through it to discover the rattling jelly fish hiding in the tunnel, sit at the end and spin the circles, or stand and send balls down the octopus – something which Yo thought was brillliant! It is quite a big toy, but the 3 bits can be detached so you could just use one bit at a time, and I have to say it was really great fun! I liked that it encouraged movement, but also fine motor skills (dropping the balls down the octopus).

With the RRP at £79.99, I actually think it is very good value as it does represent a huge amount of play value, I can imagine having it for a child just learning to crawl, and still using it with a 2 year old happily to play in a more imaginative rather than physical way.

All of the range of toys are bright, colourful and where they have sounds and lights there is an OFF switch! The stand and dance star fish was another hit with Yo, she loved watching the balls drop down, though it took a few attempts to realise they were arriving at the bottom when they disappeared down the hole! It is a “noisy toy” which plays music to encourage play, we enjoyed playing with it, and Yo really liked being able to hold on to the top and bounce as the music played – great to develop her leg muscles!

This is a bit of an action shot, as Yo decide she was rather fond of the crawling crab, this might initially just seem like a”crawling” toy – to encourage children to crawl after it, but Yo loved to follow it with her toddling steps! It’s a really clever toy, with motion sensors so it can detect when a child approaches it, and it scuttles away! We got one of these in our goody bag, and I’ll write a little more on it in another post!

I was impressed with the quality of the toys, the attention to detail on them, and the variety available and how well they held my daughters attention! The Little Tikes team themselves, were passionate about the toys and were happy to get down to child level and show the children how toys worked, as well as chat about the Little Tikes company. They’ve spent a lot of time researching to develop the range and working with the wonderful Amanda Gummer from Fundamentally Children, and it really does show in the fabulous range they’ve created. There will definitely be a few Lil’ Ocean Explorers toys on Yo’s Christmas list this year!

Thank you to Little Tikes and Azaria PR for inviting us, we had a wonderful day!