CAT Junior Crew – Toys review
We were so excited to get to review CAT – Junior Crew toys! Like many children, my son loves diggers, so I knew we’d have fun trying these out!
The toys are lightweight, but robust. Designed for children aged 2 plus. They are ideal for preschool children. They are brightly coloured and have friendly faces on them, to really attract younger children. These are indoor toys, but the weather has been so lovely we have been playing with them in the garden.
Cat® Junior Crew Construction Buddies
The front loader was an instant hit. It is one of the 10″ Cat® Junior Crew Construction Buddies Assortment – RRP £19.99. Cleverly it can detect the boulders having been loaded and will move forwards with the bucket up, and then reverse backwards lowering the bucket. We’ve been learning about backwards and forwards while playing with the front loader! Loading the boulders is also developing N’s fine motor skills, all helping him get ready for writing.
The lights on the roof flash and it makes a beeping noise like a real machine might when it reverses.
Cat® Junior Crew Power Tracks Friends Train Set
Cat® Junior Crew Power Tracks Friends Train Set – RRP £24.99
This is a motorised set which we think is really good fun! It’s a great way to encourage fine motor skills – pressing the different coloured buttons and exploring what happens with each one.
N has loved watching the train go round and controlling it using the buttons. It makes train noises “chugga chugga… ” as it goes round, and really encourages him to focus on playing with it. He also enjoys actually pushing it round the track and then making it stop! It’s been great at helping develop is language. He’s becoming quite vocal and animated when he plays with this!
I think this is a good value set, and we like being able to remove the dumper truck and play with that separately. We have enjoyed learning about how we have to make the trucks stop at the level crossing and let the train go past while the barrier is down.
Cat® Junior Crew Construction Pals
Cat® Junior Crew Construction Pals assortment RRP £7.99 – The 7” Pals are great fun, and an ideal size for smaller hands to hold. Push down their top and their expression changes. While they play fun Kid vroom sounds which encourage play. I think this was our favourite of all the toys we were sent. It’s a great size to carry around and also, the changing expressions caused lots of laughter. It’s a great way to start talking about feelings, how is he feeling? Happy! Sad!
What I really like is that all the sets are great fun to play with individually, but also compliment each other to play together.
They all make fun noises, but have off switches – an important thing for parents! We’ve been turning them off after playing with them so they don’t accidentally make noise at e.g. bedtime!
The CAT Junior Crew range is available at Smyths Toys now.
