Today's visit from the delivery man brought the kids' first Bigjigs Play Patrol assignment and as the youngest Play Patrol Agent Master C is taking his testing duties very seriously. He was sent an Activity Centre to review and with an age range of 6 months to 2 years it was the perfect choice for him to cut his reviewing teeth on.
Straight out of the box the activity center is lovely to look at. With the expected Bigjigs build quality it is all made of wood with the exception of the metal "wire" with wooden beads on it. There are five activities in total: wooden ducks to slide along, beads on a wire, three insect tumbers, a clicky flower to turn around and a spinning sun with a mirror on the reverse. On the back are two adjustable straps so that it can be hung up. Having already been dropped from his highchair onto the wooden floor (I think Master C calls that testing to destruction!) I'm pleased to report that it still looks as good as it did out of the box.
I clearly remember the activity centre that I had as a child on my cot bars and it's something that I have been looking out for to buy for Master C so I was thrilled that he was going to get one to play with. As soon as he woke from his post-lunch nap he started playing with it on the living room floor.
Even though he's only seven months old all of the activities work really well for little hands and he had a grand old time playing with the beads in particular. The range of activities helps babies to develop lots of different motor skills and there's a good range of them as well as lots of bright colours to look at. He was also a big fan of the mirror on the back of the sun, especially since he's just discovered them in the last week or so. But this is where we hit a bit of a problem.
This may sound like a physics lesson, but please bear with me. The sun spins on a central horizontal axis which is mounted slightly above the main plane surface of the activity centre. However, the radius of the sun is bigger than the depth of the activity centre so it is impossible to spin it when it is either laid flat on the floor or hung up against a flat surface like a wall or cot bars. Unless you somehow prop the centre up at an angle on something else it just doesn't work as a spinner and Master C seemed to find this very frustrating. It resulted in me sitting him in his bouncy chair, resting the activity centre on his lap and holding it up with my hand so he could spin it, much like it is in the picture below.
It's a real shame that this bit doesn't work as he was so keen to try it out. Looking through the Bigjigs range on their website I see that the design of the activities is the same as on their Activity Walker, but there because of the angle it's at the spinning sun works. Even trying it on the bars of his cot the sun's diameter is wider than that of the gap between cot bars so it still won't spin.
The adjustable hanging straps make it very easy to move the activity centre around and it was very useful to pop it inside his cot with him this evening whilst I ran his bath and got his sister ready too. He did try pulling it away from the side a few times and because of the way it hangs it then falls back against the cot side when he lets go, so I decided it best not to leave it in there over night with him or whilst he naps. I did quickly experiment with tucking the bottom edge between the side of the cot and the mattress to hold it more in place and I think that with the mattress at the height he has it currently that could work quite well. Maybe a future version should have an extra strap so that it can be fixed at the bottom too?
His first afternoon's "work" seems to have exhausted Master C, but he's gone to bed happy and definitely enjoyed playing with his activity center. On his behalf, I'm a bit disappointed that the sun doesn't spin (that sounds like something Prof Brian Cox would say!) but all the other activities on there are spot on for someone of his age and development stage.
Disclaimer: We were sent the Activity Centre to review as part of the Bigjigs Play Patrol scheme. You can follow Bigjigs on Twitter and Facebook.
Compostwoman says
I remember Compostgirl had something similar, and loved it!
Am impressed that Master C is already working – he seemed to be really enjoying his reviewing activities ๐ No wonder he slept well today ๐
Mrs C says
If an afternoons work means that hell sleep through tonight then Im going to be looking for full time employment for him! ๐