ToyQueen.Com

Recently Play-Doh has released new playsets that allow children to build and act out fairy tale adventures of Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and the Three Little Pigs using their Play-Doh.

Each playset comes with:

– 2 or 3 different containers with different color Play-Doh

– Unique Play-Doh molds that allow children to create accessories to their story. For example, Hansel and Gretel has a plastic candy house included that once opened has molds inside where extra candy pieces can be made.

– A laminated play mat, that opens like a book, with one side that has a picture of the fairy tale in action, the other side includes the actual written story of the fairy tale. Pictures of the play pieces are included in the written story as symbols, so young children learning to read can act out the story, using the characters and the accessories in the right order.

Here is my opinion:

– I think this is a fantastic concept for children learning to read. I love how a very simple version of the fairy tale is included in the package. I really like how digital images have been inserted as symbols into the fairy tale.

– However, I wish there was a key to what you would call specific items in the playset. For example, in Hansel and Gretel, I hadn’t read that fairy tale in probably 20 years, I couldn’t remember for the life of me who the scary lady was that lived in the candy house. Was she a wicked witch or crazy stepmother? Honestly, it got me so annoyed I had to google the fairy tale and read it for myself to get the sequence right! I know imagination is key, but I am kind of a rule follower.

– At a retail price of about $6.99, similar to the price of a book, it’s a very unique and different way to engage children in reading. Especially for those children who might not like to just read a story, this provides a totally different multi-sensory experience.

– I would suggest using this Play-Doh activity one-on-one with your child, they may need a little help to sound out the words and figure out the story sequence initially.

Hasbro provided these samples free to facilitate a review, the opinions are my own.