Review on 🧩 Wooden Activity Play Cube for Toddlers - Country Critters by Hape, Learning Puzzle Toy with Animal Friends, Shapes, Mazes, Wooden Balls, and Shape Sorter Blocks - 5-Sided Activity Center, 13.78 x 13.78 x 19.69 inches by Johnny Wheat

As I zigzagged through pieces of wood, I stumbled upon this gem. Although slightly more expensive than other cubes of its kind, it offers far more interactive and educational fun than its competitors. THE SIDE OF THE BALL allows kids to see and enjoy the effects of gravity and incline (although it would be great if Hape did this with different inclines so kids can see how the balls move faster on steeper inclines and faster on gentler inclines). move inclines more slowly). units, but isn't) SHAPE SIDE helps enhance recognition of shapes, colors, and other representations of gravity as shapes fall through appropriate slots and are "held" within the device until the child inserts a small red "plug". " pulls out and drops them; THE ANIMAL SIDE OF THE MAZES offers fine motor skills and color matching, as well as problem-solving and math concepts (which color comes first? next? last?), while the BEE SIDE allows kids to explore one type of activity as fast as they spider the hive. Slowly or quickly, watch as the little carpenter bees either ride slowly along the hive's outer edge or jump onto one of the hive's ledges as the hive spins faster (a younger child may need an adult's help to close it fast enough). turn to start jumping) ). Effect). The BEADS maze on top of the cube offers finer motor skills as well as problem solving exercises as they figure out how to move the beads around the wire to get to the end or the other side. As other reviewers have pointed out, this dice is high quality and durable, and it also has nice soft edges to make it easier to hit if it accidentally falls into the corners of the dice. The reason I only gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is that our cube arrived with an incorrectly attached piece of wood inside the cube (animal maze side) which if left that way would incapacitate 3 animals when they were at the straight edge of the maze and couldn't get to the other side (just like other animals couldn't get to the straight side of the maze). Luckily we were able to fix the issue with minimal effort and it's working fine now, but QA should have caught the issue before it became known. Lots of fun, interactive and educational components for the little ones (1 year and up (even the adults in this house love to play with it!).