🧩 Melissa & Doug USA Sound Puzzle: Engaging Educational Toy for Kids Review

I bought this for my play therapy room and can't believe how many kids play with it so much! Kids of all ages love this. Please note that I didn't put batteries in the puzzle because I prefer toys that don't make noise, and even without noise, kids like it!

We've had a lot of M&D toys in the past. Most of them are of excellent quality, but none of the ones we received should have sound. One simply produced no sound, the other at such a low volume that almost nothing could be heard. You can't seem to get this part right for some reason.

I expected too much. The puzzle's voice will say the name of the state and capital (the room must be quiet), but the puzzle piece doesn't have to be right! If a puzzle piece touches an area of a state, the state and capital are pronounced even if the wrong puzzle piece is placed on it. I remembered a riddle I had a long time ago. It's really not worth the money. Buy at your own risk!

As you place the pieces in their place, the movement of your hand will activate them through other states. I thought it was a magnetic pickup or something when they put a track on it but no. Instead, you have a confused kid getting information about all those other states and capitals BEFORE writing down theirs. Complete design flaw. I'm still considering bringing it back, but the item's durability made me think about leaving it as a regular puzzle.

Good First of all, it's a good idea and a challenge for smart kids. My complaint is the states don't quite match, it says he talks to you and tells you the state and capital. And it is, but you have to put the board to your ear to hear a murmur. Pieces of the puzzle don't stay in place. When my 3 year old tries to work on the states, she keeps fixing the ones on the board. I feel like they should be a magnet or have groves to sit on.

If there are multiple small states on the same puzzle piece, list/pronounce all capitals and states. I thought about it before I bought this puzzle. Some place names are misspelled. I don't know if this is a technical issue or if other regions pronounce the SD capital differently than we do. There was another one, but I don't remember which capital. It does exactly what I bought it for - practice US geography while I change my diaper or cook dinner.

I really like the idea of this puzzle. My 21 year old daughter had a similar one when she was little. I don't like it as much as what she had. It was plastic, and the fragments were pressing down on something that gave some indication of its condition. This one is made of wood, so there are light sensors that trigger the sound. It doesn't work that well because the hands often cause the sound as well. I also don't like that some states are combined, but that's not a big problem. All in all…

So first let me tell you how much my 3 year old loves this puzzle. She completed the puzzle within hours of her arrival. I didn't have the patience to put the battery in. As soon as I put the battery in, we found that the puzzle - the sound part was broken. Thank you for bringing back the Amazons. Finding a replacement was easy. It worked fine until we went to Mississippi. Then the puzzle got stuck there. It won't go to the other parts we host. So we took that out and decided to put the…