Review on Educational Insights Tail Trails Game: Listening & Following Directions for Toddlers, Age 2+ - Engaging Toddler Toy by Mazie Laporte

The premise of this product is that it teaches toddlers to follow instructions. The parents roll the die and then hide the cats with their tails sticking out as indicated. The run will vary depending on your child's vocabulary and language skills, but the basic idea is to reinforce position words like under, inside, over, behind, between (Level 1). Pictures of furniture can be too literal for younger children. Perhaps the positioning should be simple shapes in muted colors rather than a chair (above), bed (below) or curtains (back). You can add three different colors as an extra level of difficulty to create sequences (first, then, then), but the toy is completely timeless and you can create your own games and rules. For older children, the Parent Guide has a Level 3 that can be used to set a daily routine such as waking up, brushing teeth, having breakfast, etc. "Use Tail Trails to create a story and practice daily activities. Players use clues to find cats based on connections to their real life. The hide-and-seek player hides all three cats in the order that the child can follow the daily routine. "I'm skeptical of how beneficial that is as a parent. I'd rather just reinforce the routine with daily repetition without using cats as crutches. For example, our bedtime routine consists of changing pants, brushing our teeth, and telling stories. I don't want to introduce an artificial external factor like cats. This might be a good idea for some parents, but it's not a strategy we agree with in our home. Another reason for my 3 stars is the build quality. The cube is just paper. It should be plastic for durability. The crampons themselves are made of hard plastic and make a durable impression. They are easy to unscrew and clean. Only slightly educational, but at $11 at the time of writing this article, it's not bad considering the quality of the 3 cute cats. Parents can simply use their own brains instead of the block and other stuffed animals or favorite toys to achieve the same effect.