Fisher Price Stacking Surprise Peek a Boo Choo Choo

We bought our daughter this fun train for her first birthday. It appealed to me for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I knew Lily would be attracted by the fact it's a train - she just loves choo choo trains (Chuggington is one of her favourite CBeebies programmes!). Secondly, I liked the fact that pressing the 'funnel' part of the train triggered it to play little melodies, accompanied by the funnel lighting up. Great sensory appeal, therefore. The train's rear carriage comes complete with four stackable blocks which little uns can stack on any of the train's four 'building surfaces' and these little blocks reveal little pop up friendly faces (hence the name peek a boo!) when the train is pulled along - easily done so thanks to a nice sturdy handle on the top. 

When we initially gave Lily the toy, all she seemed content to do was 'de-rail' it, systematically pulling the front carriage apart from the rear, throwing the stacking blocks here there and everywhere and then pressing the funnel part before crawling off to destroy another toy!! But as she has got older she has begun to push and pull the train along more and as her fascination with building has increased so the block element of the train have come into their own. That's not to say that Lily doesn't still have fun taking the toy apart. I often play the game of putting the train together at the end of a night and it's a case of hunt the stacking blocks (nine times out of ten they have been deposited in the travel cot - come playpen!)

We may have only had the toy a few months but its durability has certainly been put to the test thanks to Lily's throwing skills. It's a colourful product, offering lots of interest to a little un and isn't too badly priced. Crucially it doesn't take up too much room and as Lily's toy collection is growing with her, that's a good thing!! As with all musical toys, the music can become annoying if little uns decide to press the funnel over and over again (which Lily sometimes does) but there is the facility for turning the sound level down a notch or indeed off!