Ideas for kids xmas presents, review of play doh candy cyclone

Boy paying with playdoh

Christmas is round the corner and I'm always looking out for toys that other people recommend. So here's what we thought of the play doh candy cyclone.

I bought this toy for my second son's 3rd birthday. He's a keen playdoh-er and it was instantly a hit. He's spent hours turning sausages into balls (which is essentially what the machine does.) And it's covered in little sweet moulds, presumably so you can squish the little balls into the moulds. In short, it's a great toy and we've definitely had hours worth of fun out of it.

A boy playing with playdoh

On a more practical note, it is quite difficult to clean. It says 'age 3' on the box and perhaps Play Doh haven't met any 3 year olds but in my experience they like ramming things into things. I know in an ideal world my children would be closely supervised, but having 4 of them and not having a house keeper or an army of slaves at my disposal, this isn't always the case. So, whilst my back was turned for a brief period, said 3 year old had rammed an entire pot of play doh into the machine. It was quite time consuming to remove. I don't understand why they didn't design it so that the front opened as well as the back. There's a little hole that you're supposed to poke a pokey thing into to remove the extra doh. As if parents of 3 year olds have excess time to kill.

And one final word, this toy is not for pay-doh colour purists. Your lovely pink, orange, green and purple will end up as a green/brown splodgy mess (albeit a quite pretty mess).

Other than that, I would definitely recommend it. Just remember not to eat the sweets!

A playdoh lolly

Playdoh sweeties

Our other most favourite toy in the house is lego. Lego in general. The kids will spend hours playing lego. You do have to make sure you get the right age, otherwise it's too difficult for them. And lego have recently started doing superhero lego. Double bonus. Our current favourite favourite favourite is Lex Luthor's power armour. But sorry, no photos as it's in pieces so you'll just have to take my word for it...

Here's the link for the candy cyclone at amazon and the power armour.