Customer Reviews

36 Sq.ft. Alphabet Floor Mat

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

We bought this to use in our son's playroom under his new playset/slide. We wanted it for cushioning and for letter and number recognition as he grows older. He loves it. It is colorful and fun for him to take apart. I know it will serve both cushioning and educational purposes.

However, this is not a 62 piece set; it has well over 100 pieces when you count 26 letter blocks, 10 number blocks, 36 edging pieces; and then add again 36 pieces for the numbers and letters because they all pop out of the blocks; plus many squares, like B, D, O, P, Q, and R, have center pieces which come out (for example: two extra pieces for centers of the letter B). The numerous pieces also has me concerned about the smaller parts getting mislaid.

I would recommend this product, however, unless the parent is prepared to be picking up and putting together many pieces, I would not recommend it for a child as young as mine.

These interlocking foam mats are perfect for building a play fort, assembling cubes to play with, or for laying down as a play mat for safety. Large sizes are great, and a solid way to teach letters and numbers. Fantastic for outside in the summer with water, mud and all the rest. Spray with the hose to clean, then bring back in for the winter. The only downside is small mouths and teeth can take chunks out of the foam if your child is particularly determined...

We received this mat as a shower gift. We intended to make it be the "rug" in the nursery so we put it together before the Baby arrived. During the process, we discovered that several of the edge pieces were malformed or broken. Thus began the long and arduous process of contacting the manufacturer via telephone, email, etc. Let's just say that their right hand didn't know what their left hand was doing. In the end, we went to BRU and asked if we could exchange the mat we had for one in the store. They allowed us to do so, so we opened up one of the mats in the store to check for more broken pieces. Alas, every single mat in stock except for the last one had broken edge pieces. I don't know if this was a bad batch or what. Anyhow, we finally got one that was complete. Back at home, we once again started putting the mat together only to discover that lining up the letters in a 6x6 square with the numbers following resulted in stripes of color (unlike the pseudo random color pattern shown in the description of the product) followed by a totally different stripe of color for the numbers section. We were forced to arrange the mat as follows: first row: 1,2,3,4,5,6, second row: A,B,C,D,E,7, third row: F,G,H,I,J,8, fourth row: K,L,M,N,O,9, fifth row: P,Q,R,S,T,0, sixth row: U,V,W,X,Y,Z. This was the only way to get a decent looking "rug" colorwise and still have it make sense alphabetically/numerically. Baby loves his mat. He is learning to crawl on it. Spitting up is not a problem, as it is easy to wipe clean. It is soft so that if he rolls over on his head he doesn't get hurt. Hubby and I remove individual letters for him and make the associated sounds. We even play dancing Sesame Street Letters and make short words. He seems fascinated. We always hide the smaller pieces when we take out letters so that he can't choke on them. I do not know how this will work when he gets a little older and he will want to tear things apart by himself. It would be better if the letters were solid rather than with gaps, thus making all those little pieces. Another one of those great concept things that could use a bit of improvement in implementation and customer service. I do not for a moment regret asking for it on my registry despite the hassle, however.

I just received this as a gift and love it! The squares for each letter and number are bigger than I thought, and the mat covers the entire space I wanted it to, when I thought it'd be more like an area rug. As a mat it is soft and cushiony enough for play and seems like it will last a long time. I'm thinking of getting another one, so I can spell out lots of words for my son to learn to read - more than one set of vowels would be great. The colors are bright and look great on the floor, and the edge pieces finish it off nicely.

I have purchased THREE of these and connected them together to make an entire floor of colorful letters and numbers in my son's room. Our entire house is tiled and this was a dream come true, he just turned one and I have had no problems with the mats. He learned to crawl and now walk on this with not one boo-boo to him. His toys have a safe landing when thrown and when he falls, (he's only been walking a few weeks} he lands much more safely than on the hard ceramic tile. As for wear- I use the vacum and it's fine, once in a while I use a damp sponge to wipe it clean when needed. I have no durability problems, the only wear it shows is cat claw marks and that's only because I have six cats, and it STILL wears great. The pieces I have don't fall out or seperate at all except for what my son pulls out and then he likes to try to put it back in, that's the whole point of it being in pieces. I monitor my son while he plays and have no trouble of him trying to eat pieces or of them getting lost. This item grows with the child as he'll have lots of fun learning numbers and letters. A godsend to people with tile floors, especially those with pets that are subject to have "accidents" and CAN'T put down any carpets, I can tell you, cat's might scratch at this but that's the only fun they get from it. I plan on doing the next baby's floor the same way. You really get your money's worth for it's durable, educational and isn't babyish for the older kids.

Our 3 yr old son received this mat as a gift over a year ago. His favorite things in the world are numbers and letters. He insisted we put it together the minute it was opened and he has played with it almost every day since then. He loves to pull the letters & numbers out and make numbers ("What's this number, mommy?") and words. He loves to play with them and I feel they've contributed to his early reading. I love the padding it gives his floor. It also replaced a small rug and acts as insulation (like a rug would). The only drawbacks (and they're minor to me) are the small pieces getting lost (we've only lost one permanently) and cleaning under the mat. Cleaning the top is easy - wipe with damp sponge and you're set. But dirt and hair (in our home that includes human or feline) stick to the underside easily. We can quickly sweep the top of the entire mat when all assembled. But we've had to pull it all apart, sweep the underside of each piece w/ a little dust broom, and reassemble. And that is a lot of work. Well worth the periodic effort in my book. Because this has to be his favorite toy.

My 2 years old loves this mat set. Not only can he tumble, roll, and play on this mat, but he's learning his colors, letters, and numbers. What an ingenious idea!

i bought this mat for my baby b/c we have hard wood floors and i wanted somewhere soft for her to play. It helped when she would try to sit up and fall over but that is about it. My daughter would take the end pieces off and chew on them then she moved on to pulling all the pieces apart. It was such a pain to keep putting it together and making sure she didn't have foam pieces in her mouth. This product now sits in a closet maybe i will use it again when she gets older for learning her abc's.

If you are looking for a soft place for your baby to play I don't recommed this product.

We registered for this mat hoping that it would be great to use as cushioning in the play room and a fun learning tool as our baby grew. And it does cushion, when it's not falling apart. The edging and the centers to the letters and numbers, and the letters and numbers themselves, are always popping up as our baby crawls on them, catching her hand or foot the wrong way. It just doesn't stay together - we've tried everything. It's really more annoying than it's worth. Now we use it outside under our daughter's kiddie pool for a little cushioning - I don't care if it blows away at this point. What a waste of money. They sell larger squares w/o letters and numbers - I'll maybe try those instead.

Our seven month old is too young to use this as a toy. It is, nonetheless, a GREAT playmat to cushion his tush from hardwood floors. He "reads" his books sitting on it, he crawls on it, rolls around on it, drools on it and plays with his age appropriate toys on it. As far as the small pieces getting dislodged, they can be temporarily taped in place from the back side so that they do not pop out until the child is old enough to use them and learn with them.