Customer Reviews

Alex Tub Tunes Water Flutes

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My son is almost 3 and he LOVES these flutes (he calls them "whistles").

SOUND: Honestly, the sound is not as annoying as the average recorder or whistle (though the higher pitches become correspondingly, well, shriller).

HOW THEY WORK: The note each of these instruments plays is based on how much water is in the flute, which means that if you're doing this with a three year old you need to help them carefully fill these flutes to the right level (and you're probably not going to be playing the included songs right away). I think this is actually great educational value--practice letters with little kids, talk about the relationship between the water level and the sound as the child gets older, including scales, etc.) but if you're hoping your kid is going to play ("properly") with this toy on his or her own at 3 or 4, you might be disappointed.

PROBLEM--DRINKING THE BATH WATER: I would actually suggest parents with younger children consider playing with these outside of the bathtub (maybe with a deep bowl of water for filling the flutes?). I say this because if your kid tips the flute back (that is, instead of holding it in "recorder" position, he chooses "trumpet" position) water will pour into his mouth. Since the bath water is not the cleanest, I'm not thrilled about that. Ditto if you're thinking of using them in a pool. Obviously, it's good to teach your kids the proper way to hold these instruments, but still, preschool age kids are always going to be tipping them back some of the time, even by accident.

Anyway, in short, I think these are really fun toys, and I'll definitely be buying them for friends!

These are marketed toward younger children, but my 9 yr. old loves them. She's quite impressed now playing Mary Had a Little Lamb by memory :) You can keep all the flutes together in the holder or take them apart if you have more than one child.

I will warn that after a while you get sick of hearing the kids playing the same songs over and over and over again, but they're happy so just wear some earplugs.

My daughter loves being in the tub, so naturally, we looked at the Alex products and bought quite a few. The flutes do not stay in the blue foam holder at all, and they slip, so they will not stay at the same level either. My daughter can use the flutes individually, which does not help when you want to do a song. If the holder was a snap-in holder, it would be a better product. My husband is going to try and rig something up.

Not sure what I was thinking when I got these but my 3 year old loves to blow them like the horrible hell whistles that they are as I bathe her in our small, vaulted ceiling bathroom and the result is ear piercing. If you have a echo chamber for a bathroom, think twice.

This is my child's favorite new bath toy. He is three and easily figured out how to use them and tries every night to "make music". GREAT bath toy.

Cute toy and idea. However, the foam flute holder does NOT work well. With water in them making them heavier and a wet/slippery foam, the flutes do not stay in place. They slip down and/or out of the foam holder all together. Still, my 2 year old enjoys using them one at a time. As she gets older, it would be neat to be able to use the music cards to play a song...IF the flutes could stay in place. Educationally, even my 2 year old realizes they sound different with various levels of water in each flute. She'll add water, remove it, etc. to see how the sound changes. A nice idea would be to add a edge so it's more evident to younger ages where their mouth should stop in order to blow into the flutes. It's more difficult for a younger child to know they can't cover the top hole or the sound won't come out. A stronger holder, and the lip alteration would simply expand the target age group.

My 1 and 5 year old received this for Christmas this past year. We've owned it for almost 10 months.

At first, I was worried about the water getting gross staying inside the flutes, but it is fairly simple to just put them into the basket upside down, and the bottom screws a drain open so they can air out.

They do tend to leak slowly - so they do not hold their tone for a long time.

Filling them up is easy, but getting them to the right level is sometimes tricky - especially if the toddler wants to hold the toy.

I'm not even sure where the blue holder is ... they won't stay in the holder. This makes it hard to play a tune, as you cannot hold onto 5 at once with little hands.

My older boy does enjoy the musical aspect of them, but mostly he uses them to fill and watch the water drip out. However, one of my nephew's likes to play with them when he is over, he has figured out they make different sounds with the level of the water. He has a "scientific" curiosity.

I think this would be better used as a teaching tool than a bath tub toy ... and since I homeschool, I look forward to using it for our science unit on sound later this year - I expect this will cause J to do a lot of further experimenting when we return them to the tub.

They appear quite durable, and have held up to being stepped on (by the kids) and banged on the side of the tub. They have, so far, always cleaned up really well, they do not smell bad, and the colored markings are not washing off.

The colors are bright, and my 1 yo likes to talk about the colors and watch the water go in and out of the tubes.

The sheets of music stick nicely to our garden tub walls - but my kids really don't use them, they just sit in the basket.

I got this for my son for Christmas and he loves all the flutes. He will play with them in and out of the tub. Although he doesn't understand that filling them with a certain amount of water will change the tone; he simply likes to carry them around.

My son got this a long time ago, and it was NOT the toy for him. He ignored the actual cool aspects of this toy, and decided to pretend they were guns, or beakers, anything but what they were. When he DID play with them, he didn't fill them with water, so it was a shrill horrible whistle. However, they are remarkably durable. He put them through their paces as everything but whistles and they stood up fine. They can be kind of gross though after a while. Keep an eye on them and clean them well.

When *I* played with them, I had a blast. I can see how these would teach a kid to experiment, and teach them about music.

But only if they were the right kid. Not for impulsive kids who can't sit still!!

My 2-1/2 year old son likes these flutes, for making noise and for playing with sinking and floating. They are fun colors, seem pretty durable and I think he'll continue to get more out of them as he develops a little more patience. I like the plastic sheet music that stick to the tub tiles!