Customer Reviews

Toobers & Zotz

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

 

 

I love products, which encourage my children to be imaginative and creative. This product seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Marketing deserves an A+ for the colorful and fun looking creations on the box, which encourage consumers to buy this product. That's the one positive I will attribute to this product. Supposedly, this product won lots of awards but all I can figure out is that the judges had to be related to the people that came up with this idea.

My children tore into this product, anxious to begin playing with it. My children's ages are 3, 3, and 6. Similar to another reviewer, they played with it for approx. 5 minutes and haven't touched it since. Also like the 3 year old mentioned in one of the reviews, one of my 3 year olds began breaking them into pieces with glee. If you have ever tried to get an item out of a box with tons of packing peanuts on top of it, this product rates right up there in the annoyance category. There are lots of small zots to punch out and for some reason I was under the impression that these zots might adhere in some way. They don't and it was one big mess. Think throwing packing peanuts all over your living room and you will get an idea of what a pain in the arse this is.

I realize you are suppose to use your imagination but there were no instructions or designs to copy off of. It would have been extremely helpful to have design cards so that you would have something to work from. My 6 year old got extremely frustrated because he wanted to make a boat and didn't know how. I ended up helping him make a guitar that was pictured on the front of the box.

I have two products that I would highly recommend if you're looking for something creative for your children to do. The first product is Playmais, which are foam pieces that you moisten with water and you can make any type of configuration you want. I live in Germany and was first introduced to this at a kinderfest. It is fantastic and even the youngest can have fun. Adults that I observed at the festival seemed to really love it and I enjoyed it. The 2nd product is Wedgits. I purchased the junior tote travel that came in a nice bag with an activity booklet. This is lots of fun and all 3 have played with it. The activity booklet is one of those wipe off books which is great and it also comes with these nice big colorful cards that have designs on them to get the creative juices going. An added bonus is that both of these products are fun for the adults too.

Leave the toobers and zots alone. This may be my second review ever and for me to take the time to write this means I feel strongly about something. I hate being ripped off and this is a rip off. Save your money and get one of the other two products mentioned above or better yet, get both.

Quick note....as I finished writing this review, my two sons are playing with Magnetix. I got a huge set of these and they have been playing with them for over an hour, making a very long train and loading up the magnetic balls in their trucks. You can make all sorts of fun things so I wanted to mention this as another great product.

I bought this on sale at Target. My 6-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son LOVE this toy. The toy is made of the same type of foam that swimming "noodles" are made of. This product is much more than just plain packing peanuts as was mentioned in another product review. So far, nothing has torn, but I can see how in time the foam might tear with rough use. My kids have played with this for two days in a row now, for an hour each time. They love the large foam 1" diameter tubes that have wire inside. This set comes with one long blue wired tube, three medium red wired tubes and two short yellow wired tubes. The rest of the set doesn't have wires imbedded inside the foam. Those pieces come in circle, dot, star burst, triangle and mini tube shapes. My son has created an airplane, dinosaur, shower head and kings crown all by himself. My daughter finds it frustrating because she wants to make the things pictured on the box, but there are no directions on how to make them. However, she has made some creations of her own. This toy should have a color brochure with directions on how to make various things. There are a lot of small pieces and clean up takes some effort. I wasn't able to get everything back into the box neatly, so I put the wired foam tubes, rolled up in the box and the rest of the set fits into two gallon size Ziploc bags. You have to keep the box because it has color pictures with ideas. One thing that is neat about this toy is that because the creations are lightweight, your child can wear or carry their masterpiece around the house. It's so different from any other construction toy we have (Legos, Lincoln Logs). This toy doesn't get a five star rating because of the high price and exclusion of idea brochure. If you can find it on sale, I recommend it for ages 4 and up.

We've had this toy for years and our 6 year old boy loves it. It blows me away the things he makes with it--weedwhacker, crazy hats and crowns, silly creations. I would not try to copy stuff, just make your own things with it. I don't understand or agree with the critism of this toy...it's a good toy! Just don't give it to a child to ahead of their age skill level--which is true for any toy.

I purchased this product for my six year old. He thinks it is just OK. My three year old broke the pieces easily.

My 3 year old's preschool group played with this toy for an hour the other day, and my son cried when we had to put it away because he hated to tear down his creation! This is definitely an educational toy that I will be buying for my own home--the creative possibilities it allows are endless! Very good buy.

I used to have these when I was a kid, and was just thinking of buying them for my nephews since mine are long gone.

I was reading the other reviews and I think people are missing the point of this toy. Maybe it's a generational thing, maybe I was just an imaginative kid, but what I loved most about these was that I could make anything I could think of out of them, and not be constrained to the pictures on the box, or directions. I find that my nephew gets frustrated with his legos when he doesn't have step by step directions to tell him what to do, and it honestly makes me a little sad. Gone are the days of the random mixed up box of legos and the "figure it out" mentality. . now everything has a theme - harry potter, pirates of the caribbean, etc., there is no need for an imagination.

This really is a great educational toy for teaching your kids to use their imagination, and figure things out how to make what they want to on their own.

Oh and just a note: there are small parts, and they can be torn apart, so I would recommend this for kids over 6.

Got this for my son for Christmas last year, and while he didn't play with them much at first, recently he has been making golf clubs and giraffes, and other twisty-turny things ... he likes the larger "Toobers" (which we call "zoobers") the most. We got it on super-sale so I wouldn't say it's worth $34 listed, which is one reason why it's not rated higher. He is very rough on his toys but these have been durable & hasn't fallen apart in the almost year we've had them. Great for making silly hats, too!

I just thought these were flimsy, but I guess that's what you get from foam. I also didn't like that the wires would poke out of the tube shapes after a while.

I ordered the Toobers and Zots for use with my kindergarten art students as directed by my school system. They have been studying sculpture and 3D form. I gave them the assignment to make imaginary playgrounds. They worked in groups of two to create these playgrounds. The students were so excited to get their hands on the Toobers and Zots.

It is not unusual for these students to work a while with something and declare they are finished before the end of class. That did not happen with these materials. While they only had about 30 minutes of worktime, they spent every moment excitedly working with these. They even had to work cooperatively with a student I chose as their partner, and I did not even get one complaint about that. They absolutely loved these things.

My older art students have seen the colorful forms in my art room and have asked to give them a try as well.

Reading some of the other reviews, I see that some folks were disappointed that there were no instruction sheets to follow. The whole point of these is to create something original. I can see where trying to copy someone else's work could be frustrating for a child, so go in another direction with this.

I would suggest that if your child has trouble thinking of how to use these, you might suggest some very open ended ideas. They could create an imaginary animal; a new kind of vehicle; a crazy new spaceship; a funny hat; a playground. I did notice that some children didn't understand that you can bend the toobers so that they zigzag and curl. They needed to see how I bent them in all directions before they tried that as well.

I'm not sure if my preschool art students would know what to do with these, but my 5 and 6 year old students had a blast with them.

I just got this product and my 9 and 6 year old LOVE them (and so do my hubby and I--yes, we ALL play with them, no joke!)! We have used them as swords, whips and designs and no breakage yet (yes, my boys beat each other with them). My boys have made indian hats, flowers, shields, cool swords, letters (ABC kinds), bridges, etc. (yes, you need your imagination to "see" some of those designs). There is a booklet that comes with it which shows 30 or so different ideas. It does not show how to make those designs, but it is not hard to follow from the final picture. (One person complained that there were no pictures with the toys).

My boys are good at being creative (they love Legos/Duplos/Bionicles and create their own masterpieces from those items), so this product was just another dimension of creative play for them. If your child is not creative in that sense, this might not be so exciting and fun for them.

The directions specify not to twist tightly (also read as wringing it) nor to bend the tubes back and forth repeatedly (imagine bending any wire back and forth repeatedly--it breaks at the crease). It also states to NOT FIX the broken tubes, just throw them away. The instructions are clear on these points. There is round-tipped aluminum wiring in the middle of each of the long tubes (to keep the bendable shape). This is also shown in the booklet. The only way for the pointed metal to show is if the tube is cut or broken in half. This aluminum is also covered by about 1/2 inch of fairly durable foam material, even on the ends, so I am not sure how they stuck out the ends of the foam (one complaint), plus the ends of the aluminum are rounded on purpose (complaint was that pointed metal stuck out).

If you have a chewer, I would be careful, because the child could bite off the foam and expose the aluminum wire. I also don't have to worry about them sticking the little pieces in their mouths, but MOST pieces are not that small. There are some that look like life savers (fractionally smaller than a quarter and 3 quarters thick) so those would pose a problem. There are also the dots (the inside of the lifesaver)that have to be punched out (like for a new game...they can be thrown away--unless you want to refill the holes with different colors for cool designs. The holes are really for the small tubes). I have the littler pieces (aka the lifesavers and dots) in a see through snack bag, but the boys don't use these very much. The next smallest sizes are big enough to see if a child sticks them in their mouth. Again if a child is a biter, they could rip those pieces too. It is easy enough to keep the little pieces out of the way (put in a sandwich bag and seal it) and put them out of reach.