Customer Reviews

Melissa & Doug Pattern Blocks and Boards

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I bought this toy because my children loved to play with pattern blocks at science and art museums. This was the only toy I found with real wood blocks that were the size and feel of the toys they had played with earlier. Using the blocks alone, my children loved to create an endless number of beautiful geometric patterns. The toy encourages creativity and promotes mathematical thinking.

My daughter, who was five or six at the time, tried using the picture boards. At her age, she was able to do it although it was frustrating when the pieces moved out of place. For awhile, she thought that she had to use the picture boards in order to play with the toy properly. Once she got over that, we had a wonderful toy again.

If you throw away the picture boards from the beginning and let your child's creativity take over, you have a 5 star toy that even older children and adults enjoy tinkering with.

My daughter received these pattern blocks as a present. At 3 1/2, she now loves to play with them. She enjoys the challenge of putting the blocks on the pattern boards and making pictures. Yes, as another reviewer noted, the wood blocks can slide around on the wood pattern boards. My daughter was initially frustrated that the blocks didn't "stick". But, this is not intended to be a puzzle. After sitting with her a few times and showing her she could just move the blocks back into place, the frustration was gone. This is one of her favorites. She especially likes to pick out 2 of the boards and have someone else make one picture while she's making another.

This is basically a set of boards with patterns on them that your child is supposed to replicate with all these tiny puzzle pieces.

The good: It's fun. It's a great way to work on basic math, shapes, and matching. Its also good for small motor development and coordination. Its challenging.

The bad: The pieces are small and nothing holds them in place. They move when another piece is put down and they fall off if your child tries to pick up the board to show you his latest accomplishment. Also, the colors of the pieces are not distinct enough. The purple ones look an awful lot like the blue ones. Finally, the box is awkward to get the puzzle boards out of. I use the top puzzle as a lever to get the others out, but my almost 4 year old can't manage that. How hard would it have been to cut out a finger's width of the inner box?

I DO like this puzzle set, but its not as user-friendly as the other Melissa and Doug products I have seen. In spite of the labels, I do NOT recommend getting this for a 3 year old unless the child has excellent manual dexterity.

This is a great concept but it does not work! The wooden pieces do not stay in place as you put the picture together. It's not awful but it frustrates my child, he wants each piece to stay exactly where he put it! I would try 'Playful Patterns' by Discovery Toys. It has foam pieces on a plastic board so they hold. Also, they have more shapes that can be used to make other shapes - semi circles to make circles, right angled triangles to make squares etc.

My son received this toy over three years ago. I must admit the Pattern Blocks & Boards wasn't a favorite, as it caused frustration. I'd help him pull the boards out of the box, and I'd place some of the tiles close by, so he wouldn't have to reach into the box. William would match the colors, yet he had difficulty with the tiles sliding on the boards. He became so aggravated I put the toy away.

The next time the toy came out, I put the boards up, and we started sorting the tiles. We'd discuss the colors, the shapes, and counted the tiles. We also started combining the tiles to make our own designs. In time, he adjusted to the boards, and became quite good at reproducing the patterns. Now that he's 6, he likes the Pattern Blocks & Boards.

Since we have many Melissa & Doug sets, I like that the lid is clear, so kids can identify the toy. I wish the box had a groove on the board side so it would be easy to grasp, and remove the boards from the box. It's a tight fit, and I have noticed William turning the entire contents out on the table, or floor because he struggles with removing the boards. As it's completely made from wood, this set is very durable. Overall, the Pattern Blocks & Boards is a well-made, educational toy.

My four-year-old son did each of the printed boards once and since then we haven't bothered much with them. It's more fun to play with the tiles by themselves.

And believe it or not, it *is* fun, for all of us. The four-year-old boy makes pictures. The mommy makes groovy geometric patterns. The math nerd dad (that's me) makes dodecagons. I'm especially happy that there are enough pieces for the whole family to play at once.

Pure unguided, creative play. That's where the magic happens, folks.

The pieces do tend to scatter. We don't care.

My three-year-old and I have had so much fun with the pattern blocks. He can put them in place on the boards, but it's even more fun to use them in other creative ways. We also have two nice sets of building blocks that we use to make "castles." We use the pattern blocks for decorations, parquet floors, sidewalks, etc., in and around our elaborate castles. I probably wouldn't recommend "throwing away" the boards that come with the set--but I WOULD recommend using them in other ways, too. Great fun!

I usually love Melissa & Doug toys, but this puzzle was a little disappointing. Although, I love the concept and the educational value of it, it can be pretty frustrating. The pieces do not stay in place. You put one piece in, and the rest of them slide out of place. This puzzle would, probably, be better if the pieces were magnetic. So unless you are planning on getting rid of the picture boards, like one of the reviews recommends, try looking for something better.

I loved pattern blocks as a kid. I remember playing with them in school and there were a ton of them. I never had a board or anything, just pushed them together, made designs.

We got this for my son when he was 4. It's all right... but I see there is a bucket with twice as many blocks (plastic) available on Amazon for the same price. No boards. I think that would be the better way to go. More blocks would be more fun - the boards are OK but more blocks would be better.

What really bugs me about this set, though, is there's no way to really keep it all together. It came with just a floppy flimsy plastic cover that didn't stay on - it just laid over the box. So you have this solid wooden box with loose pattern tiles flopping around in one side. We got my niece the M&D cutting board & food set when she was 2 or so, and later bought the same for my son when he was 2 or 3. My nieces came with a heavy plexiglass sliding cover - my son's came with no cover. I think that M&D have kind of cheaped out on packaging over the years. This should really have a heavy plastic sliding cover - it would make it so much nicer. We got rid of the flimsy plastic cover and I keep the tiles in a cloth drawstring bag - it's really akward though. I guess if you have shelves for toys it's not so bad but we tend to shove everything in drawers.

Anyway - all in all I guess this is just OK. I think you're better off going for just the tiles, in a bigger assortment.

We LOVE this puzzle. It keeps my 3 year old busy for a long time. There are so many different ways to use this puzzle. I agree with the other reviewers that the pieces slide around easily on the puzzle boards and that can become frustrating. But there are a myriad of other creative ways to use the puzzle for the cognitive benefit of your child. We use this puzzle for sorting shapes. I put one of each shape into it's own bowl and she sorts all the other pieces into the correct bowl, following my lead. Then after the sorting process is completed, we use the sorted shapes to make patterns, i.e, octagon, square, octagon, square, octagon, square, etc., She enjoys pouring the shapes from bowl to bowl - it's amazing how long this keeps her occupied. We have also used the shapes to make objects, i.e., flowers, sun, rocket ship, snowman, etc., We've used the puzzle to show same/equal, for example two green triangles put together are the same size (or make the same shape) as one yellow diamond.
Or six triangles put together at the points make one octagon. I overlay the octagon on top of the triangles that form an octagon to show that they are equal. It can be used to teach/re-enforce colors, shapes, left, right, top, bottom, positions, etc., I highly highly recommend this puzzle. The reason I gave 4 stars as opposed to 5 is because the puzzle boards let the shaped-puzzle pieces slip around easily. Even with that one drawback, the puzzle actually does deserve 5 stars.