Melissa & Doug Farm Wooden Chunky Puzzle

by Melissa & Doug

Product Features

• Pieces stand on their own for additional play
• Thick puzzle pieces are easy for small hands
• Full-color pictures beneath each piece
• This unique puzzle promotes pretend play as well as matching skills
• Recommended Age Range 2 Years and up

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.2 x 0.9 inches ; 1.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000E9DPCW
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: 3723
• Manufacturer recommended age: 24 months - 5 years
• Batteries: 3723 Lithium ion batteries required.
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,239 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
  • #24 in Toys & Games > Preschool > Pre-Kindergarten Toys > Puzzles
  • #38 in Toys & Games > Puzzles
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

It's truly a FRESH START for puzzles! This hand-painted, playfully styled puzzle is like nothing you've seen before! The thick, chunky wooden puzzle pieces fit neatly into their spots on the colorful board and also stand up for additional pretend play. Full-color pictures beneath each piece.

Product Description

This hand-painted, playfully styled Jumbo Puzzle is sure to capture and keep the attention of curious young minds. The thick, chunky wooden puzzle pieces fit neatly into their spots on the colorful board and also stand up for additional pretend play. Puzzle features full-color images beneath each piece to guide little ones. Measures 12"H x 11"W x 0.8"D.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars New design, very disappointing, July 1, 2009

By 

T. Walker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:1.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Melissa & Doug Farm Wooden Chunky Puzzle (Toy)

When I ordered this puzzle the product description said "wood" and "hand painted", the customer reviews also raved about these features. When I got the puzzle I was very disappointed to find that the puzzle pieces are MDF board, not wood or even plywood, and the puzzle board was MDF and plywood. Additionally they were not painted at all but had paper stickers that immediately started tearing off.

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars MDF Does Not a Wooden Puzzle Make, December 11, 2009

By 

goonius (a room in a house on a street in a city just like any other.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

= Durability:2.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Melissa & Doug Farm Wooden Chunky Puzzle (Toy)

This toy is fun. The farm animals are super cute. It's a great concept for a 'first' puzzle, with it's bright fun animals and easy-match puzzle board. It is certainly educational, and when I bought it I felt pretty good about my kids playing with it.

I bought this puzzle expecting it to be precisely what was advertised: A wooden puzzle. Naive to the world of children's toys, I took that description at face value. When I think wooden, I think solid wood, which is what these pieces appear to be. They have a nice heavy feel to them, and when thoroughly coated in paint, considering the false advertising, you'd really have no reason to expect otherwise.

Enter time and a little rough tossing around of the puzzle pieces, and as the paint begins to chip away, another story is revealed. These puzzle pieces are nothing but pressed paper-like sawdust material. When revealed beneath the chipped-off paint, this dry, dusty substance easily flakes off where it can get into little mouths and become part of the general household dust.

Okay, so Melissa and Doug fudged a little on their description. What might have been wood once upon a time is now thinly pressed layers of sawdust and resin, but it was wood in a previous life, and that still counts, right? It's intentionally deceptive marketing, but does any of that really matter in the practical sense?

I think it does.

Medium density fiberboard (MDF) is nasty stuff. Containing a higher resin-to-wood ration than any other pressed wood product, MDF emits VOCs for at least a few months after manufacture and emits urea formaldehyde for the duration of its life. I doubt there have been any studies on using pressed wood for a child's toy that may be mouthed and is nonetheless handled frequently and in close proximity to their faces during day-to-day play. There have been studies suggesting urea formaldehyde is a suspected carcinogen; others show that incidences of leukemia and lymphoma increase through prolonged exposure of VOCs in the indoor environment.

Bottom line, most MDF is not something you want in your home in any form, and it's probably not the best thing to make a child's toy out of. There are ways to manufacture MDF which use resins that do not contain formaldehyde which are supposed to be environmentally friendly. I contacted Melissa and Doug to find out if they use these formaldehyde-free resins in their MDF. They've got really friendly customer service, but no one available could provide me with that information. I was told they'd get back to me. I'm still waiting.

In the meantime, I think I'll just stick with the old adage: You get what you pay for.

I think the important part is knowing what you're getting when you decide to purchase it and not being led falsely into believing you're paying for superior materials when you're really just buying a few adorable cubes or formaldehyde-imbued garbage coated thickly in conveniently concealing paint. Had this been disclosed in the description, I'd have no gripe with this puzzle. I also would not have purchased it to begin with.

There are solid wood (and plywood) puzzles out there. They cost anywhere from 2 to 3 times as much as a Melissa and Doug 'wooden' puzzle (sometimes more), but most have the added bonus of not being made in China; a small detail of Melissa and Doug's toys that has always sent a red flag of sorts up for me.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Changed the style!!!, May 19, 2010

By 

M. Lindsay - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Melissa & Doug Farm Wooden Chunky Puzzle (Toy)

I bought one of these puzzles (Sea Life) a few years ago, and it was a beautiful puzzle. The puzzle pieces were completely painted and smooth. I have seen all the puzzles in this style at libraries and church nurseries and they have all been beautiful. Until now. Melissa and Doug have changed the style of this puzzle. I bought two (Farm and Vehicles) today expecting them to be nice like my old one. The pieces are no longer painted. They have stickers on top of scratchy particle board (i.e. jagged bottom edges and dusty stuff falling all over). The cow use to have defined, carved ears and now it is just a smooth top with a sticker that looks like it was cut wrong. What's more, I got this today, opened it 1 hour ago, and the stickers are already peeling off. My toddler hasn't even put these in his mouth yet--and I won't let him as chunks of the "wood" will come off into his mouth if he did and the stickers would probably disintegrate. I have written the company to let them know that this new idea is a bad one. Don't buy unless they change it back.