Customer Reviews

Parents Magazine Bee Bop Band Play & Learn Drum & Instruments

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This little set includes super sturdy instruments for five kids to form a marching band. My children (ages 3.5 and 1.5) and their friends love marching in a line, dancing and singing. Other sets at big name stores seemed very poorly manufactured and likely to be destroyed very easily, not to mention the safety hazard with the younger set. Hang the drum around you neck and find the beat, shake the shaker, clap the clapper, jingle the bells, rock the tambourine, play the ladybug xylophone and have a blast.

My 1 year old son just received this for his birthday & it's one of his favorite toys. He loves it & it's the first thing he goes to every morning. He takes the lid off & pulls all the instruments out to find what he wants to play with. Each instrument is child friendly & looks like a different bug. All the toys are easy for small children to grip. It includes a drum & drumsticks, tambourine, bells, maracas, and a xylophone type toy with a little stick that I think is a little dangerous for small children. My son uses the drumsticks on various surfaces & since they're plastic, they don't scratch the surface. I also wish that it included a pair of cymbals. Other than this, I think it's a great set & can be used for many years to come. It's a great value for the money. And with the set, you receive a year subscription to Parents magazine, which is a great offer.

My 15 month old LOVES the Ant bells, bee-shaker & Drum features. He also uses it as a seat when the lid is on and enjoys fitting inside the drum when empty! It's been a little over 4 months now and he still runs to it! The drum sticks have little rubber bumbs on them for better infant grip. We implement the "drumming" on many different surfaces so he can hear the different sounds on different surfaces. The toys are easy to disinfect. We usually save this toy for a rainy day to "beat" the gloomy blahs!

Amazon is selling this WAY OVER PRICE. It sells for about $19.99 at Target. Otherwise it is a great musical gift for babys and toddlers.

This was the only music toy kit I could find for under 3-years of age. My son just turned three and has had this toy since he was 18 mos old and he still plays with it.

Now, years later, I have to say, we got years out of this toy. My second child loved it and she's now 4. Finally after having this toy in our rotation for the past 6 years, we donated the remaining pieces to a day care. The drum was great for storage and pick up, but alas, it was the first thing to break. The rest of the pieces survived two rambunctious toddlers. I think it has a new color scheme now, but it is one of those toys I give as gifts.

My Parents-as-Teachers guide brought this over & my daughter fell in love with it. So we of course had to go get one right away for our home. We march all over the house, playing all the instruments. This has been a ton of fun for us!

This toy is sold elsewhere on Amazon under the name B. Parum Pum Pum Drum for $20. Save your money.

I bought this toy set for my kids years ago and it's been so much fun! HOWEVER, the design issues surrounding the Bee Bop Band have plagued this toy and the companies who make it (Battat & Parents Magazine). First, the company was ordered to replace the drum sticks due to unsafe design (tendency to shatter at the tip). I was ok with that, because they were being responsible in getting the defective toys out of the hands of children.

However, I recently discovered that the ladybug xylophone that was in my set is No Longer Included in the current set. There's no mention of why or contact to parents to inform them to remove it from play due to its tendency to break into many small and sharp pieces. I had not realized that it was not in the current model until I called Battat to report a problem with the xylophone.

I knew there might be a problem since the number on the label no longer worked and I had to look them up on the internet. It foreshadowed the difficulty I would have in being able to talk to a human. After leaving several messages and some creative dialing (random number pushing in hope of connecting to anyone human in their mailbox system), I spoke with a man who assured me he would give a note personally to Carrie (the one I'd left many messages for. I received a call 48 hours later from Carrie informing me that the xylophone had not been included in the set for the last 3 years AND that Parents went out of business in 2010, so they don't have anyone to report this incident to. She said she'd inform the president of the company and his secretary. After that, it was out of her hands.

So, the xylophone was excluded from the set 3 years ago without telling anyone who already owns the set why, or warned to watch for certain vulnerabilities. That is wrong! And since one partnering company is 'out of business', the other acts incapacitated and washes their hands of it? No wonder there are so many lawyers. I'm just thankful that my baby didn't ingest or choke on it, that I was there to see it happen and protect my child. Buyer BEWARE! Not a good track record for this set! I hope and pray that the company acts responsibly about this hazard before a child is harmed. But since the xylophone was excluded a few years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if a child was already hurt and they kept it quiet after the drum stick fiasco that cost them dearly ($150,000 in fines and voluntary recall of 300,000 sets.
Here's a link for details of the recall: [...]

I'm hoping they do the right thing and make this public knowledge - protecting children. Looking into contacting the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission myself, like the other 25 people did to get Battat to recall the drumsticks the first time. If you've had this happen to you, please let me know. Power in numbers!

The item listed is actually referred to as the "Parum Pum Pum Pum". This is the correct name for this product.

We purchased this a while back for our toddler daughter. She loves this toy and it keeps her occupied. Tonight though we heard her let out a shriek and were shocked when the strap was wrapped around her neck with all of the instruments in the drum. It had twisted a couple of times making it impossible for her to get it off of her head. She now has red friction marks on her neck from the strap, and the drum is now strapless. The design of the strap is such that it is split into two straps, connecting with Velcro in the middle. At fist glance my thought was that this was a safety feature and that the strap would release should the strap be used around the neck. The Velcro is strong enough that I had to strain to get the straps apart. So much for safety! We purchased this at Target for $20