We were fortunate enough to catch a tweet by @AlexToys calling for parent bloggers to test out their products geared towards arts and crafts. Since I know art is right up our PapaHeroes co-founder, Rick’s alley, I reached out to the company so we could test out two products. Rick and his children will be testing out the Doodle Cake Crayons with his daughter who is six years old and his son who is two and a half years old.

Tots Art Start

The Tots Art Start kit is good for children ages 18 months and over. Although our daughter is only fourteen months, I did not see an issue using this kit. The kit brings six activity sheets, a tree, a giraffe, stickers, confetti, doilys, and three crayons all neatly packaged. The instructions on the packaging are in four languages; English, French, Spanish, and German.

Our daughter was fascinated by the crayons that were in the shape of triangles. I thought she might like to draw but she was interested in the texture of the crayons. The size of the crayons and shape are good for her little fingers because they are not thin and break easily. They also have little grooves in the middle so they don’t easily slip out of the pincer grip. This leads to durability in the crayons as she gets interested in using them more during the coming months.

What Daniela Really liked

Daniela is into shredding paper and feeling different textures lately. She will put her hand in the dogfood, water bowl, dirt, sand, and likes picking up rocks. So I decided to do the collage with four removable sections that have adhesive underneath.

As you can see from the photos she took the shredded paper out of the bag and was entertained with throwing it around. I showed her what to do and then she started putting confetti pieces in each section. I did not remove all the sections at once that way the activity could last a little longer.

Easy Clean Up and Storage

What was great about this particular activity sheet was that I did not have to use glue, I could peel away each section as Daniela was done decorating, and the clean-up was easy. Everything fit back into the plastic pouches and we could put the activity sheets away for another day.

We did not use the stickers that were included in the packet just yet as I know Daniela would be interested in sticking something on our dog JuanGa instead of the paper. We did hang up the artwork in our living in our glass bookshelf. I will have her create something else for her room.

Positive Experience with Tots Art Start

Overall our experience with this particular @AlexToy craft was easy, simple, and fun. The use of all types of colors of the rainbow is great. As your child gets older, you can even have them put a specific color on the collage or just supervise them as they decorate the Giraffe or Tree activity sheet on their own.

Since the activity sheets already have a decorated border, you can hang them up as is once your child finishes the activity. There isn’t a need to purchase a frame for the sheet. The sheets can also go into an artbook that you can compile of all activities you have done together. The price of the kit is $16.95 and it is pretty reasonable. If you were to buy stickers, crayons, confetti paper, tissue paper, and different activity sheets or construction paper, it will come out to more than $16.95.

Eventhough the age is 18 months plus on the package, I would recommend to use it with children even younger. The different textures of the paper are great for sensory, the overall use of bright colors on the activity sheets are attractive to the eye, and you can use the sheets to compliment a story you are reading with your child.

(Disclosure: Alex Toys sent the Tots Art Start kit to us for product review. Although the product was complimentary, I don’t feel that has influenced my opinion about the product or writing of this post in any way. )

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