Melissa & Doug – Cutting Food Box

Sweet Pea is 27 months old.

From: We bought this Melissa & Doug Cutting Food Box at a local toy store.

Observations: This set contains a wooden knife and cutting board, along with several painted wooden food items.  Each piece of food is composed of several sections that are held together with Velcro.   Using the knife to “cut” the pieces of food apart creates a noise and feeling that is amazingly similar to actually cutting.

I had to show Sweet Pea how to “cut” the food at first, but she quickly learned how to do that independently.  Putting the food sections back together again has been a bigger challenge for her.  She can put some of the pieces of food together, but not other ones.  She has never figured out how to get the 4 avocado sections back together correctly.   I actually like the logic puzzle aspect that is involved in putting the sections back together and that it is an appropriate challenge for her.

Sweet Pea has played and played and played with this.  She used with it the entire evening we gave it to her and then woke up the next morning and immediately started asking for it again.  We bought it over a month ago and it is still one of her favorite toys.  I would highly recommend it for other toddlers.

Notes from the Trenches: There are quite a few pieces and occasionally one of them will end up lost in the void.  We always make sure we stick everything back together before we put it away to see if anything is lost.  When we notice that we are missing a piece and ask Sweet Pea where it is, she invariably says, “Mom ate it.”  This usually means it is under the couch.

Rating: 3 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Independent)