Both my children enjoy painting and drawing so The Tomy Play to Learn Mr Colour Maker struck me as a great idea for teaching little ones how to recognise and mix colours, without the mess of constantly having to get out the paints!
Buy online at Tomy
Price – £24.99
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Initial thoughts: The Tomy Play to Learn Mr Colour Maker is an interactive toy for children aged 2 plus. It consists of a large paint pot with handle, three small primary colour pots and ‘brush’ to stir inside the pot to create the colours. It sings, it lights up and it speaks. On first glance it seemed like an excellent toy for enquiring young minds.
We liked: Both my children enjoy painting and drawing so The Tomy Play to Learn Mr Colour Maker struck me as a great idea for teaching little ones how to recognise and mix colours, without the mess of constantly having to get out the paints! The toy is bright and sturdy, just as I’d expect from a brand like Tomy. The concept was easy enough for Ethan to follow. Ethan particularly enjoyed mixing colours and Elodie loved to stir the pot to hear the rainbow song.
We weren’t keen: The toy has red, yellow and blue as primary colours and teaches how to mix purple, orange and green. Unfortunately the only colours the pot seemed to be able to light up (in spite of mixing correctly) were red, blue and green. This was somewhat confusing for the children. Also, the lid has to be opened and closed to change between the three modes, which isn’t very intuitive as the children’s natural reaction was to close the lid once they had mixed a colour. I think buttons for mode changing would have been a better option.
Overall: Despite it’s glitches, we have enjoyed playing with The Tomy Play to Learn Mr Colour Maker. As a toy we liked it but we’ll be sticking to actual painting and drawing for teaching and learning purposes.
