Wooden Mosaic Hammer and Nail Set product reviews

These little sets are so cool and provide hours of fun. I bought a set when my daughter was young and she still plays for it from time to time now she is 11. The only thing about her playing with it these days is because her 18 month old brother is around she has to be really careful not to spill any of the little nails because they would really hurt if they went into your feet. My 18 month old would love to have a turn but we haven't let him play just yet as I definitely think he is a little too young.

I first came across the sets when my daughter was in childcare. She used to love playing with them when she went to childcare and would often sit there playing with them for long periods of time. When I was working in Early Childhood I would get the sets out for the children and it really encouraged them to have focused play for good periods of time, which was good when you wanted quiet activities during times when other children were sleeping.

They really encourage good hand eye coordination as you have to get the little nail in the hole of the wooden shapes and then hit the hammer into the nail. The nails glide in to the cork board really easily so there is no noisy hammering which is good. The nails aren't overly sharp so it is fairly safe although it would pierce the skin and hurt if you stood on one. I found the easiest way to clean up the nails after play was to use a magnet to pick them all up and store them in a lidded container.

These sets are amazing. Such a great activity for young children and well adults too as I love playing with the hammer and nails too!! The smaller pieces are good and bad for younger children though as same 3 years olds haven't quite developed their fine motor skills, and find it hard to grasp and hold onto the nails while aiming for the small nail hole in the shape...and are sometimes to clumsy to hold the nail when hammering it in.

The cork boards are perfect to hammer the nails into though and sometimes it is easier for the children to just hammer the nails into the board without using the shapes, and this proves to be just as fun for the children, and when they are ready developmentally etc they can add the shapes if they want too.

The shapes are bright and colourful and with the different shapes the children are learning their colours and shapes as they talk about what shapes they are using and what coloured shape it is. So that is a winning combination when you are looking at children learning about colours and shapes. Plus the children can make bigger shapes from the smaller shapes available, i.e. hammer 4 small squares together to make 1 large square. Or hammer 6 triangles together to make a star/flower shape.

The only thing I don't like about this set is the small nails and how they have a rounded head which seems to land flat on the ground so the sharp edge is always pointed up which means if you aren't aware of them falling on the ground there is a chance that they could be stood on and if you have bare feet...you do the math! Not good when it is usually a child's foot the nail gets embedded into.

This activity though can keep children engaged in for hours because of the sheer imagination factor, shapes can be added to the board or taken off the board so more shapes can be added etc. The shapes themselves seem to be tough enough to withstand constant playing with, been hit with the hammer and roughly pulled back off the board without breaking or splitting in half. So in my opinion this is a good choice if you have a budding builder in the house or want an activity that will keep the kiddies occupied for hours!

There are so many of these sets to chose from and so many different prices, we got one for a decent price and it came in a cardboard box, the pieces were all in little bags that can't be resealed, so my problem is now the nails go everywhere so they are in a little plastic container so stop the kids getting stubbed from them when pulling out the set.

But I do love that the little hammers are right size for a child and the cork board is little, works really well with the kids putting the wooden pieces on the board and putting a nail in the hole to hammer in. They can let their imagination go wild, you can find on google pictures you can make with it and they can copy, I have also found if you want a bigger board or more boards just buy cork-boards because that is all it is.

You can make some pretty neat things with this and the kids can have hours of fun. My son started playing this from age 2 it does say from age 3 though. The little wooden shapes are great durability the cork-board I would say could prob snap in half if you really wanted it to though.