Mirrored Pound a Ball Parents Brand Toy Review -Educational Aspects Reveals

Many friends have asked me to review a toy and it’s educational value. I decided to review one of my sons favorite toys.

This is a Parent Brand toy called Mirror Pound a Ball. The concept is children put the colored balls on the holes on top and hit them out with the hammer.

But what are they learning? First lets look at the obvious, matching and colors. At the top of the toy the holes have a collar in a color that matches the ball. You can ask your child to put the blue ball on the blue hole. Hooray Matching skills learned!

Obvious 2: Eye hand coordination, Your child needs the eye hand coordination to hit the ball with the hammer.

Now for the not so obvious: As the ball goes down the track, it moves in a left to right motion, the child’s eyes trace this balls movement, left to right. Just like in reading, thats right, your child is learning reading skills watching this ball roll down the track and out the opening.

Not so obvious 2: Picking up the ball can mimic (in an exaggerated way) a child will eventually hold a pencil later. Prewriting skills.

Ways to grow your child’s direction following skills. Remember before, where I wrote: put the blue ball in the blue hole? You can expand on this: Put the blue ball in the yellow hole, or first put the yellow ball, then the orange. This direction following is a great concept learning skill.

As you can see, this can be more than just hitting a ball to build eye hand coordination, or learning matching skills?

Do you have a toy you want me to review to reveal its educational potential? Let me know in comments below or email me at sally@littleexplorerpreschool.com