Melissa & Doug Wooden Workbench: Huge amount of building material!
Always something to do for the holidays or rainy day?
Play Choice now has the ultimate activity book collection, with over 60 pages of fun coloring pages and educational puzzles.
Are your children getting a little older? Then of course there is a real workbench!
Ideal for: ages 3 to 5
If you want to take the construction game a little more literally, you can go to Melissa & Doug's workbench.
This toys consists of nuts, bolts, blocks and of course the workbench which gives your child a variety of items to build things with.
- Complete set with tools, bolts, nuts and screws
- Good wooden set where many of this kind are made of plastic
- Pushing too hard quickly leads to screw threads becoming paralyzed
Let's take a look at the specs first:
From toddler to toddler activity book collection
Educational games and coloring pages for 3 to 6 years
Your toddler and preschooler will love this e-book, along with the accompanying printables. He or she can play with it at every stage of development, together with mom and dad.
Buy at Bol.comWhat we discuss in this comprehensive post:
Specifications
- Color: blank
- Material: wood
- Dimensions: 61 x 56 x 66 cm or 26″ × 18.75″ × 24″ (L x W x H)
- Age: 3 to 6 years
- Tools: Workbench, saw, hammer, wrench, chisel, vise
- Building material: 4 large washers, 4 small washers, 12 screws, 12 nuts, bolts, boards with holes, blocks with holes
- Instruction booklet with sample creations
What is the Melissa & Doug Workbench?
The Melissa & Doug Workbench is a plain wood construction with a bottom tray for building materials and top openings for tools.
It includes 4 tools and a vise to play pretend play for woodworking.
The set has a total of 62 parts. In addition to the tools, there is a lot of building material such as rings, screws, nails, planks and blocks.
You can attach these together with the nuts and bolts or hit the workbench with the hammer (nails).
There is an instruction booklet with examples.
What makes the Melissa & Doug Workbench so much fun?
This set is definitely not your typical construction toy, nor is it your typical workbench. It combines both for a very comprehensive set.
Many workbenches I've seen don't have that much building material, which is actually fun to do.
That way it remains replayable. They can play pretend play with the tools but also really build many different things.
It includes:
- blocks where the screws can go
- a workbench to attach things to with a real vice
- boards that you can put together with the bolts and nuts
Really very lifelike and in addition to being educational, it is also just fun to do.
My son was the first to build robots from it…
sigh.
There is a lot to do with it, and the creations also often participate in fantasy play such as running police and building bridges.
With the vise you can clamp the wooden pieces to attach nuts or pretend you are sawing a piece of wood with notches.
There are holes on top of the worktop where you can hammer wooden nails in and then loosen them with the back of the hammer.
Overall best wooden workbench
This toy consists of many nuts, bolts, blocks and of course the workbench with which they can build a lot of things.
Cons
It is a very nice set and quite sturdy, but it is really made for 3 to 5 years. Kids older than that break it fairly quickly with a little force.
For example, the vice was turned off at our place by the slightly older boy next door. If you keep turning it, you will end up turning it against the wood at some point.
Shame, but that can happen. Fortunately, there is still a lot to do with the set. The vise was used the least.
Another drawback is that it is made for hammering and turning. But hammering the bolts into the blocks is not such a good idea.
Of course a child does not know that. But the thread on the inside of the blocks has completely worn off and the bolts can no longer be held securely.
So after about a year and a half of use, we have a broken vise and blocks that you can no longer build with.
But still had a lot of fun with it.
Conclusion
Melissa & Doug is a great brand and this workbench is a nice piece toys for children somewhere between 2 and 5 years old and the best between 3 and 4 years old.
There is a lot to build with and the quality is good, but the age limit is really the age limit.
Also read: these are the best wooden toy workbenches reviewed
Always something to do for the holidays or rainy day?
Play Choice now has the ultimate activity book collection, with over 60 pages of fun coloring pages and educational puzzles.
Joost Nusselder, the founder of Speelkeuze.nl is a content marketer, father and loves trying out new toys. As a child he came into contact with everything related to games when his mother started the Tinnen Soldaat in Ede. Now he and his team create helpful blog articles to help loyal readers with fun play ideas.
