Melissa & Doug Magnetic Wooden Truck Loader Reviewed
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This wooden trailer van Melissa & Doug is great fun to play with. He has a magnetic faucet with which he supplied the cars can pick up and put on the trailer.
It's beautiful wood in a world of plastic magnet toys.
- Nice set with cars and trailer
- Good size to play with other cars
- Magnet is very weak and hard to keep the cars on it
- Wooden stop block of the trailer broke off (after angry throwing)
Let's take a look at the specs:
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Specifications
- Material: Wood
- Number of parts: 6
- Truck with crane
- semi-trailer
- 4 Cars
- Age: 3 +
What is the Melissa & Doug Loader Crane?
It is a sturdy wooden toy. A solid wood truck with a wooden trailer. The crane is also made of wood, with metal hinge and plastic holder for the magnet at the end.
The supplied cars (4) are also made of solid wood with a metal button on the top to be picked up by the crane.
What makes the Melissa & Doug Loader Crane fun?
It is a complete set with truck and small cars. If you don't have many car toys yet, this is a nice first step.
The truck is super sturdy and large with simplified shapes. All corners are rounded so that there are no sharp protrusions.
Really aimed at the little ones. It says from 3 years old, but with supervision younger could also be possible.
The purpose of it is actually to lift them up and up the semi-trailer (more of that reviewed here) to put.
The trailer can be attached to the truck (with a sturdy plastic hook), and so he can drive away with all the cars on that trailer.
Hoisting the cars is fun to do, but if you don't do it quietly, the car will fall off.
It's more of a game of skill than just playing. My son (2) couldn't have it so good at his age that it didn't work out.
Yet we also thought it was good that he learned to deal with that so early so that he also learns some patience.
But it is indeed really for 3 plus to be able to make full use of it.
What's less fun about the Melissa & Doug Truck Loading Crane?
For me the magnet could have been a bit stronger, but on the other hand, that is also the game I think. In any case, he loves it and really wants to play with it.
It says for three years and older, but our son really enjoyed playing with it. He was then 2 years and a few months. But it was also so frustrating.
You can pick up cars with the magnetic crane on the truck and they are very loose. You have to be extremely dexterous with that magnet.
In the end, he liked picking up other magnet toys, such as magnetic blocks and magnetic animals.
They stay in place because the block itself also contains a magnet, so two magnets that attract each other.
The cars only have a metal button to lift them up, but attaching a magnet to another magnet is much easier.
By combining toys, our younger son can also play with them and can drive around without it falling off.
The wood of the truck and the cars is very strong solid wood, but the trailer is made of pressed wood.
Not too strong unfortunately. With us, the rear broke off, an elevation that allows the cars to remain on the trailer while driving.
After gluing it lasted for a while but eventually it broke again. This in itself is after a lot of fun.
Best Magnetic Toy Trailer
Wooden trailer with magnetic crane with which he can pick up the supplied cars and place them on the trailer.
The loading crane is also made of two thin slats of wood and connected with metal rings. After a little playing, these slats became a lot more flexible.
After a month, the crane could no longer hold the cars without holding the crane itself because the connections were so much looser.
In itself that may just be how it works, but in the meantime our son had already made up a game where he drove around with the crane high in the air.
He regretted that that game was no longer possible.
It seems like the list of negatives is so much longer than the positives, but in the end it's a really fun truck to play with and a very good wooden toy for the price.
Lees meer: these are the 12 best magnetic toy sets we've reviewed
Conclusion
There are some challenges, but also a lot of things that make it a lot of fun. All in all a very nice toy with which they can discover a lot.
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.