Melissa & Doug Latches Wooden Activity Board

The Melissa and Doug Latches board is a beautiful toy. It has lovely, colourful designs, and behind the 6 doors there are animals in different colours for counting and colour educational value. The latches on our particular board are of good quality brass, and the whole thing is very finely constructed. Our boy LOVES it, as I knew he would, and spends up to an hour opening and closing the doors and manipulating the latches. Any child who is intruiged by locks and doors, enjoys fine finger movement or needs help with such would benefit from this toy.Our 17mo is easily able to open 4 of 6 of the latches, the exception being the latch with the slider chain, and the turning latch. He still enjoys it, although he seems able to work them out quicker than expected.As others have pointed out, some of the doors need to close before others will open, as they obstruct each other (the board would be prohibitively large if all the doors were able to open at once), but if you show the child this, they get the concept and happily close the offending door before opening the next one. My one criticism of this toy is that, like other Melissa and Doug puzzle boards, this one has a cardboard printed finish glued to the backing board, rather than a painted finish. If you want it to live through a drooling toddler, varnish the board before use. The cardboard is durable as cardboard goes, but not when it gets wet. If wet, the finish, along with the beautiful design, rub off VERY quickly. Stand by with a flannel if you have a dribbler, or wax or varnish it first.

This is extremely durable and the multiple latches, hooks and closures will entertain your toddler for hours. I bought this as a birthday gift for my two year old granddaughter when she turned one year old. To this day it is one of her favorite learning toys.Helps to improve manual dexterity. Its colorful and it was a hit with her and her cousins!My daughter had heard about this from one of her friends that has young children and highly recommended this product/learning toy.If you are looking for something unique, colorful and will also teach your child while having fun…this is the gift to buy!

Melissa and Doug brand to me has always been of upmost quality toys for kids. I can always feel safe buying toys of this brand because I know it will be made with safe materials and nothing crazy in it like lead paint. To me it is worth a little extra money to make sure our kids aren’t investing or handling toxic materials when simply playing with children’s toys. I would rather buy fewer toys that are safe than have a lot of toys made with unsafe materials. Less is more.This product is no different from all others I have purchased of the Melissa and Doug brand in terms of quality. The quality is top notch and impressive to say the least. My youngest is less than 18 months and she is intrigued by this toy, but does not have a the intellectual ability to be able to open/close mechanisms on the busy board itself. I think it will probably be in the next six months that she actually enjoys playing with the latches and locks on this particular toy! Right now she just enjoys watching me show her how to open and close the doors on the toy and she will mimic me by unsuccessfully attempting to do the same. At this time the toy only keeps her busy for less than two minutes at a time.

I bought this activity board for my father who is 86 years old and suffers from dementia. As anyone who is familiar with dementia knows, it causes constant fidgeting. My dad was constantly touching and fidgeting with all kinds of things and then misplacing or hiding them. I started looking for something to keep him occupied, but when I looked for activity boards for seniors with dementia, they were extremely expensive, starting at $50 and sometimes over $100. Then I found this board for $15, and although it is targeted towards kids and toddlers, it has worked beautifully for my dad. It is well made, durable, and it keeps him busy, and it is harder for him to misplace or break (people with dementia become very destructive), and it saved me so much money. If your looking for something to keep a senior with dementia busy, this is so worth the money! As a side note, when my toddler nephews visit, they love playing with it too.

While the board is listed as ages 3+, I imagine that has to be for liability reasons. My 18 month old can do 4 of the 6 latches easily, so it's probably not going to be very engaging for a developmentally-on-track 3 year old. It's a bit heavy to be a good toy for a plane or car ride, but it's definitely quality materials and good fun for younger toddlers!

I got this for my grandson who is almost 2 years old. HE LOVES IT! I think it's well put together, has great colors, sturdy hinges and latches, and is the perfect size for little hands. I love that it has numbers, colors, and animals to go along with the latches. It is one of his very favorite toys and keeps him occupied for a long time. Nothing bad to say about it except that I may have chosen different animals for each color if I were to create it myself. (It has a purple pony, blue dogs, red rabbits, etc. I would have chosen animals that actually had those colors in real life, like purple butterfly, blue fish, red birds, etc.) That's seriously not an issue though. Love this activity board!