Every young child just wants to be like their parents, they watch and imitate exactly what we do. That’s great, because that’s exactly how they learn everything they do. I try and get the children to
Every young child just wants to be like their parents, they watch and imitate exactly what we do. That’s great, because that’s exactly how they learn everything they do. I try and get the children to help me out in whatever it is that I do, if I am polishing, then I give them an extra duster to help, it makes them feel like they are helping, even if it means that we have to re-do it a few times when they are not looking!
But one thing that isn’t possible to let them touch is the cooker. So when I saw Casdon have created a mini cooker that is totally safe for play, I had to see what Bemma and her friends thought. The RRP of this cooker is just £25 which is a lot lower than other toy cookers we have previously reviewed.
My first impression of the Casdon Cooker was that it is really small, it is just 30cms tall, it is also very plastic and I was concerned it wouldn’t last the rough play of four 3 and 4 year olds. I was pleasently surprised to see that after fitting 3 C batteries, that you get so many awesome features. The ‘ceramic hob’ glows, and the grill and oven have a light that comes on, there is also sounds too. You also get a great amount of accessories, there is a grill pan, oven tray, lots of pots for using on the hob and even some food included too, this consists of a great fried egg that Bemma loves! You also get sausage, burger, bacon and peas and more! A great addition to the cooker is the Casdon ‘Cut & Play Food’ set which is just £10 RRP. This is filled to the brim with loads of fruit and veg to cut up and play with, 25 pieces to be exact. These each have a velcro piece on each side, so they can stick together and you can use the knife provided to literally cut and separate the items, just like we do as parents when cooking!
Setting up our cafe, the children had a great time using the cooker to create some great concoctions of food including peas and lettuce, yum…
They loved creating their own cafe and taking orders, taking the money with our Casdon Till we already owned, was all really good fun for them. It helped engage the children in conversation, it helped them listen, speak orders and do the required actions. It created lots of laughs at the different foods they ended up cooking.
The Casdon Cooker is still really small in size for my liking, but this has the benefit of not taking up loads of space when not in use, so especially good if you lack space in your house. But the build quality of the cooker is great, the doors do come off if yanked (yes, our group of tester really did put it through it’s paces!) but they simply connect on again easily. The lights and sounds feature really brings this toy to life, and gives it great play factor. We really like it, and so did the kids!
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