Product Review: Happyland Goosefeather Farm

My mother in law also chose a Happyland gift for The Boy’s main present at Christmas. Driven by his love of animals (he and Boy Hound are BFF’s) one of his favourite programs (Big Barn Farm on CBeebies) and the continued success of Happyland products in general, she purchased Goosefeather Farm (RRP £30).

Goosefeather Farm is by far the most value for money Happyland product we have so far. In the box you get:

-         The building itself – this has a row of buttons along the top to press for noises of each animal included in the set, which is great for association of the right noises with each animal. Inside the barn are three downstairs areas, separated by fencing, an upstairs area so the cockerel can look out on the farmyard through his little window, doors that open at the front of the barn.

-         The tractor, trailer, farmer and his wife

-         A horse, a cow, a sheep, a pig, a cockerel and a sheepdog

-         A pigsty and a sheep pen

The trailer latches to the tractor using the same simple hook system as the moon buggy and mobile space station, so The Boy was familiar with it and quickly had the hang of it. After we’d opened it we had bits everywhere, so I took the time to set it all up properly while The Boy had lunch and when he came back we sat and played for some time – though the farmers wife ended up going into the space rocket with the pig and the sheepdog, the robot from the mobile moon unit jumped in the tractor and was pulling the sheep in the trailer, the farmer was in the alien car and the cockerel was kicked out of his hidey hole by aliens by the time we’d finished! What an exciting adventure that was!

This product, like the rest of the Happyland range we’ve experienced so far, is brightly coloured, robust and well made. Despite the amount of abuse it has already encountered since he unwrapped it, all items remain undamaged and as new in appearance. While we do have to be careful that the pieces don’t vanish under the sofa (I found Girl Hound chewing on a plastic horse the other day that had been missed during tidying up after The Boy went to bed, so I do have to watch both dogs with these small plastic pieces from sets like this) The pieces are chunky enough that The Boy cannot choke and brightly coloured and attractive enough that he enjoys a lot of playtime with them all. The Boy’s imagination is a fantastic place to visit, the times we’ve sat there playing and he’s muttering away to himself, chatting and singing, whooshing and burbling, and Goosefeather Farm and the characters from it often seem to be involved in that playtime ever since Christmas.

Unfortunately once again the downfall of this product is that the window shutters and the doors come off very easily which frustrates The Boy, as he can’t fix them back on himself, the fencing that makes the pen for the sheep falls apart quite easily and takes a moment to put back together again and the blocks that are meant to sit in the stables for the cow and the horse as hay bales fall out and get lost easily too. In all fairness though the attention to detail plus the amount of pieces in this set I am very happy with it. The Boy spends a lot of time with his (now fairly large) Happyland collection of toys and again this is a decent product that I would recommend. Another very happy four out of five!

Product Review: Happyland Light and Sound Lift Off Rocket / Mobile Moon base / Moon Mobile

As I mentioned in my Christmas list post a while back, the main present for The Boy from The Hubby and me for Christmas this year was the ELC Happyland Rocket (RRP £32). I found a good deal on the ELC website for Happyland products when I was making my decision on which Happyland product to get him (the success of the train set, station and vets surgery that he received for his first birthday makes the Happyland range a go-to for The Boy) Eventually I decided to purchase both the Happyland Rocket and the Happyland Mobile Moon Base (RRP £16) set too (This gift was labelled as from The Hairy Hounds of Hell).

               Happyland Light & Sound Lift Off Rocket

The Happyland Rocket is an eye catching bright shiny red, with three doors up one side. The top door opens to reveal space for two spacemen to lie side by side for take-off. The middle door opens to show the living area, which has kitchen units around the outer edge, with a bed attached to the door (so it moves out of the way as you open the door) and when you flip the bed up it reveals the toilet (highly practical, space-saving design!) The bottom door is a drop down door and in here the little moon buggy fits perfectly, and can be driven up and down the ramp. The Rocket comes with two spacemen, a space dog, moon buggy, alien and moon crater which the alien can stand in. It’s a very practical design, as all these items can be put into it and the doors secured shut and there is a handle for easy carrying, so this toy quickly became a favourite when we went to visit my in-laws, as it provides The Boy with plenty of entertainment. There’s a red button on the carry handle, and when the Rocket is in the upright position and this button is pressed it begins the ‘countdown’ for launch, with the bright red lights on the underneath of the Rocket flashing red as if the engines are lit and the thrusters are burning! After the countdown, there is a lot of whooshing noises as if the rocket is taking off. Once the Rocket is horizontal, if the button is pressed again it makes noises of a rocket travelling through space (more whooshing and ‘space’ noises). While this makes it a noisy toy, The Boy loves it, and he can often be found spinning in circles with the rocket in his hand, whooshing away and scattering spacemen all round the room. The product is durable and hardwearing – he’s dropped it countless times, yet still the shiny red exterior is shiny and looking good. The downfall of this product is the doors – they keep coming off. In one way it’s good, because when The Boy puts too much pressure on them or tries to open them too far, they pop out of place rather than breaking, which is great as it means I can just pop them back into place again, but it seems to be a habit that within a few minutes of him playing with it he is moaning for me to put the doors back on again. To be fair, though, this is the only downfall, and as I say I can see the point of them being so easy to remove, as it makes them easy to replace and more difficult to break.

The Happyland Rocket gets a very happy four out of five! I am very pleased with this purchase, and it confirms the Happyland range is definitely a go-to for children of this age group.

              Happyland Mobile Moon Base

As I mentioned, as well as the Rocket, The Boy also received the additional gift of the Happyland Mobile Moon Base set. This set comprised of a moon buggy (different from the one included in the Rocket as this one has a moving front digger section) the mobile space station unit which attaches onto the moon buggy and opens out to reveal the computers inside; it came with two spacemen and a robot. This one doesn’t have any buttons for noise, but encourages dexterity with the hook and catch system of linking the moon buggy to the mobile space station, though again the only downfall of this product is that the doors of the mobile space station come out of place easily and I’m forever clicking them back into the slots. Again for travelling purposes you can fit all three characters into the mobile space unit, which makes this an excellent addition to the Happyland Rocket when going out for a long day with The Boy to somewhere he’ll have the space to play but no toys already there, such as my in-laws house. 

I am also very pleased with this purchase, would recommend it to my friends especially as a great compliment to the Rocket, and would also rate this four out of five.

                 Happyland Moon Mobile

In addition to that, my mum also found the offer at ELC on the Happyland range, and after we discussed what I’d already brought, she decided to spend her pennies on the Happyland Moon Mobile (RRP £16). This funky, turquoise blue space car comes complete with three different aliens, and there are buttons either side of the car which activate either alien ‘speak’ or more ‘whooshing’ and ‘space’ noises. In addition to this, the red lights around the back circle section of the car flash when the noises are activated, and the friction wheels mean that when the car is pushed along a level surface it activates the ‘whooshing’ and ‘space’ sounds, which all add to the amusement of The Boy. This one is again another fantastic compliment to the Rocket and the Moon Landing set, or great as a stand-alone toy. Another noisy one, though not so practical for travelling with as the aliens can’t be locked into place in the car – the times I have taken it to the in-laws with us, I’ve put it in a bag, whereas the Rocket you could just pick up and go with as it is. Further happy entertainment and once more a product I would recommend, this one has no doors so there is nothing to fall off, the only thing you have to worry about is the location of those aliens once they’re out of the vehicle because they, like the spacemen, are just the right size to vanish under the edge of a sofa when you’re not looking!

Another brilliant Happyland product, once again I would recommend it, another four out of five rating!

Product Review: The Happy Land Train Set, Train Station & Vet

What? The Happy Land range

How Much? Different sets available, costing from £6 up to £60

Where from? ELC online or in store

The Boy received many very generous birthday gifts for his 1^st birthday and the Happy Land range from ELC was one that I really want to recommend to everyone! Technically speaking, the range is 18 months +, but I’m not sure why apart from the fact that at 12 months he doesn’t quite get the concept of imaginary play quite how these toys were designed. He prefers to chew them, but that’s OK because they’re chunky enough that he won’t choke and they’re durable plastic so he hasn’t marked any of them with his little teeth (razor sharp as they are right now!)

The selection from the Happy Land range that he got was the train set from his grandparents, and the train station from their dog (there’s a special offer on at ELC if you buy the train set you get the train station free) and he also got the vets surgery from his auntie & uncle.

The Train Set – This is brilliant – a series of brown plastic rails, easy to snap together to make an oval shape large enough to be interesting, small enough to not overcrowd even a small bedroom. It comes complete with a level crossing section that has a ramp either side for the car to drive over when the level crossing gates are up, a beautiful red train with tender carriage and passenger carriage that lock together with chunky links that are easy for little fingers to do up and undo, a train driver, a car to drive over the level crossing with a man to drive the car, and a lady passenger to wait on the basic platform that comes with the train set. You put it together, put batteries in the train and put the train on the tracks, then when you put the train driver into the train his weight pushes down the floor of the train engine and makes it go! Fantastic! Complete with train noises, the train tootles off round the track at a nice speed that makes it interesting enough for little people but at the same time slow enough that they can keep up. There’s also a ridge on part of the track that knocks a button on the bottom of the train engine, triggering it to come to a stop and it waits for a few seconds to let the passengers get on and off before it leaves the station again. The level crossing means that from a young age you can educate your children about safe behaviour around train tracks and level crossings, though I think this is a bit beyond The Boy just yet as he gets older it will be a good teaching tool!

The Train Station – A good size station complete with a ticket office, a ticket master figure, a businessman passenger and a bird in a nest to live on the chimney stack. Now the passengers can drive over the level crossing and park in the car park (the centre of the oval) walk to the ticket office for their ticket and sit on the platform to wait for the next train.

Village Vet – Another good size building, this one has a shop door that opens and when pressure is applied to the mat it makes a ringing noise like a shop bell; comes complete with a vet (who permanently carries a parrot on his shoulder) a vet nurse, the vets 4x4 green car, a cat, a dog and a (rather oversize) rabbit. The building is split down the centre by a counter for the animals to sit on while the vet sees to them – another pressure pad on this makes woof and meow noises when the pet is placed upon it.

Both the train station and the vet surgery are open backed, meaning little hands can easily access inside and play; every little detail is included, such as bottles of medicine on the walls in the vet surgery and flowers and a clock on the station platform.

Having looked on the ELC page at the rest of the Happy Land range I am dying to get him some more of the sets – the only question is, which ones!  But this makes it dead easy for Christmas gifts – if anyone asks what they can get him I can point them in the direction of the Happy Land range or ask for vouchers for ELC so that he can get some more. I’m very interested in the storage boxes that they do for the sets as these can be unzipped and become play mats for the range which I think is an excellent idea! (Also did you know if you register with the ELC site you can join their birthday club to receive money off vouchers which are sent out yearly just before your childs birthday until they are five? Well worth doing!)

I really like these toys, they’re brightly coloured, robust and good sizes, while some of the sets are a bit pricey I do honestly think they’re worth the money as they’ll last for a long time and if you have any problems you know you have the back up of the excellent ELC customer service team to help with your query! An imaginative set of toys that offer a wide variety of sets to keep your kids happy whether they’re into trains, aliens, princesses or horses, this range is a must-see for all parents of young children for good quality toys that I think will last for a long time! Five out of five!