This month, Lucas received a wonderful treat from our friends at Fisher-Price: the Imaginext Rescue City Centre play set. What little boy doesn’t love playing firefighter and police officer? Come to think of it, I know a few little girls who would love that adventure, too!
Like its cousin the Eagle Talon Castle (one of our most favourite FP toys ever!), the Rescue City Centre is programmed to recognize different accessories and respond to them. This never fails to delight Lucas! (I personally still to this day chuckle every time the drawbridge is lowered on the Eagle Talon Castle and a sing-song voice calls out “who eeees it?”) There’s lots to keep little fingers busy: the action figures drive the fire truck, you can zip up and down in the elevator or open and close various doors, and you can do fun stuff like shoot water projectiles at the fire. There’s a full line of extra accessories to the Imaginext line, too, so parents and grandparents can continue to build the collection for subsequent birthdays and Christmases.
Beloved and Lucas have been having fun exploring some of the Imaginext apps available to accompany the toy line. Just yesterday, Beloved was rather delighted to find out that through the Imaginext DC Super Friends Batcave app he was able to watch a brand new DC Super Friends episode he had never seen before. (Remind me again which one is the kid?) And Lucas was showing me how he can use the iPad, the Batcave app and his actual Batcave for an interactive game. Pretty cool stuff! There’s an Imaginext Dinosaur app we’re going to try out next. And by we I actually do mean we – talk about a game the whole family can play. 😉
Speaking of apps, the ones that accompany the toy sets are free but there’s another fun one for $3.99 in the iTunes store – it’s a comic-book style storybook app based on the Ed Venture Imaginext webisodes I mentioned in my last post. Lucas loves these! There are two modes, either “read to me” or “read it myself” and you interact with each pane of the comic. There’s also a choose-your-own adventure element at three places, so you can read through the story several times with different outcomes. These are perfect for my learning-to-read, technology-obsessed five year old!
If you’re looking for gift ideas this holiday season, I genuinely recommend any toys from the Imaginext line. You know that our friends at Fisher-Price have been kind enough to send us a few sets this year for testing and review, but we’ll be going shopping for several of the other sets for Lucas on our own dime. They’re great toys with a lot of play value, and I only wish we could have started investing in them a couple of boys ago!
What’s at the top of your “hot holiday wish list” this year?
