We recently got this peek-a-blocks bus toy as a gift for our son. It is a great looking gift. And we’re appreciative of the thought. Sorting toys are good for children’s mental development and motor skills development. And it first glance, it looks like it has got all the key requirements for a great little toy:

• Shape sorter.
• Plenty of different blocks.
• Lights.
• Sounds.
• Things that rattle.
• Things that move (hood and dumper)
• Things that spin.
• A realistic stop sign on the side of the bus
• A random apple (lots of our toys have random apples - I don’t know why. But it seems to be a key item.)

BUT…(you could feel that coming, huh?) the toy itself sucks. This toy, on paper, sounds great, but as I’ve played with it I’ve gotten real disappointed. I can look past the fact that there is no “story” behind what you’re doing. No proper workflow. Okay. That isn’t a requirement. I can accept that. The dumper serves no purpose. Fine. It just might be fun for fun’s sake.

But when you put things through the sorter, they jam the sorter and then you need to move them along, to put another item through the sorter. So sorting isn’t an enjoyable experience - it is a chore. You can’t just put shapes in and in and in. I can’t put two triangles through in a row. Need to do one, then lift the panel, move it out of the way, then put in the next. Jeez - to play with the sorting panel, I need to do all this other stuff…why?

Plus the main sorting panel doesn’t include the square. The square is on the side of the bus. Why? I don’t know. Maybe to justify putting a little stop sign on the side of the bus? Anyway, what I know is that the main sorting panel does include a large hole with trimmed corners. But it is so large that any shape can fit through it. Putting a block through here plays music. The one hole which fits any of the blocks is the one that plays music? Why would one learn to sort shapes when you can use the catch-all hole that plays music?

I feel the product manager had a checklist for what sorting toy should have - and it was just a list of features, without any associated behaviors. Without the child’s experience in mind at all. Just checking off items in a list: 3 types of holes (check!), a hole with music (check!), a thing that spins (check!), a freaky apple…etc.

Though they’ve satisfied their list of requirements, the end product is nothing more than a smattering of features with no synergy or cohesiveness. I’m looking for toys that will engage my son and his imagination - not something that is feature rich but useless.