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Customer Reviews

Treasure Basket Play Review by Rebecca Ives - mummy of Isabelle and May

Baby May. Aged 10 months:

May is crawling well, climbing over and under anything she can. She adores her older sister Isabelle aged 3 and a half and generally follows her every movement (or at least attempts too) which has led her to discover sounds and how to make sounds.
Whilst May has been extremely content handling and investigating individual objects from the basket, a particular favourite was the lavender bag, Isabelle has been combining items during play which have been supporting her imagination. Isabelle also takes great enjoyment in explaining to May how the items ‘should’ be used, she is teacher! One day Isabelle watched May enjoy playing with the chain and I could see she wanted to play with it as well but as there is only one she came up with the idea putting the chain in the red tin as a music maker. She showed May how to shake the Tin to make sounds, shaking the tin faster made a louder sound than when shaking slowly. That way she was teacher and May could still play with the chain.
May was so happy that Isabelle had made their own version of a rattle, she loved the sound that it made and the laughter from them both just seemed to get louder so that they could hardly hear the rattle of the chain anymore! May was so happy with herself that she could shake the tin and make the jangle sound herself, just like Isabelle had shown her. On this note with no encouragement from me Isabelle amazingly started to sing songs whilst May continued to rattle the tin and scream with delight every now and then and on playtime went.
This is one of the first times Isabelle and May have really played together and it was delightful, humorous and tear jerking to watch. Rather than the usual squabble and snatching of toys they were actually interacting together. I have been using the treasure traveller which is great, at the moment the chain and tin are now essentials when leaving the house as opposed to May’s first baby rattle which she now bypasses. I can’t wait to see what fun ideas will develop from the remaining objects in the basket!

Isabelle Aged 3 years 5 months

Isabelle has a wonderful imagination and the treasure basket only seems to enhance it. One Lazy Sunday evening Isabelle decided she would operate on daddy’s tummy with the ‘equipment’ from the treasure basket. Nurse Isabelle carefully rubbed the infected tummy with the loofah pad and injected him with the wooden spoon so he didn’t feel any pain during the operation; she then proceeded to ‘open’ him up with the measuring cup to remove anything sinister. All operating equipment was lined up neatly next to the operating table (sofa.) It was then time to stitch daddy up with the bottle brush and rub the area with the nailbrush shaped as a foot followed by a gentle wipe with the flannel. Once finished the whole procedure needed to be carried out to daddy’s ears, mouth feet, knees etc. Endless fun for imagination we use it all the time!

It’s a huge pleasure to use the Treasure Basket in my training. Review by Barbara Isaacs, Chief Executive Montessori International, Nov 07

It’s a huge pleasure to use the Treasure Basket in my training. It’s added to my understanding of baby’s play. I suddenly saw it from the perspective of risk taking and contact with real objects. It shows you the value of flexible learning and flexible resources to enable this.