[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Both of my kids work with an occupational therapist twice a week for different issues. When I saw this, I thought it would be great for my kids (3 and 5) to work with as they don't really have great balance currently and I thought this would be something fun for them to have and do and work with OT with when they didn't want to do their usual work. I got this and set it out. Putting it together was pretty easy, added the feet to the turtle and put the boards in them. The boards are pretty light, they don't feel like they would break easily, but I feel like they could be made a little thicker/heavier though. MAKE SURE YOU PUT THE FEET ON THE BOTTOMS!! They may slide out from underneath your kid's feet if you don't and it's not on carpet. My home does not have carpet and I have one rug in the living room, so making sure they are supervised and safe is key. One little turtle does the squeaking noise, it's pretty easy to tell which one it is because the top sticks out a little more than the others. It also says that it has the ability to lay a turtle on it's back and put a board on it and have your kid balance on it that way. Honestly, that is a feature we cannot and will not use. I do not have carpet in my house and I wouldn't trust a rug to keep the turtle from flying out underneath them as they don't have great balance and would be rocking all over the place. Also, the bottoms do NOT look like they were meant for this at all.
My kids are doing telehealth for their OT appointments and when were working with this, the therapist was very not happy with the construction of this toy, repeatedly not calling it safe and making sure I was constantly there helping with the kids and holding their hands because he did not feel that this should be a suitable toy for a child.
I feel like this company wanted to make a cool balancing toy - but did not concern anyone who is an OT therapist or someone who would know how to make these safe for therapy for kids. My kids will continue to use the balance beam part, but it made the toy very basic and a lot of features useless because it's just not safe. I feel like parents who feel that this would be a cool toy for their kids - even not using it for OT purposes - may not know how dangerous this toy can be even for kids with the best balance.
