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Melissa & Doug Farm Wooden Chunky Puzzle | 
| Brand: Melissa & Doug
Category: Toy
List Price: $9.99
Buy New: $4.99
as of 3/13/2010 16:30 CST details
You Save: $5.00 (50%)
New (70) from $4.99
Seller: abookarama
Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 984
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 2 - 5 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 0.9 x 10.7 x 11.9
Warranty: From Melissa And Doug
MPN: 3723
Model: 3723
UPC: 000772037235
EAN: 0000772037235
Release Date: June 12, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Pieces stand on their own for additional play | | • | Thick puzzle pieces are easy for small hands | | • | Full-color pictures beneath each piece | | • | This unique puzzle promotes pretend play as well as matching skills | | • | Recommended Age Range 2 Years and up |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
This hand-painted, playfully styled Jumbo Puzzle is sure to capture and keep the attention of curious young minds. The thick, chunky wooden puzzle pieces fit neatly into their spots on the colorful board and also stand up for additional pretend play. Puzzle features full-color images beneath each piece to guide little ones. Measures 12"H x 11"W x 0.8"D.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 24
 Beautiful For A Day February 26, 2010
Lindsey (Georgia, USA)
I was so excited to get this puzzle for my little ones. Unfortunately, the item description is misleading. The puzzle looks nice (before the kids get to it) and the chunky pieces were a perfect size! However, this puzzle is NOT hand painted. The puzzle pieces are just faced with a sticker, that easily comes off (in pieces!). That is not the quality I was expecting, especially from Melissa and Doug. I've had the puzzle for 2 months now, and 2 or 3 of the pieces have the stickers mostly peeled off.
Not solid wood but still very nice January 13, 2010
Karen Baker (Brooklyn, NY United States)
Other reviewers have commented that this puzzle is not solid wood, which is true. The board is plywood and particle board, and the pieces are particle board. It's all very smooth and solid-feeling, and for the price I'm very pleased, but this probably isn't a teething toy-- wait until after 15 months or so. I really like the colorful and cute graphics, the variety of animals for talking about animal sounds, and the fact that the chunky pieces stand up for pretend play-- does double duty to replace our missing Little People farm animals! I also like the format-- no knobs to distract from the pictures. I'm planning to buy a couple of the others as well because my 17 month old definitely prefers this puzzle to the knob and crepe rubber puzzles we already have.
 Not wood--not hand-painted December 14, 2009
domestic diva (Tennessee, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This would be such a great puzzle IF it were actually hand-painted and made of wood. I read the other reviews and I think the design of the puzzle must have changed. I was so excited about this puzzle, and my kids love it. The only problem is that I'm about to throw it away after just a few weeks because the stickers on the pieces are all but gone. We have only used this puzzle gently and as intended. I'm very disappointed and now I don't trust the descriptions of Melissa and Doug puzzles.
MDF Does Not a Wooden Puzzle Make December 12, 2009
goonius (a room in a house on a street in a city just like any other.)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This toy is fun. The farm animals are super cute. It's a great concept for a 'first' puzzle, with it's bright fun animals and easy-match puzzle board. It is certainly educational, and when I bought it I felt pretty good about my kids playing with it.
I bought this puzzle expecting it to be precisely what was advertised: A wooden puzzle. Naive to the world of children's toys, I took that description at face value. When I think wooden, I think solid wood, which is what these pieces appear to be. They have a nice heavy feel to them, and when thoroughly coated in paint, considering the false advertising, you'd really have no reason to expect otherwise.
Enter time and a little rough tossing around of the puzzle pieces, and as the paint begins to chip away, another story is revealed. These puzzle pieces are nothing but pressed paper-like sawdust material. When revealed beneath the chipped-off paint, this dry, dusty substance easily flakes off where it can get into little mouths and become part of the general household dust.
Okay, so Melissa and Doug fudged a little on their description. What might have been wood once upon a time is now thinly pressed layers of sawdust and resin, but it was wood in a previous life, and that still counts, right? It's intentionally deceptive marketing, but does any of that really matter in the practical sense?
I think it does.
Medium density fiberboard (MDF) is nasty stuff. Containing a higher resin-to-wood ration than any other pressed wood product, MDF emits VOCs for at least a few months after manufacture and emits urea formaldehyde for the duration of its life. I doubt there have been any studies on using pressed wood for a child's toy that may be mouthed and is nonetheless handled frequently and in close proximity to their faces during day-to-day play. There have been studies suggesting urea formaldehyde is a suspected carcinogen; others show that incidences of leukemia and lymphoma increase through prolonged exposure of VOCs in the indoor environment.
Bottom line, most MDF is not something you want in your home in any form, and it's probably not the best thing to make a child's toy out of. There are ways to manufacture MDF which use resins that do not contain formaldehyde which are supposed to be environmentally friendly. I contacted Melissa and Doug to find out if they use these formaldehyde-free resins in their MDF. They've got really friendly customer service, but no one available could provide me with that information. I was told they'd get back to me. I'm still waiting.
In the meantime, I think I'll just stick with the old adage: You get what you pay for.
I think the important part is knowing what you're getting when you decide to purchase it and not being led falsely into believing you're paying for superior materials when you're really just buying a few adorable cubes or formaldehyde-imbued garbage coated thickly in conveniently concealing paint. Had this been disclosed in the description, I'd have no gripe with this puzzle. I also would not have purchased it to begin with.
There are solid wood (and plywood) puzzles out there. They cost anywhere from 2 to 3 times as much as a Melissa and Doug 'wooden' puzzle (sometimes more), but most have the added bonus of not being made in China; a small detail of Melissa and Doug's toys that has always sent a red flag of sorts up for me.
Dissappointed November 15, 2009
Happy Mom (Honolulu, HI)
What has happened to Melissa and Doug? We bought one of these chunky puzzles for our other son 3 years ago and it has lasted so well because it is painted. I just got this one last night for his little brother and it's not painted at all. Everything just has a sticker on the front that immediately will start peeling away if you wipe the thing down. It's definitely going back! Very disappointing.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 24
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