Smoothie mixer — play dough blender, cups and moulds

A toy blender, cups, straws, an ice-cube tray and fruit moulds, with five pots of coloured dough. Press out strawberries and oranges, drop them in the jug, blend them, and serve the smoothie in a cup with a straw.

What it builds

• Hand strength, from pressing dough into moulds and squashing it through the blender
• Colour mixing: two colours go in, and the child sees what comes out
• Pretend play with a script they already know. Someone orders, someone makes it, someone pays.
• Sequencing, because a smoothie takes steps, and the steps have an order

Why we stock it

A plain tub of dough is squashed for ten minutes and then forgotten. Give it a job and the play lasts longer. Children have watched a smoothie being made, so they know the steps and can run the whole thing without an adult. The shop game comes with it: one child serves, another orders. It is messy, but only in the way dough is messy. It doesn't stain, and it lifts off a table.

The details

Age

3 and up

Dough

Five pots, five colours

Tools

Blender, cups, straws, ice-cube tray, fruit moulds, spatula

Blender

Hand-powered

Material

Moulded plastic tools, soft modelling dough

Power

None. No batteries.

In the box

The blender, the cups and straws, the ice-cube tray, the fruit moulds, the spatula and five pots of dough, in the printed carton with a carry handle.

Care

Put the lids back on the pots after every session. Dough left out goes hard overnight and doesn't come back. Keep colours apart if you want them to stay bright, since mixed dough ends up brown sooner or later. Pick dried bits out of the moulds with the spatula, and wash the plastic tools in warm soapy water once the dough is out.

Specifications colours and content may vary from illustrations