Alex Tub Tunes Water Flutes

Sunday, 24 January 2010

Alex Tub Tunes Water Flutes

Alex Tub Tunes Water Flutes Review

My son is almost 3 and he LOVES these flutes (he calls them "whistles").

SOUND: Honestly, the sound is not as annoying as the average recorder or whistle (though the higher pitches become correspondingly, well, shriller).

HOW THEY WORK: The note each of these instruments plays is based on how much water is in the flute, which means that if you're doing this with a three year old you need to help them carefully fill these flutes to the right level (and you're probably not going to be playing the included songs right away). I think this is actually great educational value--practice letters with little kids, talk about the relationship between the water level and the sound as the child gets older, including scales, etc.) but if you're hoping your kid is going to play ("properly") with this toy on his or her own at 3 or 4, you might be disappointed.

PROBLEM--DRINKING THE BATH WATER: I would actually suggest parents with younger children consider playing with these outside of the bathtub (maybe with a deep bowl of water for filling the flutes?). I say this because if your kid tips the flute back (that is, instead of holding it in "recorder" position, he chooses "trumpet" position) water will pour into his mouth. Since the bath water is not the cleanest, I'm not thrilled about that. Ditto if you're thinking of using them in a pool. Obviously, it's good to teach your kids the proper way to hold these instruments, but still, preschool age kids are always going to be tipping them back some of the time, even by accident.

Anyway, in short, I think these are really fun toys, and I'll definitely be buying them for friends!