2 yr old approved!

My son loves numbers, letters and magnets. He has tons of fun messing with these letters. They feel nice and well made.

I love that they are all one piece"” they're wood and the magnet is the entire backing so there aren't little pieces of magnet that can break off with time. I also really like that they come in a wooden box with a divider for upper and lower case, so handy for storing and putting away! Two downsides for me are 1) that the top to the box is pretty flimsy plastic, and my toddler and baby were able to do some damage it and 2) some of the letters are still pretty small. I don't think they're choking small, but I was bummed that my youngest could fit the entirety of at least one in his mouth. It meant that we needed to put them away for a bit because we just couldn't keep my toddler from leaving some on the floor. May not be a drawback for some since they're a great toy, but with a baby who wants to put everything in his mouth these weren't something we ended up feeling comfortable leaving out so I wanted to mention it.

I am going to be a bit of a contrarian here, and go out on a limb and say I'm pretty happy with these. We've had them for two and a half years right now.

Some unavoidable truths about these are that they are wood, with a thin magnet on the back, and the colorful letter part is glued on cardstock. Which is a bummer if your kiddo is a chewer. Really, you should never leave a child who chews alone with anything with a magnet on it, period. So while I would prefer it if these were plastic, every brand of plastic alphabet magnets I've seen has a small magnet in it...the kind that if it were chewed out, or if the glue should not work so well and it should fall out, can do a whole lot of damage to intestines. They'd need to eat more then one to do that, but trust me, those kinds of things happen, and more then one small magnet can punch holes in a child's intestines. These magnets, are less likely to be doing that because they are week, flat, thin, and cover the entire thing, making them harder to swallow. So, as the mother of a child who is a serious chewer even headed into his fifth birthday, I prefer these because they don't come with the same kinds of risks plastic letters with smaller, more powerful magnets have.

Having said all of that, it's been two and a half years, and the magnets still work. Now, these are items I do not leave on the fridge or alone with my son given he is a chewer, and in terms of their toys, they actually come with a case which has a side for the upper case letters, a side for the lower case letters, and a sliding plastic lid. At least, they did when I purchased that. HUGE fan of that. I am also a huge fan of the fact that they have lower case letters, because many systems do not, and yet, lower case letters are the ones most often used in writing and reading, therefore the most important when it comes to decoding.

I love that these are different colors, but not too many to be distracting. Today when I was doing therapy with my son, I started with matching letter cards, and then moved on to "give me the red 'a' " with these. Having colors is very helpful in using these to teach kiddos with special needs or intellectual disabilities, both of which apply to my little man. And because they are magnets, I can be the queen of the multi-task with them, because how that went down today is he would request to play tickles on his computer, I would chase him, tickle his ribs, then put the red 'a' and yellow 'n' on the metal gate at the top of the stairs and say "give me..." Yah, so for me, I love these and find them a very useful, multifunctional teaching tool. They are cool part of my plan for helping my little man learn how to read and I'm happy with them. But definitely not one you should leave alone with your kiddos where they can chew on them. And perhaps having them wash their hands afterwards wouldn't hurt either, given that older versions may have contained some lead. So do Christmas lights for that matter, and I imagine most parents don't think a thing about letting their kids near those. So my advice would be, watch your kiddos, don't let them chew on these, and wash their hands afterwards, and these are a great teaching resource.

We love Melissa and Doug products and these did not disappoint. Grandkids play with these all the time and they are holding up well.