Product Description

Stack the durable, brightly colored wooden beads on five hardwood dowels in sequence to match the design on one of the pattern cards. This Bead Sequencing Set builds complex reasoning skills as well as sorting and coordination. Includes over 45 brilliantly colored beads, five dowels, and 10 patterns that increase in difficulty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6392 in Toys & Games
• Brand: Melissa & Doug
• Model: 570
• Dimensions: 12.90" h x 12.60" w x 2.10" l, 4.50 pounds

Features

• 3 years & up
• Develops shape recognition & spatial relations
• Wooden storage case

Customer Reviews

Great concept, needs refinement
I love Melissa & Doug toys and this one is a great concept. The patterns (that you copy with beads on poles) are on sturdy wood and vary in difficulty. However, there are lots of different bead shapes, and the pictures are sometimes hard to follow -- the oval bead looks a lot like the cylinder bead, blue looks like purple, etc. I found that I had to figure out what bead each picture was supposed to represent (not easy), teach that to my son (3 yrs), and THEN let him copy the patterns.

Agree - Great concept, needs refinement
My son seemed to enjoy this item and I love it for the educational aspect. Patterns and sequencing are very important concepts in the early school years and even into the higher elementary grades, patterns/sequences show up in math homework & reading (i.e. sequence of a story). Sequence/pattern questions are also prominent on standardized tests. So this item is a great introduction, however, I agree with the previous reviewer, some beads are very similar making it difficult to discern on the pattern card - even I goofed on the first look. Blue does look too much like the purple and cylinders and squares look too similar on the pattern cards. Also, it needs more beads - my son wanted to fill all 5 posts but ran out of the 'right' bead to complete the additional patterns. As with all M&D toys, the quality of construction is great and even given the few minor flaws I mentioned, I would still purchase this item again.

Not impressed
Having purchased many Melissa & Doug products for my son, I did not hestitate to buy this. I was extremly disappointed. The blue & purple beads are so close in color that I cannot tell them apart, let alone my 2 year old! There are not enough beads to complete some of the sequence cards and the shapes are hard to determine. My son still loves to play with the set but as a teaching tool it is useless.