Encourage your child’s active and imaginative play with some great new toys that they will love. Our Junior Toy Analyst Jaxon worked hard testing out toys featuring some of his favourite things.
Check out what Jaxon and his mum thought below 
Meet Jaxon, our Junior Toy Analyst
Age: 8
Favourite colour: Green
Favourite food: Mashed potato
Favourite toy: LEGO and Nerf
Jaxon loves being busy and he’s always on the move – whether it’s Nerf battles with his friends or attempting jumps on his bike around the local pump track, he never sits still for long. He’s great at building and creating and he’s really into imaginative play – he comes up with fantastic narratives while he’s playing with army men or LEGO and he’s always looking for friends, or even his little sister, to join in. He’s started showing an interest in video games lately but we like to keep him engaged with real life toys and games as much as possible!
Fisher-Price Imaginext® Mega Bite Shark™
For a kid with a shark obsession who had just been to Kelly Tartlon’s the week prior to see them live, this Fisher-Price Imaginext Mega Bite Shark came at just the right time.
Jax ripped into it straight away and thought it was really cool how realistic the swimming motion looked when he rolled it along, but even better that it can “swallow” the scuba diver (who can then be retrieved from the door at the back). This made for great imaginative play as he set up underwater scenes with the shark cage, the attacking shark, and the clever scuba driver with all his tricks to get away safely. The shark is quite big so he could incorporate other toys into his play, like his LEGO men (the shark became a Megalodon once they were involved) and even his little sister and her Barbies became part of the scene. When you press the Power Pad the shark starts chomping like crazy which made both kids squeal!
He was very keen to see what it did in the water but good thing we checked the box, because Mega Bite is not supposed to be submerged – he’s a land lubber only! So keep in mind that this is not a bath or pool toy, though it actually doesn’t matter as it’s probably more fun for kids to create the underwater world in their imaginations instead.
From a mum’s point of view, I liked that the shark can move without needing batteries and it also doesn’t make any noises (which, we all know as parents, grow tiresome quite quickly). I loved watching Jaxon come up with all these new action-packed storylines and how he involved his sister and other toys. The box says for kids aged 3-8 but I think any kid of any age with an interest in sharks would find joy with the Mega Bite. It’s well worth buying and keeping in the cupboard if you want to start stocking up for Christmas!
NERF Alpha Strike Cobra RC-6 Targeting Set
As an avid NERF enthusiast – it was even the theme of his birthday party last year – Jaxon was super excited to try out the Alpha Strike Cobra RC-6 Targeting Set. The single blaster pack comes with 12 darts and four half-bottle plastic targets (which don’t fully connect and can be blasted apart). He has a few NERF blasters already but none that have targets for him to shoot at, so the first thing he did was put the bottle halves together and line them up on the table.
What’s cool about these bottle halves is that you can actually set them up as targets in a number of different ways – either as two full targets or as four half targets.
He loaded the foam darts and found a good position for himself before having a go. He was really impressed with the power performance of the darts (“Whoa these shoot so far!”). There’s actually a very cool feature on this NERF blaster which allows you to load, prime and fire each blaster in three quick steps to unleash six darts in a row!
The boys next door popped over and quickly joined the game with some of the other NERF blasters we have. There were lots of excited cheers when the targets were smashed over and great to see them positioning themselves and aiming to hit the targets – great for their coordination skills.
I can’t get over how good the price is on this blaster set! Another great toy to stock up on for birthday presents or even as a stocking stuffer for Christmas.
Jaxon has already had hours of fun with this blaster and I know it will remain a firm favourite – it’s a great addition to his NERF collection.
Mega Construx™ Hot Wheels® Rodger Dodger™ & Hot Wheels® Racing
This is something new from Hot Wheels and something we’d never tried before – constructing your own Hot Wheels monster truck out of building blocks! For kids who are into construction blocks as well as the Hot Wheels franchise, this is a really fun combo.
Jaxon couldn’t wait to get started, and opened the box to find all the building blocks neatly packaged and the instruction booklet which was very clear and easy to follow. He needed a bit of help from dad to get started, but once they had the initial base built he was quite happy to carry on without help. He was very proud of himself once Rodger Dodger was built as it looked really impressive – the wheels are massive! He then went on to build the smaller racing car, without any help at all this time, and he put it together in record time – easy peasy!
The box says it’s for ages 5+ so for an 8 year old the construction was really achievable. The set features authentic Hot Wheels details such as Rodger Dodger’s exposed chrome engine and the iconic red, white and blue paint job and giant wheels of Hot Wheels Racing.
The set also comes with two poseable micro action figures dressed as race car drivers. So once the vehicle construction was complete, Jaxon launched straight into some imaginative play with the full set. Both vehicles drive along at good speed on flat surfaces and there was a lot of car-crushing with the monster truck on the smaller vehicle as well as some of Jaxon’s other Hot Wheels cars which were incorporated into the game.
There are 249 bricks and pieces in the set which can be combined with any Mega Construx building set, to build your own custom cars. The bricks are also compatible with other name brands which makes for even more building options – ideal for developing creativity and problem-solving skills.
This would make a great birthday gift for kids between ages 5 and 10 who love to construct and who also love cars. It’s such a good price that I am going to stock up on a few to have in the cupboard for all the birthday parties Jaxon gets invited to. The fact that he has this set means he can help his friends build them and they can play with their monster trucks together. It also makes a great Christmas present if you are getting organised early this year!
The toys in this review were provided to Kidspot by The Warehouse.
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