Pete's Expert Summary
My human, in their infinite... let's call it *optimism*, has acquired a box of colorful plastic blocks. Ostensibly, this "Numberblocks" set is meant to teach a small, uncoordinated human about numbers by having them click together these cubes with faces on them, apparently based on some television program I have mercifully never been subjected to. However, I see it for what it truly is: a glorious explosion of 100 individual, lightweight, perfectly skitter-able cubes. The potential for batting these across the hardwood floor is immense, and the tiny character cards and stickers are just bonus debris to be tracked into my nap spots. The "learning activities" are a complete waste of perfectly good basking time, but the raw materials... the raw materials have potential.
Key Features
- OFFICIALLY LICENSED NUMBERBLOCKS TOYS: From the friendly TV series Numberblocks, an award-winning show from BBC, the Numberblocks crew brings math learning to life with the officially licensed MathLink Cubes Numberblocks 1-10 Activity Set!
- HANDS-ON NUMBER TOYS: Children see how numbers really work as they build their own Numberblocks from One to Ten and master key early learning math skills such as counting, adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing through hands-on discovery and play.
- COUNTING TOYS FOR KIDS AGES 3-5: Each connecting cubes set can build the friendly characters from Numberblocks so you can follow along with the show or play on your own!
- PRESCHOOL LEARNING TOYS: Each of the 30 Numberblocks math learning activities are linked to the episodes on TV and can be followed along using the Numberblocks counting cubes.
- EASTER GIFTS FOR KIDS: Each set includes 100 MathLink Numberblocks Cubes, 59 faceplates, 54 stickers, 11 Numberlings, 11 Character Cards, 15 double-sided Write 'N' Wipe Activity Cards, 1 stand for Zero and 1 Activity Guide.
A Tale from Pete the Cat
The thing stood on the living room rug, a garish totem of primary colors. The human had assembled it with painstaking care, cooing about the number "Ten," a tall, rainbow-hued creature with ten smiling faces stacked one atop the other. It was an affront to good taste and structural engineering. After the human departed, leaving their creation unattended, I approached. It did not move. It did not squeak. It simply stood there, radiating a kind of cheerful, plastic idiocy. My initial verdict was one of profound disappointment. I circled the monolith at a respectful distance, my tail giving a slow, contemplative twitch. This was not a simple ball of foil or a feather on a string. It was a construction. A statement. I noted the faint seams where one plastic cube clicked into another. I saw the way the top-most block, a white one with a crown of red stars, caught the afternoon sun. The human, in their haste to "learn," had not secured the base block perfectly to the rug's thick pile. A fatal flaw. A rookie mistake. My cynicism began to melt away, replaced by the thrill of a burgeoning idea. This was not a job for brute force. This required finesse. A clumsy swipe would be the work of a common alley cat, not a connoisseur of chaos like myself. I crept forward, my gray tuxedo-clad form low to the ground like a miniature panther stalking a particularly stupid, rectangular gazelle. I selected my target: the third block from the bottom, a cheerful yellow one. It was the keystone, the linchpin of this whole gaudy enterprise. A single, unsheathed claw. A delicate *tink* against its exposed corner, applying just enough lateral pressure. The cascade was magnificent. A plastic clatter that was music to my ears, a chain reaction of clicking and tumbling that sent a hundred components scattering across the floor. The tower of Ten was now a democratic scattering of Ones. The little faceplates spun like chaotic coins. The human's ordered world of "math" had been returned to its natural, entropic state. I watched a single orange cube skitter under the sofa, a perfect target for a later excavation. They were not a toy to be played *with*, but a system to be *disrupted*. Yes, this product was worthy. Not for the human's reasons, of course. But for mine.
