Learning Resources Cactus Counting Desert Activity Set, Early Years Classroom maths Activity Set, Build Number Sense, 67 Pieces, Ages 3+

Great for developing numeral skills in primary aged children. It can be adapted on different ages since the game provides easier and advanced mathematical equations. Love the idea and as a teacher, I would highly recommend that you play this with your child to encourage number recognition and algebra skills in a fun way.

A maths resource for Nursery/Reception and Year 1. This resource comes with items that are card, so for sturdiness I have given it a 4, bit mean, but cards will get tatty with constant use. The other resources are all very sturdy though. There is a booklet to guide you through the use of the item. Can be used for colour matching without the boards. You could use the cards as a template and create your own and laminate to extend play and learning further, why stop at the pre-printed cards?! I love learning resources that help children learn through play. The fact that they are handling physical objects deepens their learning and is a much more natural and gentle style of learning for young children. The items themselves are engaging and fun. Buy a mini cactus or two for your classroom, have some mexican food, perhaps use this to combine with these activities to celebrate diversity in a fun and different way. I really like this, so easy to use that if you have children with Special Needs who are struggle with Maths this could be used at home. Schools should loan out resources like this to parents of Special Needs children for a small sum to cover wear and tear. Much like the lovely Toy Library I worked in that went bust due to cut backs.

The media could not be loaded.  This is an educational toy to play with pre schoolers and young children. The activities can be easy or harder depending on their age and level of knowledge.My daughter played for a little bit with us buy didn't find it too engaging and lost interest after about 15 minutes. We will try again when she's a bit older.Overall though, the game is well designed with a booklet with various ideas and instructions on how to play. If you want to make maths a bit more fun or if you home school this will be helpful!

I recently received the Cactus Counting Desert Activity Set for reviewing purposes. Just the thing for my granddaughter, who is 2 years and 5 months old.She was thrilled with it and had a lot of fun 'planting' the 4 different types of cacti while practicing addition and subtraction.The set is a great way to build number sense, although I did find it to be a bit expensive.My only issue is that my granddaughter found it a little difficult to push the cacti into the holes as they didn't seem to fit too well.Overall, this is a great early years classroom maths activity set and I would give it 3 stars.

My daughter is probably too young to understand how to work with this set but the different types and colours of the cacti was very helpful when she practiced counting and colours. She is also absolutely fascinated with cacti and loved them to bits.

One of my children has learning disabilities and maths is a real problem for him. This set has really helped him with basic equations and counting.As it is a very tactile and visual tool, it's perfect for helping to cement simple mathematical concepts - people tend to remember more of something if there is an interactive element to it.You get 40 differently-shaped and different coloured cacti and four stands with five holes in each one so you can stand the cacti up. The stands are decorated to look like the desert and the holder part is soft to the touch. Really solid and well made too. The cacti themselves are of a good, solid construction and I would say pretty impossible to damage unless you ran them over with a tank or something. The cacti are all textured and designed after their real-life counterparts, along with some fun facts about them in the instruction leaflet.As well as all that, you get some double-sided cards that slot into the stands behind the cacti - they all have different equations and challenges to try that you can use according to your child's ability. Nothing goes above the count of 20, which I would say is the only downside to this product as I think it has tremendous potential value. You also get two double-sided coaster-shaped cards with a separate clear plastic spinning wheel overlay so you can play maths games or have little challenges.The instruction books is full of tips and ideas to help you come up with different things for your child to do and I found that being able to physically handle each piece and group them, add them, remove them etc was supremely helpful in getting my son to understand the processes involved in his homework.My only critique would be the limited long-term capability of the item. If I could suggest any improvements, they would be to add more equation cards (or perhaps blank for customisation), some more stands with greater capacity for higher or more complex number solving, and to perhaps make it so that each cactus had more than one use. So for example, the red ones could be worth 5, the light green 10, the yellow 50 and the dark green 100, or something like that. Just so that instead of only ever being able to get as high as 20, you could do a much wider range of equations as the child progresses. I know I could just do this anyway by telling my son red equals whatever, but for ease and simplicity, it wouldn't hurt to include this sort of thing as one of the ideas in the booklet.I'm giving this 5 stars because it really is a useful tool and does precisely what it's meant to do. It's well made, visually appealing and has really helped my son with his maths. I recommend this product for definite.

everything seems to have some sort of relevant STEM theme at the moment. and, i feel that this one really does own its right to be marked as such.this set is brilliant. introducing your younger children to maths. it is made fun, and the learning element can be as subtle as you want.the cactus have their own value, and combinations of such, allow for math problems to be solved. there is a total of 25 cards of varying difficulties, and it also allows for an element of fun to be brought into it. there are 40 cacti in the set grouped into four different cacti types, and four different colours.i really can't recommend this enough, if you have children at preschool or reception age. it will give them a massive head start.