Toniebox starter set
This child-friendly audio player is quite honestly the stuff of dreams for parents. Intuitively designed with no fussy buttons or controls to grapple with, it’s straight-forward enough for even pre-schoolers to operate themselves. All you have to do is place one of the Tonies – a little hand-painted figure containing an audio story – on top of the box and the story starts playing. The Toniebox has serious kid-appeal and was greeted with a big “wow!” when we unboxed it. This clever audio system manages to be soft enough to not feel out of place in a little child’s bedroom, but sturdy enough to deal with over-enthusiastic operators.
The starter set comes with a Toniebox (there’s a range of colours you can pick from), a Creative-Tonie (a blank Tonie with 90 minutes of space for you to upload online audiobooks, music or record your own stories, songs and messages), a charging station and clear instructions on how to set your box up. It’s worth bearing in mind you will need wifi to set it all up. There is an impressive collection of Tonies to choose from, including film favourites like Finding Nemo, Despicable Me and Disney’s Aladdin, classic children’s tales and much-loved stories by Julia Donaldson. There’s also a great choice of more obviously educational Tonies, such as the How and Why: Space Travel/ The Moon and The Age of Dinosaurs/Prehistoric Animals, which offer engaging, age-appropriate narration that absolutely absorbed our testers. The Toniebox gets full marks from us for offering accessible, screen-free learning. It looks great, is easy for children to operate independently and is portable enough to take with you when travelling.