The Melissa & Doug Cutting Fruit Set

If you have a toddler in your family, chances are you have a play kitchen and/or play food too. There are several manufacturers of quality wooden play food and Melissa & Doug is among the best. Their creative line of play food runs the gamut from simple refrigerator staples like milk to sushi and stir-fry sets complete with wok. We have several M & D food sets in our home and probably the most popular is the cutting fruit set.

The set comes with one wooden knife and seven fruits: orange, lemon, pear, strawberry, kiwi, melon and banana. The knife is totally safe, no need to worry about that. It's reminiscent of a paint stirring stick you get from the hardware store except shorter and with a handle. The fruits themselves are made from a high quality solid wood that can really stand up to a beating. My daughter has dropped hers countless times on a myriad of surfaces and I can't find even a small dent. The paint looks like it did the day we opened the box six months ago, not a single tiny chip to be found. The fruits are fairly accurate replicas of actual fruit right down to the proportions and weights. The halves or sections of fruit are connected by hook-and-loop tape. You "cut" the fruit by sliding the knife in between the fruit halves or sections and cutting through the hook-and-look tape.

Using the knife to cut the fruit has dramatically improved my daughter's hand-eye coordination. For the first month or so, she struggled to get the knife lined up with the small slit in between the sections and I had to hold them in my hand for her to be able to cut. I could see a steady improvement in her hand-eye coordination and her fine motor skills. Now she chops like the Iron Chef. She holds the fruit in one hand and slices it with the knife in the other, and chops through the whole set in quick succession.

My biggest complaint about the set is the poor quality hook-and-loop tape. Some of the fruits didn't hold together well from the beginning. Over the past six months of cutting, some of the pieces, especially the melon and banana, barely hold together at all. She doesn't cut these fruits very often and the hook-and-loop tape is very worn now. I'm surprised and disappointed that M & D would use such an inferior material. I foresee having to replace the hook-and-loop tape in the near future. My only complaint other than the poor quality hook-and-loop tape is the heaviness of the pear when both halves are together. The occasional boo-boo toe is certain to occur, but unlike some of the other M & D play food, these boo-boos won't hurt for more than a few minutes if your child even noticed at all.

Overall the Melissa & Doug Cutting Fruit set is a good addition to any child's play kitchen or play food collection. With the exception of the poor quality hook-and-loop tape, this is a great toy. Not only does it encourage pretend play, it also builds fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.