In our second review for Bundle Bear Toys we are looking at the Discovery Magic Set from Melissa & Doug.

The Discovery Magic Set is aimed at children aged 6 years and over and provides young magicians with four tricks to be able to perform in front of family and friends.  Obviously, a 5 year old Monkey is just under the guide age, so I was interested to see how he would get on with the set.  He was given a more complex set for Christmas, and that is currently well beyond him.

The set comes with four different wooden tricks – Magic Jewel Box, Colour Changing String, Chamber of Illusion and Sword in the Stone, along with instructions and a wooden ‘show table’.

The set is great for teaching children to follow instructions and working on their fine motor skills.

From a parents point of view the one improvement that could be made to this set would be a lid to the ‘show table’ so you can safely store the magic tricks when your magician has finished their performance.  I can see parts getting misplaced with the set as it stands.

I read through the instructions, to see if I thought Monkey would be able to perform the tricks.  The text is quite small but there are diagrams to show children how to perform the tricks.  The instructions are in 8 different languages.  Personally I think one page per language for all 4 tricks would work better for children, than showing 8 languages per trick, per page.  I found it overwhelming, I’m sure children would too.

I could see that Monkey would probably need to work on perfecting the Magic Jewel Box trick but I was fairly confident that the other tricks were within his capabilities.

So what would Magician Monkey think to the Discovery Magic Set?  I think this photo sums it up.  Wow Mummy!!

He was quickly marvelling at the Sword in the Stone and giggling away at how we could trick Daddy P with it.

I don’t won’t to describe the tricks in detail (obviously all magicians are sworn to total secrecy) but they really are great for younger children to work easily and confidently. Monkey loves this set and I look forward to watching his magic skills grow as he gets to grasp with the magic behind the Magic Jewel Box.

His favourite trick by far is the Chamber of Illusion.  He was totally mystified by this trick – wow Mummy – where did the pom poms go???

For a first set I think the Discovery Magic Set works really well.  It’s simple enough for younger children to actually be able to perform the tricks, they can work on their manual dexterity.  Being wooden, the parts are durable and easy for children to handle.

For a shy Monkey, this set will be great for helping with his confidence levels and I think this set might come on holiday with us so he can perform to Granny and Gramps.

disclaimer:  we were given this set in exchange for an honest review