TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory

The TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory is designed to stick on the wall of your bathroom. When mounted on the wall, you get the feel of being in front of a real ice cream machine. The factory is colored yellow and blue, and it has a picture of a cartoon penguin on the front. There is a cone holder on one side with a shaker filled with “sprinkles” on top of the holder. On top of the entire machine is a plastic ice cream cone that is the measuring cup for getting the proper amount of soap and water to make the suds that make up the fake ice cream. Other than that, the entire unit is pretty easy and simple and will give your child something to occupy their time while they are in the bath.

As with all bathtimes, never leave your child unattended in the bath as there is a huge risk of drowning. While supervising your child during bathtime, ensure that they are using the foam cone factory properly. Even though the toy is designed to create foam that looks like real ice cream, your child should never ingest the foam. The foam is made from the combination of soap and water, and if ingested, your child will get extremely sick from swallowing or tasting the soap. Make sure that your child understands that the foam is just “make believe” that they are better off feeding the foam to their toys than trying it themselves.

The TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory is very easy to use and comes with basically one step to make it work. The entire unit comes assembled right out of the box. There are huge suction cups on the back of the unit. When you take the toy out of the box, wet the suction cups a little, and then stick the machine on the wall of your shower/bathtub area. You can place the machine wherever you would like. The lower on the wall the better so that when your little one is in the bath they won’t have to stand up to reach the machine. It’s best that they keep sat while using the toy so that they don’t accidentally slip or fall while moving around the tub. Next, put the pieces where they belong so that your child can find them. Basically, the only pieces are the two cones that come with the toy and the shaker of sprinkles.

Once fully pieced together and mounted on the wall, you can begin using the Foam Cone Factory. On top of the machine is a plastic ice cream cone. Take off the cone and you will see that the cone is a cover for the entry port where you will place the soap and water. Flip the ice cream cone over and you will find that the ice cream cone is the measuring cup as well.

Take some liquid soap and place it in the cup. Measure out how much soap you want to place into the machine, then fill the cup and tip it into the machine. When all the soap has gone into the Foam Cone Factory, fill the cup up with water. Fill it up to the same point you filled up the soap and do that three times as the “recipe” is three parts water to one part soap. When the three parts of water are in the machine, replace the cone back on top to cover the porthole. Now, you are good to go. Take one of the ice cream cones out of the holder and place it under the spout. Pull down on the handle in the same fashion as a slot machine, and then out of the spout will come streams of foam that look just like real ice cream. You can then fill up the cones and you will have what looks like real ice cream. You can then play with the sprinkle shaker and pretend that you are placing sprinkles onto your ice cream.

Soap is what creates the foam that looks like real ice cream. Some parents have used hand soap to make the suds, while others have tried using shampoo and bath soap. Some have found that the hand soap works well for playtime, but using liquid bath soap, children could also use the suds to bathe themselves making the act of actually getting washed more fun and exciting. The Foam Cone Factory then becomes something more than just a fun toy in the bathtub it also becomes a fun dispenser for soap so that your child can have a fun way to learn the importance of cleanliness and keeping themselves clean and healthy. Regular household hand soaps work best in the machine as hand soaps are designed to go through a foaming dispenser, but trust that other soaps work just as well for your child.

One of the biggest if not the most important benefit of the TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory is that your child gets to use and build their imagination. It will be very evident to your child from the very beginning that they cannot eat the foam, but it gives your child the ability to imagine that they are making real ice cream. In a scenario such as this, your child can incorporate their other toys into the role-playing of being an ice cream maker. Children can pretend that they are running an ice cream shop and their dolls and toys are their customers. Role-playing of this kind is beneficial to your child’s development because it gives your child the opportunity to imagine that they are in a real-life scenario where they will have to use their social skills and skills at communication to “sell” ice cream to their clientele. During these types of role-playing times, parents can begin to gauge how their child interacts with the world, how advanced their child’s speaking skills are, and what kind of language their child has picked up and what words they have learned and retained. Many parents have found that listening to their children play with their toys was a fun and interesting way to learn what habits and thoughts their child has started to develop during their early years.

Because a child should never be left unattended in the bath for any reason, you and child can bond and play together during bathtime with the TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory. In the beginning, it will take you showing your child how to use the Foam Cone Factory for them to understand how it works. This is a fun way for you and your child to have time together during bathtime. This kind of interaction and imagination building gives your child the sense that bathtime is fun and something that should be enjoyed. You and your child can play role playing games where you are the customer and they are the ice cream maker and you can spend time together playing together and helping your child learn.

The TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory is designed for children ages 18 months and older, so in the beginning the parent will have to make most of the ice cream, but this is a great way for you to teach your child how to figure out how to work the machine and how to incorporate what the machine does into their bathing routine.

Another large benefit of the TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory is that not only does it make bathtime desirable to young children, but your child will learn physical skills that will help them as well. In order to pull down on the handle to make the foam come out, your child will develop their gripping skills to grab on to the handle to pull it down, which in turn helps them work on their arm muscles. Your child will then have to learn how to hold the cone under the machine while pulling down the handle, and here they will learn how to engage their centerline core to balance themself while they successfully get the machine to work in the way they need it to work so that they can get the foam into their ice cream cone. All of these skills will be developed during bath time when your child will also learn how to keep themself clean and healthy.

A few parents have expressed a few concerns over the TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory, and one of the biggest issues was that it’s hard for the toy to stay suction cupped to the wall. Many parents have found that their children tend to pull on the handle too hard and it causes the suction cups to begin slipping. Parents have not had any issues with the machine falling off the wall into the tub, but the machine has slid all the way down to the tub. Most of these parents simply keep the machine on the edge of the tub and have found the machine stays pretty sturdy during that time and works just fine.

The other major issue that parents have discovered is that the handle of the machine is fragile and has the potential to easily break. It’s best to warn your children of this and have them learn to use the machine gently so that the handle doesn’t break. Once the handle is broken, the machine can no longer be used.

The price of the TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory is middle of the road for a product of this type. The toy is not expensive at all. The price seems right considering what you get with your purchase is a pretty standard machine that you just mount on your wall. It appears as if you are paying for the mechanism that creates the foam and not much else. The real star of the toy is the soap and that is something that is not included and you have to continue to buy separately, so it’s the soap that you have to work into your budget. What you will get from this toy is hours of enjoyment by your children and you will also have children who will look forward to bath time and the ability to play and pretend. That fact alone is priceless and helps parents out exponentially.

Although it’s simple, the TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory is a great toy for your child to play with during bathtime. The toy helps to not only build your child’s motor skills, but it also builds their imaginations while they are learning that bathtime is fun and staying clean is healthy and fun. Parents can also interact and play with their child as well as building the parent/child bond. For the low price to purchase the toy, the TOMY Toomies Foam Cone Factory is a great buy that will entertain your child and get them to want to take a bath every night.