Perfect for a 3 year old!

I sent this to my 3 year old nephew in NY, and my sister in law called to say it was absolutely adorable! My nephew was cooking burgers and dogs while the grill made the sizzling sound that he just could not get enough of. If you are a playdoe lover, as well as the kind of kid who likes to pretend to grill or cook, what an wonderful combination!! I highly recommend this toy! It has a great price too!

Good additon to my daughter' kitchen

This toy is a lot of fun, especially since coming from George Forman and we already have his grill (a real one). So now my daughter can do the same things her mother does on the same kind of grill. Basically it's the best play-doh toy we had (and we had quite a few).

Fun for hours!

Our 12 year old daughter bought this toy for her sister Michelle's 3rd birthday. Michelle couldn't wait to get at it and was more excited about the play-doh than the Powertouch I had bought her.

The sizzling sound that it makes is very realistic. I find myself pressing it down just to hear it. The molds are pretty cool and actually look like food. The mold that contains the chicken leg, steak, hamburger and fish is the flip side of the upper grill part. There's a mold on the bottom grill part too. The only problem I have with this toy so far is that the grill mold is hard to get on and off. So whenever my daughter needs to put the grill piece back on, she calls me in to do this. I suppose it will get easier with time, but it was very difficult for even me or my husband to put back on.

My 12 year old discovered the part that "extrudes" the french fries, etc. If you place play-doh in the hinge part of the grill, and you slide the spatula in a particular way on the back of the unit, then the fries come out. I would never have thought about this as it's not in the "instruction" sheet and certainly Michelle would not have figured it out. My other daughter looked at the box and saw how the spatula fit into the back of the griller. My advice would be to definitely look at the pictures on the box to see what else the toy can do. Oh, and it's sort of hard to clean the hinge part after extruding the play-doh.

Also, the top of the unit contains molds for hot dog buns and hamburger buns. Very similar to the real GF grills that warm buns. This part of the unit just sort of "hangs" there, there is no latch to connect it to the upper grill part. It's kind of hard to explain, but it's not that big of a problem. It just gets banged on the table quite a bit since 3 year-olds sometimes don't know the meaning of "gently." No worse for wear.

I gave 3 stars for durability, simply because we haven't had it long enough to determine its durability. I gave 1 star for educational value because I really don't know if it is educational. I suppose there's something kids could learn from it, but basically it's just a fun toy.

If your child likes play-doh and pretending to cook, he or she will absolutely love this item!