Sprig Story Builders playsets review

November 8, 1:25 PMChicago Children's Toys ExaminerRenée Carver

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  Princess Penny's Story Building Palace is one of the new Sprig
Story Builders playsets that encourage creativity, fine-motor skills,
and imagination. (© 2009 Sprig Toys, Inc.)

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Sprig Story Builders playsets, the latest line of toys added to the family of eco-friendly Sprig Toys, allow children to use printed paperboard panels and blocks made of recycled material to construct and act out stories with themed sets and characters.

We were sent Princess Penny's Story Building Palace for our review. This eco-friendly building set comes with 95 pieces and is suitable for children ages 3 and up. It does not require batteries and is paint, BPA, and phthalate-free.

How to play with Story Builders playsets

Princess Penny is a three-dimensional figure made of sprigwood, or a green bio-composite material made from combining bits of recycled material with sawdust from reclaimed wood. She has a pink Princess hat that is removable but her face is smooth and featureless, encouraging children to use their imaginations to fill in further details about her personality and looks. She is compatible with the figures from the Sprig Toys Adventure Series.

Children can design their own layout for the walls of this
eco-friendly cardboard palace playset.
(credit: Renée Carver)

Preschoolers slide punched-out paperboard panels printed with water-based inks into slots in the sides of pink sprigwood Story Blocks to set up the walls of Princess Penny's palace, including its gardens and courtyards. Kids have the freedom to set the boundaries of the walls wherever they like.

Other paperboard panels slide into Story Blocks to make Princess Penny's horses and carriage or two-dimensional characters like a king, a queen, a set of knights with gold helmets, and a set of palace guards with silver helmets. This cardboard building set also includes details like fancy lights that slide into slits in the walls and triangular pieces that can slide into two different walls to create a platform for characters to stand upon.

While Princess Penny is a three-dimensional sprigwood
figure, her friends are two-dimensional paperboard and
must have their feet stuck into Story Blocks before they
are able to stand. (credit: Renée Carver)

Princess Penny's Story Building Palace review

Princess Penny and her two-dimensional friends are charmingly simple in their design, while the panels used to construct their palace are, in turn, beautifully detailed. The various wall pieces are printed with different features like crawling vines, balustrades, crenellated tops, and little fountains, and some feature doors that can open and shut. The paperboard itself is sturdy with a lovely smooth finish.

For the most part, the wall pieces slide securely into their Story Block slots. Some children may find it awkward to stand the flat charaters up by sliding one corner of their feet into the corner of a lower height Story Block, but after playing with the set for awhile, that becomes second nature.

Children will need steady hands and patience, as well as imagination, to design and construct Princess Penny's palace. Our four-year-old tester did have a recurring problem with the palace lights falling out of their slots (some of the slots just seem to be cut too big to hold the light in the wall securely), and she needed some help to slide the sides of the triangular platform into the wall sections, too.

Some children may prefer to build and play with Ol' Mac's
Story Building Barnyard. (© 2009 Sprig Toys, Inc.)

Sprig Story Builders playsets review

Playing with Sprig Story Builders playsets will help children develop their creativity, imagination, fine-motor skills, and hand-eye coordination as they design and build a set for dramatic play and storytelling with characters. For children not interested in knights and princesses, there is also the cute Ol' Mac's Story Building Barnyard, with which kids can build places and objects found around a farm, like a barn and a chicken coop, as well as a tractor, crops, and farmyard animals.

For increased creative and imaginative play, kids can add their own toy figures and vehicles to these Story Builders playsets, or even use cardboard and markers or crayons to design and add their own paper panels. Once kids master the way to stick panels in the Story Blocks to make walls or characters, they are limited only by their own imaginations in what to create and build next.

Chicago families can buy Princess Penny's Story Building Palace from the Sprig Web site for $29.99.

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