My Little Sandbox - Dino Land

We bought this for my 5-year-old son who loves dinosaurs and wants to be a paleontologist. We already owned the mermaid sandbox, so we basically knew what to expect. This is really fun for digging around and even comes with a dinosaur skeleton that you can bury, dig up, and assemble. There is a plastic playmat that goes under the sandbox to help catch spills, but you inevitably lose sand and need to do a little sweeping or vacuuming when the play is all finished for the day. I do wish the Little Sandbox people could come up with some way to contain the sand better when not in use. The trouble is that if you pick up the box (and I'm referring to the cardboard box where you store it when not in use) at an angle, then sand will come spilling out of the corners of the box. That's the only real trouble with this otherwise fun and imagination-using toy. I would recommend it and the others in the line to anyone who has a child that likes to dig and play in the sand.

This was my first Little Sandbox purchase. It was a gift for my nephew who is 6 & OBSESSED with dinosaurs. The child literally has every dino book & figurine on the market. This was a God send I came across. He has done many of the excavation set, but this he could add items he already had & he LOVED the footprint maker! It was a big hit this Christmas!

These sandboxes are great! I bought this one for my 3 year old because he loves playing with dinosaurs and he absolutely loves it. He can spend hours playing with it. I do recommend though, that it is used outside.

Although I was hesitant about sand in the house, my 5 year old daughter loves this toy! You just wouldn't believe the hours of fun she has had with it. I guess it may be the novelty of having sand in the house, but it is great and we can use it outside in the spring and summer too.

These little sand boxes are great - my grandkids loved having their favorite pasttime (playing in the sand box) available to do indoors when the weather wasn't agreeable to outdoor playtime! The small size was easier clean-up and storage.Great, fun toy for kids to use their imagination with.

Our 2 year old son is entralled with this little indoor sandbox. He will play for hours on a rainy day. I highly recommend it! It's great for imaginary playtime.

I bought this for my niece for her birthday because she went to a dinosaur museum and wanted to be an archeologist. After much research, I found this by accident on amazon. I preferred this to the chisel and chip kits for dinosaurs because my niece is only five, and the others require strength, precision, patience, and concentration that she does not have. Plus, you have to wet most of those other ones in order to chisel, so no thanks to that mess! We were going to buy her a giant sandbox and fill it with toy bones until we found this. This is much better! I bought a brush on the side to go with it from the painting craft department so she could have the true archeological experience. She loves it and it is just the right size for the coffee table. It is a little messy, but it comes with its own sand. She enjoys it but being five, she does move the sand around enthusiastically and it spills. We have a wood floor, so it's okay. We just sweep it up and put it back in. But carpet owners, do this in the kitchen or lose the sand forever! The set comes with bones, dinosaurs, tree, rocks, volcano, and little shovel. It's just amazing and a great learning tool.

Bottom line - if your looking for imaginative play that can include some sensory and tactile activity then there are better and less messy options.It's small - too small for three dinosaurs, two rocks, two plastic trees, a skeleton with six parts and a large volcano. This also means the chances of sand spilling are increased and your children will be playing with the items outside the small box.Poorly designed and thought out - the volcano is designed to sit on the edge of the box and only on the edge of the box. The back side of the volcano is cut-out thus requiring the support of the box edge otherwise it will fall over. Why is this a problem you ask. There is a hole in the top of the volcano, about a half inch deep and wide, and the set comes with a shovel. My two year old and four year old want to spend their time shoveling sand into the small capacity hole for pretend lava flow. Thus when the lava does flow it flows out of the box since the volcano HAS to be positioned on the wall.The very fine sand they include is a double edge sword. Yes it makes the play more enjoyable but it also means more of a clean-up and a greater likelihood sand will end up outside the box. Every time my kids pick up a piece lots of sand follows outside the box. You would have less spillage of this sort with larger particle sand. I suspect the finer sand is included so you can make dino prints in the sand but to no success. The print stamper doesn't work or only leaves very faint impressions which is an issue because of the sand. Sand doesn't hold a shape unless you add water then you can add a factor of 10 to the mess. I like that the box is designed to be a case in which the sandbox can be stored however it has no cover thus you can never tip the box or you'll find sand in the box and it leaking out the crevices of the box.Quality control may or may not be an issue as the set we were given had multiple right arms for the skeleton and no left arms.I'd limit it's use to outdoors and then be prepared to buy more sand.