HABA Ratz Fatz Adventskalender Ponyhof - Review

HABA Ratz Fatz Adventskalender Ponyhof. Phew. That's a mouthful & a half for poor little non-German-speaking me.  And that's the name of the latest product we've received as part of our HABA Mums Club membership to review.  Take a deep breath & say it slowly with me. HABA Ratz Fatz Adventskalender Ponyhof.

The HABA Ratz Fatz Adventskalender Ponyhof, as the name suggests, even to a non-German-speaker like yours truly, is an advent calendar.  I figured out the "pony" bit with not too much difficulty (the pictures helped), but I had to resort to begging twitter to help me with the "hof" part.  Roughly in English, it means Pony Yard Advent Calendar.  And as you can see, the calendar shows a festive stable scene.  The cover, shown, slips off from a lidded box.  Parents need to get into the calendar before the morning of the first to take the lid off the box so that their little ones can get the full fun of opening the advent calendar windows to find the treat inside.  I love the fact there is a proper box & lid, because it means that the pieces can be put away safely at the end of advent, and reused as a whole toy in the future, rather than becoming 24 small pieces of clutter to find underfoot at 2 in the morning.

Also underneath the slip-cover is a booklet.  HABA's instructions usually come in an array of European languages, but this is the first time I've encountered the booklet only in German.  I slightly feel like we're missing out a bit here, as each day has a little story, rhyme or game to play, relating to that day's toy.  Toy? Oh yes.  You can forget chocolate, the HABA Ratz Fatz Adventskalender Ponyhof has toys inside!  There's 12 wooden pieces, all up to HABA's usual high standards of production & fabulous colours, and 12 cards.  These come together to make up the pony yard, and can be used for all sorts of imaginative play and role-play.

From what I can gather, Ratz Fatz is the name of a whole collection of puzzle games from HABA, all featuring stories, rhymes & riddles, designed to develop language skills & understanding.  As we don't speak German, we may be skipping that part, but we can still have a whole lot of fun with our pony friends, inventing our own stories about them & their adventures.

Nails: Jessica - Black Ice

I know it's not December for another couple of hours (I'm writing this at 9.30 on the 30th), but in the interests of reviewing, I had a sneaky peak behind door number 1, and found this little gentleman waiting to find a new friend.  He's the first piece in our collection.  Squeaky's already seen the box, and knows there's something very exciting inside, she keeps asking for her "horsey calendar", so I know this is going to be a huge hit, and I'm looking forward to the stories she comes up with.

The HABA Ratz Fatz Adventskalender Ponyhof is recommended for children aged 3 and above, due to small parts.  Squeaky is 3 in January, but having checked the contents, I am happy for her to play with the advent calendar supervised by an adult.

For more HABA reviews, why not pop over to the HABA Mums Club?

Disclosure: I was provided with the advent calendar free of charge for the purposes of this review.  I was not told what to write, and all opinions are my own.  Links are provided for your convenience only, I am not a member of any affiliate scheme and will not receive reward for their use.  A version of this post will also appear on the HABA Mums Club site.