My 3 year old son LOVES this set. It is building his dexterity and its very engaging to him. We started off playing it like a game, where each person takes turns and puts a peg in to make the picture. We set the picture car under the board so you just match the image. Once my son got the hang of it, he does the whole picture for himself and is SOOO proud of that.The BIG BIG con is there simply are not enough picture cards (especially given the price paid for plastic and paper). My son is going through the cards SOOO fast that they will be done in no time. The image cards contain only 12 fully colored image cards: heart, boat, snail, car, fish, snake, ducky, flower?, umbrella, box, tulip, and butterfly. There are then 8 cards with only outlines and dots which include: cactus, camel, Christmas tree, Rudolf the red nose reindeer, four circles, spiral, flamingo, and a house. Because those are only outlines and dots, the images are more abstract and harder to understand with young children. The next 8 are just lines of patterns and you are to complete the pattern most are adding only 1 peg to the line, while others require more. I guess the child could peg over the entire line, but since its just a pattern instead of an image, I doubt the child would want to. The last card shows some basic addition, but it seems confusing in how it is laid out and therefore could lead to misunderstand by kids. So, if you are starting with a 3 year old (like the box claims), then stick to the full image cards and make more of your own. Work up to doing the outlined images and make more of your own. Then leave the rest of the cards for an older child because most toddlers are not ready to just mindlessly copy the chained patterns.Thrilled that this set can double use as a math center (for learning calculations and graphing) OR even used as part of an art center for designing their own pegged images.Overall, this set needs to include MORE image cards and I mean A LOT more for the price being paid. Cards are NOT that expensive to include so include MORE in the set.
