I'm a parent of a preschooler and toddler, and I very much enjoy trying different activities that are both stimulating and educational. I was excited about the Playfoam Shape and Learn Letter Sounds activity, especially since it's a new concept that combines a preferred sensory activity with letters, but it didn't go quite how I thought.
My daughter (preschooler) needed help shaping the foam to match the letters, and after about 5 letters she was done and wanting to do a different activity. My son (2.5 years old) was interested, but was mostly into squishing the foam. I'm all for kids of different developmental levels being able to experience their activity in their way, so I was ok with my son just playing with the foam. He was still getting some learning with the colors of the foam and us pointing at letters. He did, however, need direct supervision or he started squishing the colors together.
Which brings me to my biggest con...
As soon as the different colors even touch each other at all, the foam beads mix and it's very time consuming/difficult to separate the colors completely. That means at the end of one sitting, all the colors have at least a few beads of different colors. If you're the kind of parent that can't stand mixing play doh colors, this will drive you nuts. My daughter was careful to keep colors separate, but even at clean up you have to squish all the foam into the tiny plastic squares it comes in and my daughter tried cleaning up herself and the colors all touched in the original packaging.
Packaging: the plastic holder it comes in is flimsy and not practical for ongoing storage, especially bc the box it comes with is bulky and not practical for ongoing play. If they had a harder container that easily separates the foam for storage and holds all the cards, that would be great. However, I know that would also drive up the price, and I don't think it's worth paying full price for this.
This would be a very good activity for kindergarten age kids, in my honest opinion, and especially if you know they enjoy foam/play doh/slime/etc. Or if you don't mind mixing all the colors and making rainbow foam they can just use for the letters and store it all together in a box/bag. That's actually prob what I'll end up doing to avoid being bothered by a few mixed colors every time.