Review: DJECO Scratch Boards

Issac and I have been having fun working on our DECO Cosmic Mission Scratch Boards these last few weeks.  Neither of my boys have really enjoyed coloring like my daughter and I have over the years. That's one of the reasons I was excited to try out these scratch boards because it's not really coloring. Boys typically don't have the patience and sometimes not the fine motor skills to do intricate coloring like many others can. What attracted me to these were that Issac didn't have to do anything in a particular order and could "scratch" in any random order he liked and still come out with a great looking product.  

The items arrived all nicely packaged in a decorative envelope.  There are four scratch boards, an idea booklet and the tool used to "scratch".  I liked that if we wanted to take this out with us that it easily would fit in a purse and not take up much space.  Issac and I decided that we'd both do one of the boards, so we each picked one that we liked. We both really liked the cosmic theme and our boards turned out very colorful and had a nice sheen to them as well.  They were so nice looking that you could even frame one to help decorate a child's room! We both enjoyed working on these boards and I found them to be very relaxing. It didn't take long to complete one, so that was nice for my son to see a finished product fairly quickly. One complaint that we both had was the actual tool. My son struggles with fine motor skills and he complained that his hand hurt using this tool. I noticed after working on my picture that I felt the same. It seemed that the edges were kind of hard to work on with the tool.  It was great for intricate areas, but not for larger areas that we wanted to scratch. My daughter and I were brainstorming about what we could use and ran across a paintbrush. The end was pretty flat and worked amazing. I thought it did a much better job on the edges and for the larger spaces. I would love to see the tool maybe have a larger, flat piece on one side.  

This item is part of the Timberdoodle 5th Grade Curriculum Kit. I think this is one of those items that almost anyone of any age can enjoy. My son is 12 and I won't say how old I am, but we both greatly enjoyed this item. It would make a great gift or just something to have on hand for a rainy day or a long doctor's appointment.  I definitely plan to get more of these, but honestly not sure I plan to share them with my son.  This is one of those items that was for my child, but I really and truly enjoyed doing on my own.