Introducing Our Generation School

*Our Generation School Room gifted for review

As a parent, it’s only recently that I have discovered the Our Generation range of dolls, accessories and playsets, and when I got to see them all in the flesh at BlogOn Toys blogger event this September, I literally wanted to take them all home (for me that is, not even for Erin!!!). These 18 inch dolls have such life like features, gorgeous outfits and beautiful long hair perfect for styling, that they almost immediately setting me into a whirl of nostalgia – a flashback to when I was 5 and I loved nothing more than playing with my dolls hair ideally whilst someone played with mine! 🙂

I was lucky enough to win one of the Our Generation dolls in the raffle at BlogOn Toys, and when we got her home, Erin fell in love with her almost immediately, and has been playing with her pretty much ever since.

We then discovered that the Our Generation range not only includes the dolls themselves, but also a range of larger sized playsets too, perfectly sized for housing the range of dolls and ideal for helping bring Erin’s imagination and role play to life.

We recently put the Our Generation school – Our Generation Awesome Academy School Room to the test, and here’s the verdict!

About the Our Generation Awesome Academy School Room

The Our Generation School Room is a fantastic classroom playset for the Our Generation (and other 18 inch dolls), and comes with a teachers desk and chair, two desks for her students, and a HUGE 92 – YES NINTETY TWO fun school items and accessories including a clipboard, calculator, stationery, notepads, books, teachers mug and even a potted plant to bring the classroom to life.

With a real working clock, a ringing bell and fire alarm, a light up whiteboard and chalkboard with real chalk, there are also plenty of interactive elements to keep little ones entertained for hours as they bring their stories to life.

The Our Generation School Room retails at £149.99 and is available at Amazon

First Impressions

My first impressions of the Our Generation Awesome Academy School Room were really positive. Even from the box, I could see there were so many little accessories, with great attention to detail. It was very realistic, and had lots of elements that Erin would recognise from her own school, so much so that I knew that Erin was going to love it. As a huge stationery fan myself, even I got a bit excited when I saw all the mini stationery items, all of which could be neatly stored away in the real drawers of the teacher’s desk.

Assembly of the Our Generation School Room

The set comes unassembled but has just wall sides to click into place. You do need to do this carefully however to ensure that the circuit elements that power the bell and lights are properly aligned.

Our Generation School bell not working

I had read in other online reviews that some people had found some difficulties with the electrics in the Our Generation School not working. If your bell or some of the lights don’t work, you need to ensure that the sides are fully clicked down (which does take a little bit of force and is best done on a completely flat surface and not on the floor). You must also ensure that the set is in Play mode and not ‘Try me’ mode. Our School bell didn’t work after our first set up, but with another forceful click on the one wall, it started working as expected and we have had no problems since.

The Our Generation School Room does take a little while to unpack the huge amount of accessories from the box (It took me about 20 minutes to unpack them all as there are lots of cable ties and tape to hold them in place!), therefore if you are giving this as a gift you may want to consider unpacking it and presenting it unwrapped so they can play with it straight away, otherwise you may have a very impatient child on your hands!

Our Experience 

When Erin first saw the Our generation classroom she was very excited – Erin is 5 and started school last September and as such has lots of real life experiences she can recreate in the playset. She couldn’t wait to start acting out little scenes and was very excited when she saw all the accessories included.

It is worth pointing our here that despite having a huge number of accessories, the Awesome Academy School Room does not come with a doll included and all the dolls and clothes are available to purchase separately. Our images include the Our Generation Arianna doll which we already own. There are school related uniform and bag accessories which are also available to purchase separately.

We put the Our Generation School Room on top of Erin’s toy box so she was able to stand up and play with it at that height. The set has a red brick exterior with an opening door which the dolls can walk through, as well as opening windows, and a clock room style storage area, where students could hang their coats and bags.

Inside, the desk, students tables and accessories are all fully portable, so can be moved around the set or taken outside of the classroom depending on the scene your child wants to create. As we only have the one doll, a few of Erin’s teddies became her students! 🙂

The School Room comes with shelving and storage bins, encouraging Erin to tidy away and keep her classroom neat and clean, with slots to pack away all her bits and pieces from notebooks to crayons, highlighter, calculator, pens and a stapler. There are even mini pencil cases so that everything can stay organised. Erin has never been very good at tidying up after herself, so I am hopeful that this will encourage her to put everything back in it’s place. The student’s desk also life up like the original desks from my childhood (only these ones don’t have chewing gum stuck under the lid or engravings of ‘Lucy 4 ?’ 

The teacher herself has a very well stocked desk – with a school register list for attendance and a good behaviour sheet to form part of her records, as well as stickers and a certificate of achievement which can be given out to students who have made a real effort in class.

Erin has always loved talking about what she has done at school and I often see her re-inacting different things that had happened during the school day with her dolls, so it’s been really lovely seeing how her imagination has come out with this set. Erin loves taking on the role of teacher, and believe it or not I have learned a lot more about what Erin has done at school by watching her play than I would from the daily question of “how was school today?”

The chalkboard and whiteboards are a lovely addition, as now Erin is getting spelling and maths tests every week at school, this is a fun way for us to practice together, with her pretending to be the teacher writing them out on the board when I read them out.

Using the whiteboard and blackboard (with it’s real chalk and board rubber) has made her home work a little bit more fun than simply sitting down and writing them on a pen and paper. 

From an educational point of view there are also other elements which can help encourage learning, including the alphabet banner around the top of the walls, and the real working clock. Erin is getting to the age where she is starting to understand the concept of time, and as such, this will be a great way of encouraging Erin to learn about the big hand and little hand, and recognising the numbers that relate to the hour (although I am not sure whether her knowing bedtime is a good idea or not!)

There are lots of interactive elements with the Our Generation classroom set, including a bell which rings when pressed to mark the end of class or hometime and a fire alarm buzzer should the teacher wish to test out the fire assembly routine. There are also working lights above the blackboard and whiteboard and the clock makes a real ticking noise. Erin found it really funny when I told her how my teacher used to shout “the bells for me not for you” and has been saying it in her play scenes ever since! 🙂

The attention to detail on this set is massive, with even the windows having working blinds so you she block out the light during lesson time should they wish.

Overall, the Our Generation School Room has been a real hit with Erin and it has been really lovely watching her act out some of her learning from the school day. In my opinion Erin is the perfect age for this product, and it is ideal for children who have just started school. It is also big enough to be played with by siblings, and with up to three dolls being able to fit in the set at the same time, there are plenty of features to go around.

Pros:

• A larger sized play set, ideal for 18 inch dolls
• A huge amount of accessories with massive attention to detail.
• Helps encourage imagination, creativity and role play.
• Reinforces learning from school by allowing children to reinact things they have learned in the classroom.
• Educational elements including the whiteboard, blackboard and clock

There are a few things to be aware of which whilst not cons as such, are things you should take into account if purchasing:

• As stated above, there are no dolls included with the set and for the price,  it would be nice if it came with at least one doll to kick start your child’s collection. That said, the dolls themselves aren’t expensive, and so if you don’t already have one this isn’t a huge additional expense. It is also not just for Our Generation dolls, so any other dolls or a similar size will do.
• As it is for 18 inch / 45 cm dolls, the set is obviously on the larger side, and once assembled does not fold down for storage, meaning it does take up rather a lot of space.
• The RRP is fairly significant at £149.99, and therefore this is quite an investment. That said, in terms of cost per play, this is a set that is likely to be played with for a substantial amount of time and with so many accessories and parts to play with the opportunities are pretty endless. 
• If you do have younger siblings at home like us, you may also need to keep it away from them as there as some smaller parts and the highlighter etc actually works (which with Neve could easily result on some art work on the walls lol). When we first got it out Neve set eyes on it and seemed to think it was a playset just for her, so was soon banished downstairs whilst Erin had a good undisturbed play! (The below image helps give an idea of scale however!)

You learn more about the Our Generation Awesome Academy School Room, at Amazon, including the full accessories list.

*Disclosure – We were sent the Our Generation School Room free of charge in return for our honest review, however as always all thoughts and opinions are my own*