Painless Learning Alphabet with Animals Placemat, Oil Pastel, Large

After buying this for my 3 year old son for Christmas, he immediately started learning the letters on the placement, and then pointing them out around the house! He had not really shown much interest in learning letters, but this cute placemat made it easy and fun for him to learn them. He started with his first name letter, and then learned his siblings' letters, and M for Mommy and D for Daddy. He loves to sing the alphabet song after meals while pointing at each letter. This is a great quality placemat that easily wipes clean after a messy meal. We like it so much that I purchased one for my 5 year old as well, and he has just as much fun pointing out letters that he knows. It's also great as a reference when he's sitting at the table drawing and wants to know how to write a letter.

I got this for my daughter, 3 1/2 at time of purchase, so that she could practice her letters. The animals are cute and keep her happy looking at them and the letters. The other side of the place mat has letters that the kids can use a dry erase marker (Crayola has a nice washable dry erase marker) and write on the letters to practice. The only downside to this is that there are no lowercase letters, only uppercase. If there were both uppercase and lowercase letters I would easily have given it five stars.

Easy to clean and maintain. Entertains children while they eat.

This placemat is great! Teach your kids their ABC's during mealtime. Great way to seize the opportunity to review letters. Helped my son tremendously. I recommend it, just make sure you don't get it too wet or submerge it in water. Wipe it with a damp cloth and that does the trick.

I ordered the alphabet and numbers versions of this placemat. They arrived together and were obviously different quality - the numbers one was more flimsy, it seemed like the alphabet one got two coats of laminating making it more sturdy. I'm not sure if it was a fluke, but they were both acceptable quality to me at the time, not worth returning and they were cute. I was happy with my purchase initially. Both are adorable and my son loves to look at them and use them. I've had them for about 9 months now and have used them at almost every meal (alternating between the two), only handwashing each time, never soaking them. I'm back online to order new placemats because the laminating has now become so separated at the edges that the paper gets - and stays - wet with each wash on both placemats. They no longer lay flat and are headed for the trash. It isn't like they're terribly expensive and given the regular use, I suppose the investment to time used itsn't terrible. But, I had hoped that the placemats would have lasted longer than they did, and this time around I will try a different brand. I wasn't upset enough to say they weren't worth buying, but not pleased enough to be a repeat customer.

We ordered this and another placemat for our 2 year old twins. They both loved them and enjoyed looking at all pictures during meal time. Unfortunately, after only a few weeks of daily use, the laminated seal began to peel and water got in between the layers and ultimately ruined the mat. If it had been sealed properly, this could have been avoided. :(

I don't usually write reviews, but I feel that this I could have made this placemat myself, so the quality wasn't that great. I mean it's hard plastic, not something softer and better quality that I would expect for a placemat. Next time, I would probably only pay $3.00 for this placemat-not $5.00.

As soon as I put this placemat on our kitchen table, my toddler was all over it. She loves looking at the different animals and talking about what letter and sound they start with. In addition to the colorful front side, the back has black and white letters that are perfect for tracing. I would definitely recommend this placemat for encouraging toddlers to learn the alphabet and letter sounds. I was a little surprised that dry erase marker doesn't just wipe right off. It takes some glass cleaner and a little elbow grease, which is one reason I gave this item 4 out of 5 stars. The other thing that disappointed me just a little is that the letter 'N' is represented by a newt, which looks like a lizard. For little ones, that's a little hard to distinguish. I would definitely buy this placemat again and recommend it.