Dino Surprise Puzzle — Six Eggs, Six Dinosaurs

Dino Surprise Puzzle — lift the egg, and there's a dinosaur under it

Six egg-shaped pieces sit in a 22cm round board, each with a wooden knob to lift it by. Underneath every one is a dinosaur. That's the whole idea, and it's a good one, because a toddler will do it again and again — and because dinosaurs really did come out of eggs, which makes this the rare toy where the gimmick happens to be true.

🥚 Lift, look, put it back

The knobs are what make this work at twelve months. A knob is the one shape a hand that can't yet pinch can still get hold of, so lifting the eggs out is possible from the day it arrives — and lifting things out is the half of puzzling that comes first. Dropping the eggs back into their cut-outs follows a few months later.

🎨 Then the colours give you a second game

Each dinosaur is painted to match the egg it came out of. So once the lifting is easy, there's a harder game sitting there waiting: six dinosaurs, six shells, and the job of getting each one home. You can also deliberately put them in the wrong eggs, which is both the best way to make it difficult and the thing your toddler will immediately start doing to you.

🦖 Six dinosaurs that stand up on their own

The dinosaurs aren't just puzzle filling — they're free-standing blocks, so they walk off the board and get played with on the rug, in the bath queue and under the sofa. A small confession: Speedy Monkey never say which dinosaurs they are, and having looked at them closely we can't confidently name the species either. Six different dinosaurs is as far as we'll go. If you can do better, we'd like to know.

🌳 Wood and paint

Speedy Monkey design their toys in France and make this one from wood with non-toxic, child-safe paints. It carries UKCA and CE marking.

What we like about it

• A reveal a toddler can do themselves — lift the egg, find the dinosaur
• Knobbed pieces, so it works from twelve months rather than two years
• Two games in one: shapes into cut-outs, then colours to their shells
• Six free-standing dinosaurs that play away from the board
• A 22cm round board that stores the whole thing
• Designed in France, wooden, non-toxic paints, UKCA and CE

Specification

• Suitable from: 12 months
• Contents: 22cm round base board, 6 egg-shaped knobbed puzzle pieces, 6 dinosaur blocks
• Board size: 22cm diameter
• Weight: 556g boxed
• Material: wood with non-toxic, child-safe paints
• Designed in: France
• Safety: UKCA and CE
• Care: clean with a damp cloth only, no detergents

❓ Frequently asked questions

Doesn't the surprise only work once?
You'd think so, and it's the obvious worry about a toy with "surprise" in the name. In practice it doesn't work like that: toddlers aren't surprised by novelty so much as delighted by repetition, and knowing the dinosaur is under there is precisely why they lift the egg for the fortieth time. The colour-matching also means the toy has somewhere to go once the reveal is familiar.

Can a one-year-old really do it?
They can lift the eggs out straight away — that's what the knobs are for. Putting them back comes later, and matching each dinosaur to its own colour of egg later still. Three stages from one toy, and several months between the first and the last.

What dinosaurs are they?
We don't know, and nor does anyone else we can find — Speedy Monkey's own description says only "six adorable dino blocks". They're recognisably different from one another but we're not going to assign species we can't stand behind.

How many loose pieces?
Twelve — six eggs and six dinosaurs — on a board that stays in one piece. Worth knowing that a missing dinosaur leaves an empty egg, which small children notice and mind about rather more than adults expect.

Dino or Garden?
Same board, same mechanism, same price. The Garden Surprise Puzzle has three chicks and three bunnies instead of dinosaurs. Pick by what your little one is currently obsessed with; there's nothing to choose between them otherwise.

How do I clean it?
A damp cloth only, and no detergents. Painted wood doesn't take kindly to sitting in water — and at this age the dinosaurs will go in the mouth first.

🦕 More dinosaurs, if it has taken hold

It usually does, and it usually lasts years. Elsewhere on our shelves:

• Push Along Friends Brachiosaurus and the Stegosaurus — wooden, from a year, and named species for once
• Jumini Dinosaur Bath Squirters — for the bath, from 6 months
• Never Touch a Dinosaur! — the silicone touch-and-feel book, from birth
• Dinosaur Silicone Baby Plate — for the ones who want dinosaurs at mealtimes too

🧩 Other first puzzles

• Farm Peg Puzzle — nine pegged farm animals, the same knob-lifting idea on a flat board
• Chunky Wooden Farm Puzzle — seven named farm animals that also stand up
• Chunky Barn Shape Puzzle — no knobs, so a touch harder, with line drawings underneath

❤️ From our family to yours

Carefully chosen products for babies, toddlers and parents. Browse more puzzles and the rest of our wooden toys — free UK delivery on orders over £25.