276,000 Toddler Busy Boards Recalled Over Detachable Red Knobs

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced on September 17, 2026 the recall of about 276,000 Esjay Toddler Busy Board Montessori Toys, because the small red knobs on the board can come off in a child's hand. In the notice, filed as recall number 26-775, the agency says the toy “violates the small parts ban because the product is for children under three years of age and the red knobs can detach, posing a deadly choking hazard.” The boards were made by Shenzhen Yishijie Technology Co., Ltd., doing business as Esjay US, of China.

The recall lands on a product that had a long, quiet run on the market. According to the CPSC notice, the boards were sold exclusively online at Amazon.com from March 2023 through July 2026 for between $18 and $30 — more than three years of sales before the defect was addressed. Parents can identify the toy from the agency's own description: a blue felt board with carrying handles, elastic cords and button closures, cartoon dinosaurs printed on the front and 26 small squares on the back, each holding a letter of the alphabet and a cartoon animal. The boards have five pages in total, and the notice specifies that the page with the red knobs is the second one.

The remedy is unusual, because the hazard cannot be engineered out of a toy that is already in the home. Instead of a return, the CPSC says owners should take the board away from children, stop using it and contact Esjay for repair instructions: unzip the page with the red knobs, write “RECALLED” on both sides of that page, throw it away, then email a photo of the discarded page to esjay-service@outlook.com to receive a replacement page. The agency lists the remedy type simply as “Repair.” Esjay US can be reached at 888-206-9309 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time on weekdays, or through its recall page at esjay.store.

The CPSC record lists injuries as “None reported,” which makes this a preventive action rather than a response to harm — and explains why the federal small-parts rule exists at all. That standard bars small detachable components in toys intended for children under three, the age group most likely to put a loose piece in their mouth. What the notice does not say is how many of the 276,000 boards are still in use, how many owners will complete the photo-and-email step, or when replacement pages will ship. Regional stations owned by Cox Media Group, among them Boston 25 News, carried the alert the same day using the same CPSC data. For anyone who bought the board on Amazon during that three-year window, the practical step is to check the second page before a toddler plays with it again.