While taking high school and college level early childhood development classes, I spent a lot of time learning about how children learn. The most basic answer is “through play!”. If not through play, then through hands on experience. Our last resort for learning is book based learning because it’s just not as engaging and they aren’t likely to pull as much from it. For example, if you want your children to learn about animals, letting them see the animals in real life is an amazing way to do that. Head to the zoo, a circus, a farm, etc. These experiences are great but most of us can’t let our children experience animals in real life on a consistent basis so the next best thing is through toys. Safari Ltd has a massive collection of animal toys that are very realistic making them better “Educational tools” than some of the other cutesy type animal toys that you might find elsewhere.

My nephew Drew turned 2 this fall and in the last few months I’ve noticed his pretend play has gotten much more advanced. For a long time he’s done things like pretend to talk on a toy phone, etc but most of it was based off of imitation from kids or adults around him. Now he does pretend play scenarios that he comes up with on his own. For example, a couple of weeks ago he had taken out a toy barn and sat it on the floor. He found some toy cows that we had gotten from Safari Ltd back in August and set them in front of the barn. It was clear to me that he was still looking for something so I asked him what he wanted and he told me they needed a fence. Once we had a fence set up, he moved the cows around saying they were eating hay and grass. It’s fun for me to tag along with him as he creates these scenes.

Over the summer he went to the zoo a few times and my dad has a small farm with cows, bunnies, chickens, ducks and turkeys so he’s been exposed to a lot of animals. We also read a lot and he has tons of books that include animals but he didn’t have any realistic animal toys aside from a handful of farm animals (cows, horses, pigs and a goat). I went looking around the Safari Ltd website and found that they have two Toobs that basically cover all of the main animals that you see in children’s books, at zoo’s etc. We were sent the wild toob and the zoo babies toob.

The wild toob includes 12 animals – a hippo, camel, tiger, giraffe, brown bear, lion, crocodile, gorilla, rhino, zebra, panther and elephant.

The zoo babies toob has a tiger cub, leopard cub, chimp baby, baby gorilla, baby elephant, baby alligator, rhino baby, hippo baby, zebra foal, polar bear cub, giraffe calf and panda cub.

As you can see, these two toobs are quite similar so if you get both you’ll have a lot of mom & baby sets. Drew is at the age where any of his toys that are similar with one large and one small become “mama and baby”.

With these sets you can easily set up a pretend play zoo, use them along side zoo themed children’s books or work on matching the mom with the baby. Drew has enjoyed using his safari ltd toys in the bathtub as well.

Here in Michigan it’s deer season and we live in a fairly rural area where most people hunt. Drew has heard a lot of talk about deer and can distinguish a doe from a buck. He had a moose toy that he had been using to pretend play as a buck so we were also sent a doe and buck from Safari Ltd so that he’ll have the real thing. Hopefully this will also help him see the difference between a moose and a deer once he can see the replicas side by side and see their similarities and differences.

The animals in the toobs as well as the regular size deer replicas say they are recommended for ages 3+. Drew is only 2, but it’s really rare that he puts things in his mouth anymore so I definitely feel comfortable letting him have the deer. With the smaller toys that come in the toobs, I’ll keep a close eye on him as he plays with them but 99% of the time he isn’t tempted to put them in his mouth so it’s not a big concern for me. Each child is different though so with some other kids his age they would be dangerous still. But definitely something to consider, anyway.

Safari Ltd animals would make a great gifts for kids ages 3+.

Looking for other gift ideas? Check out our gift guide.

Connect: You can connect with Safari Ltd on Twitter and Facebook.

Buy it: You can purchase Safari Ltd products on their website or Amazon.

Win it: Winners choice of animal replica.

To enter: Fill out the GT form below before 11:59pm EST on 12/5.

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Emily

Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.

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