Image of Emily
By Emily

August 29th, 2012

I enjoy buying toys for the kids in my family, but it’s even more enjoyable for me to find toys that they love and will get a lot of use out of, that are also educational. While taking early childhood education classes, I was repeatedly told about how important play is for young children, and how children learn best through play.

Safari Limited is a company that offers hand painted, authentic animal replica toys in different sizes. Their toy animal replicas include everything from dinosaurs to pigs to spiders. They even include fantasy figures like dragons and unicorns.

My nephew Drew turned two recently and for several months has really liked my dads three cows. In fact, that’s probably an  understatement. To say that he’s slightly obsessed with the cows is more accurate. My dad has a hereford cow, named Rose and two angus bulls who are named Happy and Billy Bob.

For several months Drew has referred to them seperately by name. Well, his version of their names — Wose, Appy and Be-Bob. While at my dads, we have to go our near the fence and stand and watch the cows at least 3-4 times. Often times, distracting him with something else is the only way to get him to come away from the fence even if we’ve been standing there for 10+ minutes just watching the cows. We spend a lot of time like this, standing up against the gate staring out at the cows. This is him and his mom out at my dads place a few weeks ago.

It occurred to me that it would be nice to get him toy versions of my dads 3 cows for his 2nd birthday and I was so excited to find out that safari limited offers miniature versions of my dads cows. They are each between 5 and 6 inches long. Despite not being overly small, they do say they are recommended for ages 3+. However, I went ahead and gave them to my nephew and just make sure to keep a good eye on him as he plays with them. Unless he’s teething, he isn’t too bad about putting stuff in his mouth anymore so I felt they were pretty safe for him but it’s something to consider.

This photo seems to dwarf them a bit. They are laying against the trunk of a full sized fallen tree but as I mentioned they are roughly 5-6 inches long. As I expected, Drew recognized that the cows were Rose, Happy and Billy Bob. I love that he’s able to pretend play with them wherever he happens to be. My dad also has ducks, rabbits and turkeys right now so I would like to eventually get him those animals as well so that he can expand his play. We also know a few people who have certain breeds of pet dogs such as a saint bernard which is available through safari limited. It would be neat to build him (or any other child) a collection of pets and animals that represent the ones they are familiar with in real life. We recently went to the zoo and Drew was particularly drawn towards giraffes and monkies, so I’m sure he would make the connection to those real life animals if given similar replicas. I also like the idea of being able to read books about animals and then have the toy replicas for the animals in the book to further the connection to the story. The possibilities are pretty much endless!

I have a miniature shelf and also enjoy the idea of using some of the smaller safari limited figures for that, especially if I could get one of each of our pets.

In addition to the three cows, we also received two toobs from safari ltd. Toobs are made up of 12 different pieces which are roughly 1.5-3 inches in size each. There are tons of themed toobs, including groups of animals as well as non-animal ones such as the american revolutionary war british army Toob. We were sent two Toobs to check out. Seems how Drewie is so drawn to the animals at my dads place, I went with the Down On The Farm Toob and the Farm Babies toob. These were both great picks for Drew. The down on the farm toob includes a tractor, trailer and barn – all of which he loves, especially the “trat-ter” – tractors are another one of his obsessions. I also like that it includes a “normal” (holestine) cow and a horse because Drew seems to call horses cows quite often so it’s nice to have them side by side for comparison. The farm babies toob was a great pick becuase it includes a hereford calf, and my dads hereford is currently pregnant so it will be fun to have that around once the baby is born next spring. Drew also loved the bunny in this set because he’s familiar with seeing the bunnies at my dads house. The toobs are also recommended for ages 3+ and because of their small size we are super careful about making sure that he only accesses the toob toys when we’re able to sit down and play with him without distractions. The toobs would certainly be a safer pick for older kids but Drew enjoys them despite his young age. Because the toobs are available for about $11 each, they would be a great way to start a collection of animals for a slightly older child. By buying 3-4 toobs you could supply a child with the majority of the most common animals that we see in children’s books or in real life around home. I love that they are so affordable.

I’m sure I’ll be coming back to the safari limited brands for years to come.

Connect: You can connect with safari limited on facebook and twitter.

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