Thank you to Antsy Pants for providing me product in exchange for review purposes. All opinions are my own. 

Pretend play is some of the most important play a child can do! At our house we’ve recently created a farmers market stand fit with a cash register, pretend food, grocery bags and a cart. Our children absolutely love this play style and we get to learn so much about them through this open ended play. Hearing my son explain that the food he’s selling is locally grown and the flavors he comes up with is such a joy to hear. My daughter gets chance to overcome her shyness in a safe and fun environment when we pretend play.

Antsy Pants has made pretend play slightly more tangible with their Build and Play Kits. These kits come in different sizes to fit different build capabilities. The large kit can build multiple structures at once as well as very tall structures. Antsy Pants also creates covers for these structure builds to turn things a little more realistic. Your child can pretend he’s a pirate sailing the seven seas, or an explorer pitching a tent for the night with Antsy Pants Build and Play Kits.

For review we chose the ice cream truck from Antsy Pants. Instantly my kids were ecstatic to have my husband and I be customers. We approached the ice cream truck asking what type of flavors were available, if there were dairy free options and our kids loved playing into the scenarios. We paid them with pretend money and took our pretend ice cream and went about our way, only to switch roles as children and parents and play all over again. There are so many possibilities for super interactive fun play. Getting some play dough and letting them scoop our “ice cream” for us, or mix the “flavors” in house will be our next plan. This structure also offers real life experience for our kids as they are pretty excited about taking their ice cream truck to our local city festival and sell real ice cream from a cooler.

My son is 5 and was able to look at the pictures from the instruction booklet, realize what pieces were needed, gather them, and assemble most of the structures himself.

The pieces are all plastic and seem to be snug enough that my kids need some help connecting and disconnecting but the plastic seems to stretch a bit where the more the pieces are used the easier the connecting will be. Our kids have built themselves kitty homes and forts using blankets as covers for the structures. Swords have been built, banana launchers, even soccer goal poles from our one large kit. My kids really enjoy the structured portion that is the ice cream truck as well as the large pieces to build imaginative props as well. The bright colors are great for sorting and recognition within the instructions as well. I love that we have a set of pieces to build any structure we want and get as creative as we want with Antsy Pants.

Lakota

I am a stay at home mother of two, who loves to create in every form, from cooking, to henna, to painting or sculpting, creating with my hands is my passion! I love to dance and let loose when the music flows right. Being outside is a special kind of therapy I think humans need more of as well as mindfulness! I love all things new and adventurous and am always looking to experience more of life 🙂