This post is part of a sponsored campaign for Schleich. I received compensation for my participation, but my review and opinions are my own.

I studied early childhood development in college for a couple of years. I also was able to get first-hand experience by working in a preschool while in high school. Through those programs, we learned about the importance of creative and imaginative play for kids. We were taught about “open-ended” toys and how they are best for children. Open-ended toys are toys that have more than one way to play with the item, and most of the time they are battery-free. Some open-ended toys include dolls, blocks, arts and craft supplies, pretend-play clothing or accessories, and small animal figurines.

Schleich is well known for their animals, they are made in very high quality and with a ton of realistic details. They make sets of animals, or you can purchase some individually. Either way, they would be a great item to place in your child’s Easter basket if you celebrate. I was sent the Schleich farm world value pack which includes five animals. This set is recommended for children ages 3-8, so Royce is a bit young. I felt comfortable letting him play with these under supervision though. I was also sent the Schleich Wild Life Starter set, which would be great for kids interested in wild animals.

Royce’s language development has been a little delayed, but his vocabulary has really grown a lot in the past few months. So he’s now getting to the stage of repeating most words and wanting to know what the name of various items are. As we unboxed this set he offered up the name of some animals while asking what others were. My dad, his grandpa, has a small farm so he is familiar with seeing chickens and cattle in person regularly. Each time he visits, he has to walk out to the cows to wave and point at them. We went to the store earlier today and passed by a farm with sheep and he squealed and pointed out the window. So, he’s just all about farm animals right now and this set captured his attention.

Royce likes naming the animals and mimicking their sounds. He’s also into all variations of cars, so he sometimes puts them in or on top of vehicle toys that he has to drive them around. Now, that isn’t the first way that I personally would have thought of to play with the toys. However, that’s part of what is so great about open-ended toys. There isn’t a right or a wrong way to play with them. If he wants to stack them up on top of a semi and see how far he can push the semi before they fall off, that is okay! In fact, it can even be educational because it involves experimenting with balancing the toys and how objects interact with movement.

One of my older nieces loves animal toys, and she uses them like many other kids would use small dolls. She likes having ‘animal families’ with a mom, dad, brother and sister of the same breed and sometimes the storylines are more like you would expect with people. For example, they may go to the grocery store and come home to have a movie night together. Other times she will use the same sets to treat them more like animals, where they will go out trying to find a river and green grass to sustain them with. They may come across a snake in the grass and run away, and so on. A huge part of what is great about Schleich toys is how they provide so much opportunity for imagination and creativity!

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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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