Educational Play with Schleich Animal Figures

Hola chicos, knowing how to encourage your kids to get the most out of their play is not an easy job. My girls love to play and sometimes I just let them be so they can play together or explore on their own and that encourages creativity and other skills in itself. However, there are other times when, as parents we want to lead our children’s play to enrich their learning and to help them get more out of it, in a hopefully fun way. This is easier said than done, and then, how do we know what we are doing is correct? Thanks to Schleich and their new ‘Educational Play the Schleich Way’ campaign, you can get some great information that can help us to guide our children with their play. As part of the campaign, they have created a 16-page brochure designed to be a guide to the best in imaginative play and development.

For those of you that haven’t heard of Schleich (probably not many as they are a worldwide and well known brand), they are Germany’s biggest toy manufacturers and a leading international provider of original play concepts. They are famous for their toy figurines that are sold in more than 50 countries and have conquered children’s playrooms around the world.

Schleich’s philosophy is that only the best is good enough for our children’s development. Their figures help promote children’s development and, through creative and imaginative play, help them to learn the lasting values which will prepare them for a joyful and positive life. We were very lucky to be sent four animal figures for the girls to play with. We received an elephant, a zebra, a sheep and a horse.

These animal figures are beautiful. They have a very realistic look. You can tell that they have done an amazing job. My girls absolutely loved them and have loved playing with them, even in the bath!

When Schleich create their figures, they take inspiration from nature, collaborating with international experts and their most critical fans, children. The first thing they do is to draw out the idea and develop the design. After initial checking and approval of the design their modellers begin to form the figure in wax. This takes a great deal of flair and experience. This first model goes through another approval process with internal and external experts. After this, a resin cast is created from the final wax model; this is used as the model for painting the figure and for creating the production tools. The tools are painstakingly refined by hand until the production pattern for the figure meets their high quality requirements. Hand painting makes every figure absolutely unique. I can certainly confirm this – they are stunning! 🙂

We also received the Educational Play brochure which I found to be very helpful. Sometimes it is nice to have a guide to help so we know that what we are doing is beneficial for our kids. This brochure covers topics such as a balanced play diet, encouraging imagination and early language skills, the guide also comes with helpful hints and tips on how to get the best from your child’s playtime and how you can incorporate Schleich products.

I like the information about having a balanced play diet. I didn’t know about this concept before but it has so much sense. Our children need to spend their time enjoying many different areas of play including Social Play, Active Play, Creative Play and Free Play. Schleich toys helps to stimulate many of the different learning areas required for a healthy play diet. 

They also suggest a few games to play with our kids so we can stimulate their imagination. For example, we can play Animal Restaurants, Zoo Keeper or What’s the Animal? All of these were fun to play with the girls. Co-operative play games are also mentioned in the brochure, in which teamwork. These included, Group Maze, Parachute Play and Group songs.

I also found the information in the brochure about encouraging language skills through play really good too. They suggested to pick open ended toys, allow them to use imaginative role play, and that we should not worry about gender and that we should play and be present when they are playing.

Finally, they also mention a few fun games to stimulate our kids imagination when we are out and about. For example, I-spy, group story-telling and of course taking their favourite toy out.

We have not tried all of these suggestions yet but we will certainly give them a go. Thanks to the brochure I now have some tips for helping my girls learn whilst they are playing, which is fantastic.

Schleich figures cost from £2.99 and you can buy them on their website here, or at Smyths Toy Store. You can also find more about Schleich on Twitter or on Facebook. If you would like to download a free copy of the Educational Play brochure please click the Schleich image in my side bar.

What do you think of the Educational Play brochure? Will you download it to guide you whilst playing with your kids? Have you bought any Schleich figures before? If so, what do you think of them? Please leave a  comment below as I would love to read what you think. 

*Disclosure: collaborative post

Thanks for stopping by,

Love you all ❤

Franca  💋

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