Schleich, a TOS Crew Review

I am always excited when I see my name on a list to review a product. I watch for the US Mail, UPS, and Fed Ex almost obsessively when I know something is coming. My children are not always excited. Product reviews usually mean "work" to them. Being on a toy list is a completely different animal. Toys (and games) mean play, not work.

We love little play animals at our house. We own more than I care to admit (too many). Getting a box in the mail with even more animals is very exciting here. (We reviewed some Schleich animals a year-and-a-half ago.) We own the Schleich nursery, a Christmas gift from a sweet Nana and Poppa, and we have purchased and played with these animals for years.

Schleich sent us a new selection of animals. These little toys are sturdy and ours have weathered some misuse. My daughter drew all over the nursery and quite a few of her animals with a permanent marker, and I was able to remove the marker with alcohol without disturbing the coloring on the animals.

The animals have lifelike features in miniature. They are adorable, which is why we like them so much.

Schleich also sent us the little catalog of toys, and we spend a lot of time looking through the little catalog. It's a wish list for us. (Schleich even makes smurfs!)

I have two "issues" with them. One is the fact that they're made in China. Another is the fact that the toy animals are not proportional in relation to one another, a task which may be too difficult to complete in the manufacturing process.

Here's what we received:

an Asian elephant calf

a Przewalski's Horse

a Dartmoor Pony

a Swabian-Hall piglet, eating

a donkey

an okapi

a gnu

a gnu calf

I've purchased these little toys at Tractor Supply, at Target, at Really Great Toys dot com, and once, I happened on boxes of them at a yard sale for not very much money. They're durable little toys. Prices for new animals range from under $2 to around $7 for animals, depending on the size of the animal.

We use them for dramatic, imaginative play. I may look for an animal unit study or mini-study to chase an interest (we've made quite a few trips to the farm to see the animals since school began) and I'll use these as part of the studies.

My first Schleich review is here.

There are more Schleich reviews here.

As part of my participation in The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew, I received a selection of Schleich animals at no cost to me so that I could review them here, on my blog. I received no money for this review and am not obligated to write a positive review.