Play With Me ~ Animal Train Sort and Match

This month our Play With Me toy is a pattern and sorting puzzle ~ the Animal Train Sort and Match from Guidecraft.

This sorting and matching toy is great because all of the pieces ~ animals, pattern cards and building board fit inside one compact box that has a sliding lid. Your child can work right out of the box! Magnets embedded inside the pieces help them stay on the board while your little one imitates the patterns on the cards.

If you want to add some fun activities to the Animal Train Sort and Match, here are a few more learning ideas to keep your little one busy:

Sorting ~ Have fun sorting all of the pieces by colors, size, or animal kind.

What’s Missing? Put the puzzle together as the card shows and then remove one of the pieces when your child closes their eyes. Can you guess which piece is missing?

Simple and Complex Patterns ~ The set offers a variety of animals and colors. You can work on color patterns {brown, green, brown, green}, size patterns {big, small, big, small}, or animals patterns {turtle, alligator, turtle, alligator}.

Play Zookeeper ~ Roll a dice and count out the same number of animals to add to your zoo.

Lacing ~ Use a lacing string or a shoelace to lace through the nose and eye holes on the pieces.

Jump Over the Animal ~ Get in a little gross motor activity by playing jump over the animal. You can also try jumping over a specific color or size.

Color Matching ~ Take the animals on a little trip around the house and match them with other items that are the same color. We used our Rainbow Blocks and fit them inside the colored windows to make silhouettes.

The Animal Train Sort and Match is available through the Guidecraft website and also available from Amazon. Guidecraft also offers a Construction Truck Sort and Match as well as a Flower Match Garden Patch.

Much thanks to Guidecraft who provided this toy for our writers to use and review as a part of the Guidecraft Mom Bloggers team.