Play With Me ~ Farm Animal Block Mates & Unit Blocks

This month our Play With Me toy is something that pairs wonderful with wooden blocks ~ Farm Animal Block Mates. This fun pack extends the basic wooden unit block and will add MUCH fun to your little one’s day!

The Farm Animal Block Mates includes 5 animals in the box {a sheep, cow, pig, goat, and horse}. Each animal comes in four pieces ~ head, tail, front and back legs. The pieces are the perfect size for little hands, chunky and sturdy, giving your child some great fine motor practice as they fit the pieces together.

The four pieces fit onto a standard sized unit block and ‘lock’ into place on the block with the handy ‘Slip Grip’ system.

Here are some more fun and creative ways to use the Farm Animal Block Mates with your little one.

Jen pulled out her LeapFrog Fridge Farm and had her boys build what was in the barn with the Block Mates.

Jodi had her kiddos sort the pieces by head, tails and feet.

Carisa’s bunch also used their Rainbow Blocks along with the Block Mates to make some pretty animals! They used additional Rainbow Blocks turned on their sides as feeding troughs and filled them with different Learning Links as pretend hay {another great color sorting activity!}.

Have fun stacking and balancing the animals once they are put together {just a warning that it gets trickier the more you try to stack and little ones may get frustrated}.

Otherwise, just stack them haphazardly. :) A pig pile, if you will.

Jenn’s boys also had fun matching animal cards from Homeschool Creation’s Animal Sorting File Folder Game to the appropriate block mate animal.

A few more ideas {thanks to Jodi @ Granola Mom for God}:

• sort by color
• have a pretend animal race.  Using a dice, have your child roll the dice.  Whatever the number reveals, have the animal walk that many “steps” hops.  Winner animal receives some pretend food.
• have the child place the parts of each animal on separate wooden block as you relay the sound the animal makes.  So first, you would oink – on goes the head.  Then, you might neigh – on goes a horse body part on a different block and so on . . .
• study about each animal!  Read a book! 

Both the Farm Animal Block Mates and the 5 Piece Unit Block Set can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website or from Amazon.

Would you like to win a set for your kids? Jodi @ Granola Mom 4 God is giving away a set of Farm Animal Block Mates along with a set of 5 Unit blocks {ends March 28, 2011}.

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