We have recently been sent the Fisher Price Little People Fun Sounds Farm to try out and it has made a fantastic addition to our playtime. We already have the Noah's Ark Boat
, Zoo Talkers and DC Batcave in the Little People range and it was great to have a new addition to our sets. I decided to set up a few farm-related plays for the week so we could really discover all about the farm and get the most out of our playtime.First Thoughts:
The farm is quite a large toy and has different sounds and movable parts so on first impact it seems to offer a lot of different ways to play.
The sounds change depending on what time of day you set the clock at the top and there are several areas that play different noises. There is also an add-on fencing which my two liked to rearrange and set up as a pen for the animals.
As with the other Little People toys we've owned it is made of really sturdy plastic, so is really tough (which is good as J tends to try sitting on them!) and comes with three animals, a hay bale and a farmer character so you don't have to buy extra toys to start playing.
Playtime:
First the children explored their new toy as it came. As usual they fought over which figure was 'theirs' so I introduced some of our other similar animals to encourage them not to fall out straight away! They enjoyed trying out all the different areas of the farm and discovering the sounds. J seemed to enjoy dropping the animals down the silo and listening to the noises they made when they landed on the panel at the bottom, or pile them into a tractor we have and wheeling them around the room. H preferred to set up the fence and feed the animals from the hay bale (although as you can see from above J also thought this was a good idea!).
Paint Play:
After the children had taken some time to have a good play with the characters, I set up some painting at the table. This is actually the first time we have done painting inside and they did really well. I pulled off a large piece from our roll of brown paper and drew an outline of the Little People Farm with a sharpie onto the paper.
I then poured out some of our Galt Finger Paints
and gave the children brushes and some animals and showed them how they could use the animals to make footprints and paint with. H decided to do some handprints whilst J just painted up his arms, but they had a great time making a mess which they are never usually allowed to do.
Lego Play:
Later in the week I decided to get the farm out during some Lego playtime. I tried my best to recreate the farm in Lego and then gave the children all the farm animals so they could play farm with the blocks. They alternated between the Lego farm and the original and it was great for the to swap and change with less chance for falling out. The only problem with Little J kept knocking the Lego version over or pulling parts off, much to H's discernation.
Small World Play:
I also set up the Tuff Spot for a bit of small world play fun - as well as the farm set I added grass, pebbles and cheerios to act as different textures for the animals to live in. Little J grabbed his wooden digger and moved the stones from one place to another, as well as scooping up the cereal and throwing it into the animal pens. This was a lovely activity that kept them busy for a good hour or so as they explored the animals, moved the pieces around and, for the most part, didn't fight.
Overall:
As I have done with our other Little People sets, I think this is a great buy. It is robust, the figures look great and the additional sound features add that extra element of play. This can be used on its own, but is even more enjoyable when added to other sets and of course if you use your imagination (and a bit of pinning) there are so many ways to explore play on the farm. For my ideas have a look at my farm Pinterest board.
This set retails at around £30, which I think is reasonable for a set of the size and it can be used from on year old up until they no longer want to play with it and so there is definitely lots of fun to be found from it. For more information you can visit the Fisher Price website, or find them on Twitter and Facebook.
*We were sent this product for the purpose of this review, however all opinions are my own.
