5 Benefits Of Playing With Animal Toys

Spend some koala-ty time with your little monkeys and reap the benefits that animal toys offer young learners. In this article, we take a look at 5 of these benefits and share which toy animals will best support your kiddo’s development. 

Discover More About Animal Toys

Join us to learn how animal toys can help your child hit their developmental milestones, as we answer parents’ questions about these wild and wonderful playthings.

Why are animal toys good for kids?

Animal toys and figurines are excellent for children’s development, fostering a nurturing spirit and improving their fine motor skills, creativity, imagination, vocabulary, communication, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence and understanding of the world. 

Here, we explore 5 of these benefits in greater depth. 

1. Dexterity: Picking up, exploring and arranging their play animals will strengthen your child’s muscle development, fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. 

2. Imagination: Animal toys set the scene for make-believe play, inspiring kids to think up fun storylines for their curious creatures, which enriches their imagination, narrative thinking and creativity. 

3. Language: Acting out scenarios for their toy animals will do wonders for your tot’s language development, communication skills and vocabulary, as they explore new words and phrases they may not use in everyday life. 

4. Social skills: Animal figures give children the opportunity to team up with friends and collaborate on imaginative storylines, teaching them how to share, cooperate, be patient and listen to others. 

5. Empathy: Through animal play, kids begin to understand and learn more about the natural world and how to care for different species, which nourishes their emotional development and teaches them how to have empathy for others. 

What age are toy animals for?

It all depends on what kind of animal toy you’re after! If it’s wooden animal toys, many are suitable for babies and toddlers aged 12+ months, as long as the pieces don’t pose a choking risk. Otherwise, stuffed animals are typically newborn-friendly, while most animal figures & models are aimed at children aged 3 years and up. 

Our Favourite Animal Toys For Kids

Take a peek at some of our favourite wild animal toys for your little cubs, including Montessori-style playsets, themed wooden railways, lifelike animal figures and more! 

Forest Friends Playset 

Enchanted worlds await with our Forest Friends Playset, designed for unstructured, open-ended play. These wonderful woodland animal toys include a wooden bunny and fox, four colourful mushrooms, and a stacking tree made from 100% food-grade silicone. Alternatively, we also have our Woodland Animals Set, featuring 8 wooden animal toys in a travel-friendly drawstring tote bag. For 12+ months. 

Red Bus Sorter

First stop, the zoo! Toddlers can drive their furry friends from A to B onboard our charming Red Bus Sorter, decked out with 8 wooden toy animals which can be posted through the different slots. When they reach their destination, youngsters can open the rear door and escort the animals off for a day full of paw-some adventures! For 12+ months. 

Farm Animal Playbox

Perfect for portable play, our Farm Animal Playbox features 6 farm animal toys, alongside a wooden beehive, tractor and two playmats. These play pieces all fit neatly inside the compact wooden box, which has a handy rope handle so it can be transported easily for animal play on the go! For 18+ months.

CollectA Animal Figures

Take your pick from our impressive range of 700+ realistic animal toys, including dinosaurs, horses, safari animals, insects, sea animal toys and mythical creatures! CollectA is the world’s biggest manufacturer of toy animal figures and its lifelike replicas are all handpainted with exceptional attention to detail. For 3+ years. 

Animal Train Sets

Embark on a journey into the jungle with our 38-piece Safari Train Set, go on a fantastical forest adventure with our Woodland Animal Train Set, or a-moo-se little lambs with our fa-baa-lous Farm Train Set! Themed animal train sets fuse two childhood fascinations and are a playful way to boost kids’ animal recognition and cognitive thinking. For 3+ years.