Recently we have been chosen by Playmobil to join their Playologist Team.

I cannot tell you how pleased I was to be chosen as Esther and William are just ready to begin their Playmobil adventures.

Their capacity for creative, imaginary play always amazes me, and Esther in particular loves intricate details and toys with tiny parts to fiddle with and arrange.

For Christmas they each got a Playmobil 123 set but now I know that they are ready for the real thing.

Esther more so than William I would say, which is why Esther will be getting this swimming pool set for her birthday in a couple of weeks and William will be getting this penguin enclosure. Both sets that can be used with water for extra sensory appeal!

As a welcome to the Playologist Program the Playmobil team sent us a little gift. A starter pack if you like. This is a paddling pool set, another one that can be used with water and would be wonderful to take away on holiday.

Esther and William both love it so much that we have had to have timed plays with it. While one is playing the other sits very very close by and watches the timer until it is their turn. It is very funny!

With this introductory set I decided to give them each a turn of playing with it with very little direction from me. I did not add water to the pool because I wanted to see what they thought it was and how they would play with it. I was also interested to see how their play would be different.

I talk to Esther and William a lot when they are playing but I do try to let them speak first so that I am guided by their interpretations of things.

William had his go first.

As always with William the toys eventually became a tractor and a trailer, and it was not long at all before the figures became Farmer Nick and Farmer Kim!!

Reenacting Coombe Mill

So William had talked about the seaside and about the farm. For Esther it was all about The Snowman!

We had watched The Snowman and The Snowdog recently so she was using this as her inspiration for play, that and bing mid potty training it would seem!

I love how open ended Playmobil is. It is wonderful for encouraging storytelling and also for recreating things that have happened in real life. It can be great for teaching social stories and for practising for real life scenarios.

The figures are easy to manipulate and Esther and William just love making the characters talk to one another.

Playmobil can be used to create wonderful play scenes inside and out.

It can also be used for animation.

This is one of the best I have seen, made with my husband’s software Zu3D.

We will definitely be doing some animations with the toys we are sent.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our first experience of Playmobil. Tomorrow we are going to play with the set again alongside our existing Playmobil 123 Sets in a more directed play activity with a scene set up ready for action.

We hope you will come back to see what we have been up to.

We were sent one Playmobil Paddling Pool Set as part of the Playmobil Playologist Program.