The ever delightful Merry from Play Merrily offered me an opportunity to review a selection of toys and I jumped at the chance
I’m experiencing toys in a whole new way at the moment with my training with the Place2Be – who are a children’s charity that offer counselling in schools across the UK, and to be honest puppets are turning out to be a bit of a challenge for me – so practice was required.
I got the children to take a look at the selection and was thrilled that they loved the idea of puppets as much as I did – these are Manhattan Toys which in my experience are high end, really well made, and would last the course of play with a child and lets be honest thats a rare thing isnt it?
Ao imagine my delight when these faces greeted me out of the box!
They were very quickly named Steve, Dave and Frank – can you guess which is which?
And the children set out immediately entering into fantasy play and creating worlds and adventures for the puppets to go on, it was all at breakneck speed and fantastic to observe.
In the stuff I’m doing with the Place2Be I’m learning that children can and will express through a puppet what they wouldn’t necessarily do in real life or in a conversation with you, it somehow seems to detach from being ‘them’ and becomes the behaviour or words of the ‘puppet’ instead, fascinating stuff.
Find the alligator here
They even came to Uni with me to help present a Research presentation into the effectiveness of Play Therapy Interventions and were easily the stars of my show, along with the PlayDoh as well, and my audience sat and played and stroked the puppets, themselves engaging in some fantasy play or simply remembering what it was to play like that.
The children have LOVED them and they are so plushy, thick and luxurious, with plenty of standout tactile bits, and big teeth that the kids loved
Look you can even see the fabric ‘skin’ is 3d and textured, really nice detailing
Find the brilliant plushy shark here
Easily the best puppets I have had before, really engaging and begging to be played with, its a struggle to keep the grownups off them most days
So thanks so much Merry – amazing range of puppets – we LOVED them getting them and they have so helpful in allowing me to practice my skills, and scare the kids to death as well – you know its what us mums do best!
JWS Waste
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