Educational Summer Toys Review (& Giveaway) Theresa June 7, 2016 Giveaways 11 Comments Disclosure: I received a free item, but it didn’t influence my opinion! Summer is such a cool time for kids to get outside and learn from nature. My favorite memories of childhood are playing in the forest near my house, catching rolly pollies and baby frogs. Nature is such an inspiring place for children to learn! This is why I was super excited to receive two educational summer toys to help encourage Samantha and Georgiana to get outside and play. What We Found on Our Nature Walk One of the awesome educational summer toys we received was the Learning Resources Primary Science Outdoor Discovery Set. This set includes ten activity cards to help kids stay busy on slow summer days. I especially liked the ideas of growing a plant from popcorn and growing grass from a seed. Both would be very captivating ways to teach kids about science! You can use the three small plant pots and plant markers to teach simple gardening to kids. The kit also came with a tool to help kids capture bugs and a big view bug jar. My kids couldn’t get enough of these tools. I kept reminding them to share the bug scooper, but there were a couple arguments that made me think I could buy a second bug scooper just to keep my kids busy this summer. Bug scoopers aren’t hard to find in toy stores, although the coolest part of this kit was that it came with such a large amount of tools to get kids excited about learning about science. When I took Samantha out to search for bugs, we had no luck on our first bug searching trip. There were no crickets or grasshoppers. We saw ants and small spiders, but we saw nothing that would fit well in our bug jar. On our second trip to go bug hunting, Georgiana found a small, colorful moth right away in the front lawn of our home. The lawn had recently been mowed, and I think that helped us find a bug. She was so excited to get her own special bug to look after by herself. Even though Georgiana had an easy time finding a bug, Samantha was still having no luck at all. Then, I taught Samantha a trick. We went to our back porch and pulled up a large item to look at the mud underneath, which was harboring all sorts of little critters. Luckily, there were no snakes. Immediately, we spotted several huge slugs, centipedes, and rolly pollies. Samantha was super excited to see so many bugs after she had such a hard time finding even one. She captured two slugs and one rolly polly. We were worried about how the bugs would stay alive overnight, so we fed the slugs and the rolly polly a strawberry picked from a local farm. You should check out my Instagram where you can see Mr. Slug getting super excited over his new meal. Another great educational summer toy that I received was the Educational Insights GeoSafari Jr. Subscope. This toy is awesome for playing at the pool or the river. You place it in a body of water. When you look through the viewfinder, the item on the other side is magnified. This helps you see a greater distance through the water, and you can see up close all of the things you wouldn’t usually see underwater. To help you have the best, most educational and fun experience this summer with your kids this summer, I’m giving away both of these toys to one lucky reader! Enter my giveaway by following me on social media, and leave me a comment to let me know what you would love about these toys! a Rafflecopter giveaway Share the giveaway on Pinterest and other social media! Disclosure: I received a free item, but it didn’t influence my opinion! Related 11 Responses Deja June 7, 2016 What fun ideas!! Our favorite thing to do in the summer is hit up the water parks. Reply Samantha June 7, 2016 Great giveaway! We love our learning resource toys we have! Reply Brandy June 8, 2016 What a fun toy to have this summer. My kids are a bit too young I think, but boy this would be great for my niece. Reply Lauren June 8, 2016 My son would love the geo safari toys and my daughter would love the cupcake sorter! So many cute toys! Reply Mardene Carr June 8, 2016 I am such a huge fan of educational toys. I believe that as much as possible kids’ toys should do double duty Reply Melanie June 9, 2016 I don’t have any kids myself but my boyfriend’s nephews will love these. Great post Reply Jamie June 9, 2016 Puppet on a stick for gross motor and Super Sorting Pie for colors. Reply Lauren June 13, 2016 The Geosafari subscope looks great! Reply Laurajj June 14, 2016 Oh from Educational Insights I really love the Pancake Pile-Up! Game! We love playing games and that one looks so fun and educational with learning order! From Learning Resouces I love the High Seas ADDventure™ Addition Game! Our little one is just learning to add and this would be so fun and educational! Reply Gwen June 16, 2016 We love hands on learning as well! My son likes to build so engineering kits help pass a lot of time. We also hike and spend a lot of time outdoors! Thank goodness for summer! Reply theresa June 17, 2016 Those are awesome ideas! I look forward to hiking with my little ones this summer too! Reply Leave a Reply Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email.
Deja June 7, 2016 What fun ideas!! Our favorite thing to do in the summer is hit up the water parks. Reply
Brandy June 8, 2016 What a fun toy to have this summer. My kids are a bit too young I think, but boy this would be great for my niece. Reply
Lauren June 8, 2016 My son would love the geo safari toys and my daughter would love the cupcake sorter! So many cute toys! Reply
Mardene Carr June 8, 2016 I am such a huge fan of educational toys. I believe that as much as possible kids’ toys should do double duty Reply
Melanie June 9, 2016 I don’t have any kids myself but my boyfriend’s nephews will love these. Great post Reply
Laurajj June 14, 2016 Oh from Educational Insights I really love the Pancake Pile-Up! Game! We love playing games and that one looks so fun and educational with learning order! From Learning Resouces I love the High Seas ADDventure™ Addition Game! Our little one is just learning to add and this would be so fun and educational! Reply
Gwen June 16, 2016 We love hands on learning as well! My son likes to build so engineering kits help pass a lot of time. We also hike and spend a lot of time outdoors! Thank goodness for summer! Reply
theresa June 17, 2016 Those are awesome ideas! I look forward to hiking with my little ones this summer too! Reply