On The Farm Small World and Sensory Play

A couple of months ago, the boys were sent some farm toys from Tomy’s Big Farm range. These have been getting a lot of play and have remained very popular especially with Mr T and Mr R (age 4 and 3). These toys are all very realistic and are scale models of the real thing, at a 1:16 ratio.

As the toys are so realistic they are perfect for farm small world play, imagining and re-enacting scenes on the farm and talking about the jobs that each machine might do. This type of activity is great to help give a context to sensory play activities and help keep the boys engaged with the activity for longer. These Big Farm toys are very versatile and the boys have used them with lots of different sensory materials, and have played indoors and outdoors. They have used the farm toys all together, and separately too.

The Big Farm toys which we have been using are: (affiliate links)

The Big Farm Puma Tractor

The Big Farm JCB Loadall

The Big Farm Land Rover Defender

The Big Farm Cattle Trailer with Cows

All of the toys are great quality and have lasted well through boisterous play over the past couple of months. At 1:16 ratio, the vehicles are still on the larger side and the boys were so impressed by them the moment they saw them. The vehicles all feature flashing lights and sound effects which they were very drawn to and have loved activating during their play, especially with the Land Rover.

You can get a feel for the size here, compared to Mr R. They are all pretty substantial. They are big enough that you are able to open the front of the tractor and take a look at the engine, which fascinated the boys and they really enjoyed exploring the vehicles in this way.

For sensory play, we use a large cement tray / tuff spot so the vehicles fitted in very well and the boys experimented with driving them through a variety of materials including:

• shredded paper
• oats
• lentils
• polystyrene pieces
• straw / hay

You could also try

• Shaving foam
• Sand
• Dirt or mud
• Gravel or rocks
• Twigs
• Dry spagetti
• Water

The tractor tyres would make amazing paint print pictures too with the distinctive patterns on the tyres, but we have not tried this yet.

Many of the materials shown in the sensory bin above were packing materials from parcels that had arrived. It works really well to be able to get some use from these with the farm toys before throwing them away!

The Big Farm toys are great for group play with the boys as they can work together each taking a different vehicle. It’s play that can be easily extended and mixed and matched with other similar farm toys too.

The cow figures from the trailer set are very solid and good quality. I’ll have to look at getting some more animals to keep them company. There are also varieties of pigs and horses available from the Tomy Big Farm range. We didn’t have many farm animals prior to getting this farm set but they are great for adding some variety to the role play. The boys enjoyed ‘feeding’ the cows and letting them jump around in some of the sensory bins. Here they are playing in oats and barley.

The Tomy Big Farm toys are pretty versatile and have been great for all of our sensory play activities as well as farm small world role play and outdoors play.

Tami at MummyofTwo.com also set up some small world play with the Tomy Big Farm range in the tuff spot, using water and dirt as sensory materials. She has slightly different products from the range too, so check out her post to get even more of a feel for the range.

What do you think to the range? Do you have any more ideas for farm themed sensory play? Share them with me in the comments!