Playmobil 123: Aqua Duck Family

Playmobil 123 supports three stages of development in younger children. Suitable from 18 months, stage 1 is for simple touching, recognising and naming. This can later be augmented with stage 2 and 3. These sets are suitable as your child grows and develops. They introduce a simple task or challenge and finally more advanced storytelling and role play. Bam Bam was sent a Playmobil 123 Aqua set which is designed to add water play into the mix, although she is quite happy playing with them without water too.

Playmobil has very long, happy memories for me. When I was a nipper, we lived in Germany for 18 months. While I was there I won a prize in an art competition in the local supermarket. I *think* I got 100 Marks as my prize, and as I recall I spent it all on Playmobil. I had a red car with a roof rack, and loads of really nice kitchen sets, amongst other things. It was all kept in a big Curver box. When I got it out to play with I would take over the living room floor for days, creating elaborate settings. I also remember in Germany meeting PlayMoX the Playmobil Robot. He was remote controlled and bigger than I was. I danced with him and the controller must have realised that we were English as he spoke to me in English. He gave me a sweet. I think it was one of those foam prawns.

Duck Family

Anyway, enough reminiscing. The stage 2 and 3 sets are a bit advanced for Bam Bam at the moment so I will write those up as she grows. Stage 1 is the Duck Family and she loves it. It is great for her developmental phase. Already toy ducks have spread from the bathtoom across the whole house now because she loves playing with them so much that they cannot just be confined to bath time. We regularly take her to the local ponds to see the real ducks (and I cannot wait for ducklings to appear as she will be overjoyed.) So this set was perfect for her as you can imagine!

We are doing a lot of pointing at the moment. This couple of months will forever be known as The Time of The Great Point. Bam Bam loves pointing to ducks. Then she loves it when you point to ducks and you bring them to her. Then she has a little nibble on the ducks, until she establishes they are not food. Happily this Playmobil set is a little more robust than the normal stuff – it’s a bit chunkier and there are no small parts that can break off, or naturally come away. So they can take Bam Bam’s tough play.

Testing the ducks in the bath

We took the set into the bath to experiment with and this was a great success. Using the sieve to catch the small ducks took her a little while to understand. However she was soon chasing them all over the while. It is a little unfortunate that the small ducks need near still conditions to float gently the right way up. With Bam Bam in the bath it is near whirlpool conditions all the time, but she doesn’t mind. They have plenty of air and water escape holes too so they drain and dry nice and easily. Now we have to bring the ducks and The Duck Man with us wherever we go. On that basis I declare it a great success. Quack.

I really hope that these toys last a whole childhood with her as mine did. Watch out for us to write up stage 2: water seesaw and stage 3: splish splash water park in the not too distant future! Watch our bathtime Playmobil 123 Duck Family story here.

We were sent these toys free of charge for the purposes of review. This post is an honest reflection of our views.