Noah's Pals

I have this THING about toys.  I hate battery operated stuff, things that make noise and things that you can only use one way.  Any toys that we have in our house that happen to fall into those categories are most likely gifts.  I prefer for my kids - well, my younger ones, anyway; the older ones are a lost cause - to play with multi purpose toys and use their imaginations.

I was really excited to receive the box of Noah's Pals in the mail.  From the first glance, these were amazing.  The boxes had clear pictures of the animals inside, and the playing cards that came with them were an added bonus.  When the boxes were open, I was blown away by the attention to detail.  The scale was accurate - the monkeys were, indeed, much smaller than the camels, something that is often overlooked in other animal sets.  The animals were clearly marked as either common species, vulnerable or endangered. I didn't even know that there was a vulnerable classification! Five of the pairs of animals are on the endangered list, so only 10,000 pairs have been made.  The sets - after all, this is NOAH'S PALS, it stands to reason that they'd be in pairs - are made of heavy, molded, hand painted plastic and held up well to the machinations of my rambunctious kids.  These are geared for children ages 5 and up, but my three year old enjoyed them as much as my five, seven and nine year olds. 

One of the neat things about this set is the fact that it incorporates many of the lesser known animals, which gave us some really interesting conversations and led to research, which is always a nice bonus.  The trading cards give details such as height and weight for each gender, climate, habitat and location.  My kids enjoyed spreading the animals around and setting up our playroom as a virtual globe, with the camels apart from the penguins.  Each card also contain a code, which enables you to go online and look for more information.  When you collect all of the animal sets and enter the codes, you will receive a Caboodle full of special rewards. 

I like the collectible aspect of this set.  We've bought SO many toys and gotten rid of an equal amount, but this is one set that I can see passing down to future generations.  The entire set is only $269 at Amazon right now, but the individual sets are reasonably priced as well and lend themselves to careful collecting even on a tight budget.  I can definitely see us adding to this set for years to come.