Learning Resources Farm Counting Set - Review and Giveaway

When Learning Resources asked if I would like to select something to review from them, the first thing that came to mind was something that could help Lily learn her colours. Lately she has been really interested in learning her colours and also doing really well with them. So I had a good browse on the website to see what I could find that would help her with that.

I decided that I wanted something that was about sorting and so found this farm counting set that came with little farm animals in different colours.

The set came and arrived in a handy little storage tub that also has a handle on so Lily can carry it around. She did exactly this and was carrying it around until we were ready to take it out and play. I wanted to make playing with the counters a controlled activity so we didn't loose any pieces and also it will help aid her learning a lot more that way. 

One thing I love about this set of counters is that it can be used in so many different ways and you can do quite a few learning activities with them. You can help learn colours, counting, sorting and patterning. 

We are obviously learning colours at the moment and so thats what we concentrated on the most. The set of counters comes in 6 different colours and so the first thing I thought to do was to pour them all out into a big pile. This way I wanted Lily to be able to search through them to find the colours. 

Lily so far is best with blue. She knows how to say the word and can easily spot it from the rest. So we started here by asking her to pick up blue from the pile. Easily done. She actually did really well with most the colours apart from orange which was a little tricky for her. 

(please excuse the Photo Bombing cat in the background haha) 

After this activity we decided to organise the colours into piles. This is something we definetly need work on as although she does know the colours she struggled to understand the concept of putting them into piles. But I know that practice makes perfect and soon enough she will know which pile to put each colour into. One thing I did try later was to get out some coloured bowls we have and she understood the concept more of putting the right colours into the matching coloured bowl. I would love to be able to buy this set with matching coloured bowls and if I had the option between a set with sorting bowls or just a tub of animals I would quite happily pay the extra to have the set with the matching bowls. You can buy bowls from the Learning Resources website separately though if you wanted them.

After this we tried counting. Lily doesn't know her numbers yet but understands the concept of counting and will make a noise each time she counts. We decided to count out the animals into lines into there colours. So a row of blue, a row of red. You get the idea. There was 12 of each colour which is a great number to count to. Though the great thing about this is that you don't have to use all 12 and could start with a lower number and count to 3. 

The last activity we did was sorting them into the groups of animals. There were 6 different farm animals. Ducks, Goats, Sheep, Pigs, Horses and Cows. This was a little tricky for Lily yet to understand the concept of grouping them together but i'm sure as she gets older she will pick it up. She did quite easily pick out the ducks though and know that it was a duck. The only thing I found with the animals is that some look very similar in shape. Even I kept putting the goats with the horses when not looking properly and so I think a child would really have to concentrate to get the correct animal. 

One last activity I thought about doing with these is sorting them into a pattern. For example you could do Red, Blue, Red, Blue. We didn't try this activity as its a little advanced for Lily's age but a great way to move on from grouping the colours into one colour.

It really is brilliant that this one tub of colourful animals can really provide so much variety in fun and learning. They can also be used for imaginative play if you wanted to.

The animals are all wipe clean and are 6cm in height. They are recommended for children aged 3 Plus. Lily is under the recommended age and I wouldn't let her play with these without my supervision because of how small they are. Although Lily no longer puts things into her mouth. There is also the factor she would most likely loose them if I let her play with them by herself at the moment.

You can buy a set of 24 or a set of 72. The set of 24 is £7 and the set of 72 is £17. I would really recommend a set of these for your child's early years learning. You can also check out other sorting set thats Learning Resources has to offer on the website here. 

Your also in luck as Learning Resources is letting me give away one tub of these counters. For your chance to win enter on the Gleam app below

Win a Set of Farm Counters