I have a house of boys so when a box full of National Geographic Explorer toys from Uncle Miltons Toys showed up I knew hours of fun was inside. My oldest quickly called dibs on the All Terrain Nature Collector with detachable bug collector domes., my middle one started with the Earth Tag, but it was a little difficult for him on his own (for ages 8 and up and he's only 3) so we set it aside for the 4-1 Navigation Tool and the search for bugs began.
We have a lot of crickets in our backyard and a few weeks ago the boys even had a "cricket hunter expedition" so the new toys only added inspiration to our bug hunters. My 5-year-old was quickly observing his cricket catch in the dome and loved reading the guide as to all the treasures he might be able to snatch up with his new tool.
First thing in the morning the boys went back to searching for creatures to observe with their new tools. My middle child also discovered the whistle on the 4-in-1 Explorer Navigation Tool (we had to put some limits on this part of the toy). We also brought the Earth Tag, which is a kid friendly slingshot for ages 8 and up, back out to give it another try with moms help. Once I showed the boys how to link the balls to the sling and offered them the suggestion from the directions of choosing objects in our environment to tag they started getting the hang of it. The directions suggest assigning points and then seeing who has the highest score or timing the participants and seeing who could hit all of the targets in the least amount of time (but since my boys are under the suggested age for the to they weren't ready for this yet). I can see this becoming a popular toy as the sling is quite similar to the game favorite Angry Birds and the boys were quickly ready to knock stuff down with it.
The toys are well made and definitely get the kids out exploring nature. I'm sure they'll be popular tools on our next camping trip and can't wait to see what fun they'll bring the boys tomorrow. You can check them out yourself here.
Toys were provided to my by Uncle Milton for this review, the words and opinions expressed in this article are my own.
