Playmobil

[sianyflewog]

Hi!

My daughter (3 next month) has become quite interested in her older brothers Playmobil this summer so I thought getting her own sets would be a great idea for Christmas.

DS has everything police, fire and has several knights sets and a castle.

I love so many of the sets available now and there’s so much choice that I can’t choose! Looking for recommendations that have been popular with 3 year old girls. TIA.

My DD loves her mermaid and princess sets. Also some more generic family/playground sets.

My DDs have a selection of space, beach, playground, and farm yard sets. We have a big set in each category, then some smaller ones that support/add to it, with the exception of the space sets, where we have the whole range as it's been their favourite. They prefer the children and baby figurines most of all regardless of which range they're playing with, so I've bought extra children when I've seen them second hand.
The space sets have been particularly popular because of the lights and sounds, and the boats because they could also be taken into the bath/paddling pool. Other pool and aquarium sets allow you to put water into them and some work with pumps. The interactive ones are the best IMO.

They are 7 & 9yo now, but have had Playmo from about 3. Be aware some of the pieces are truly teeny tiny, so you might want to put some of those away for a year or so. Even if your DD isn't likely to eat them, I found they get lost very easily when DCs are small, which can cause a bit of upset. Once they are older, they're better at looking after the little bits.

TK Maxx is good for Playmobil sets. I've popped in throughout the year previously to see what's available and got some really good deals on larger sets in the clearance section as well as stocking-sized sets. We add a couple of blind bags to their stocking each year too.

My DD loved family camping set, swimming pool, nursery, and a car to drive them to places.

The camper van is a great stand alone set.

At that age my daughter loved the take along farm

The camper van and swimming pool were played with for many years in my house!

Swimming pool may be easier at 3 though - the camper van did have hundreds of tiny parts if I recall correctly.

We also had the Egyptian pyramid set, which looked good but wasn't as much fun to play with for some reason. And it took up a lot of space.

My dream as a kid was the hospital. I'd still like to play with that now...

Yeah I can imagine her loving the children and babies too. I haven’t even seen the space sets so will take a look at those.

We tend to keep all the little pieces in Tupperware containers anyway - we have a box for police accessories, a box for fire, box for Ghostbusters so that things don’t get lost 😅

Do your girls still like to play with it now they’re older?

Some great ideas so far, thanks guys!

Get on playmobil.co.uk and have an account. They send mail updates and paper catalogues if you want them and there's a birthday card and club for discounts. My far away family had the account details and just sent birthday and xmas gifts direct to us. Extension sets are exclusive to the website. My 3yo (now 15! and not letting go) started with fairies and unicorns and kept adding through the years then we passed all those to a special cousin. We've had pirates, medieval sets (resold really well), amusement parks, summer camping, porsche dealerships, horses etc. Went through a stage in late primary making stop action films. Also look out for MN user
@somuchtobits who gives us lovely lovely dioramas of her extensive collections to coo over. They are a special joy in themselves.

They do! They periodically rotate which range they play with, rather than use it all in combination as one big mash up (which is what I would have done as a DC!), along with their Lego as part of the same rotation too. I don't know how much more I'll buy now, but that is because we already have quite a lot and space is limited. They will definitely still get the small stocking sets this Xmas, but it's unlikely I'll buy more medium or large sets. The exception to this is Asterix - my 9yo is obsessed with the comics and would love the Playmo sets, but they are pricey and never on offer (that I've seen). If I saw those at a good price, I would snap them up!

There’s 25% off on the Playmobil website at the moment (including Asterix) which is what made me think of getting something now to put away for Christmas

My dd wanted a castle of her own to "fight" her brother's knights at 3. She's got the Ice Palace which seemed appropriate given ds picked the fire side of Novelmore for his. They're 8 (ds) and 5 (dd) and the war is still ongoing. It's currently spread all over the playroom floor. She loves the mermaids (they sink ds's galleons) and the fairies too. This year she wants one of the bigger Ayuma sets.

I thought the farm and horse sets would get more use but apart from the horses which have been conscripted they're most ignored.

The campervan, take along house and the Scooby doo sets have had plenty of play as well though. If dd is just playing by herself, the playpark and house probably get the most use because she likes recreating what she's done herself.

They do a 123 range aimed at younger kids.

Yeah we have a lot of the 123 stuff from both children and she’s not so interested in that now. Definitely loves her brothers older Playmobil!

My daughter loves the zoo! Great little set.

If you want some stocking fillers, the blind bags are remarkably good value, about £2 for a figure with a couple small accessories, stores like Sainsbury and Asda stock them. My girls always love them.

Our most played with sets are the water park ones and the How to Train Your Dragon ones.

I'm not sure if I should thank you for that tip off or not... Can I charge the cost of my order back to you, given your culpability? 😂

I mean if I’m ordering loads “because there’s 25% off” I’m going to try and convince others to do the same 😂

Ones that DD2 was obsessed with (we had a ridiculous amount of small plastic children in our house for many years - now up at grandparents being played with by the younger grandchildren) were the preschool (bastard to put together but loads of play value), the school (newer style design so easier to assemble) and any of the houses. It was really the kids that she gravitated towards and spent bloody hours educating small classes of playmobil children, all with individual names and woe-betide you got any of them wrong.

Yellow school bus is another good cheaper set - in terms of the little plastic children needing to be transported places.

She never really got into the fantasy stuff, or the historical stuff (although Grandad has been found several times recreating elaborate historical dioramas) but it was very much the CityLife stuff relevant to her own life that she was keen on.

I used Marketplace or eBay to get loads of Playmobil at really good prices. Have almost a shop full!

Favourites have been the children's hospital, the mansion, the hotel, swimming pools, Spirit/farm ones

Zoo, swimming pools and funfair Playmobil arr popular with my girls

Thank you @Firsttimecaller for mentioning me! Really, I just love any Playmobil, but I would think about what themes your dd likes. Lots of girls seem to like camper van/other leisure sets or the hospital and school and associated sets.

My ds (who is now 22!) loved construction/fire/police, but also had some of the camping/swimming pool etc sets. I think the 25% offer ends today (my latest parcel has just arrived! I bought the girl band Music Band - 71042 | PLAYMOBIL® which is almost half price at the moment!

I had planned a summer holiday Playmo diorama extravaganza this summer, but sadly I've had a lot of neck/shoulder pain the last few months, so had to shelve my plans. Hoping to produce something next year!