Recommend me some toddler-hand-sized people/animals!

[bluejaunte]

He's getting really into imaginative play, and I'm noticing a distinct lack of small (good size for toddler graspin') people and animals. Like, a family of people, say, and an assortment of animals (pets, farm animals, wild animals, &c). Most things of his that are that size have wheels.

Which brands/sites do you recommend? I'd love to get nice wooden ones if your LOs have loved any, but it seems most of the wooden toys I buy him get shunned in favor of the plastic ones my mom gets him. But I ain't giving up yet!

[EmmysMama]

DD1 shuns the wooden toys too. I won't pretend to understand!

Little People. She loves the playsets, but you don't have to buy a whole set with a big plastic barn or house. There are packs of people and animals that you can buy separately to "expand" your collection. A lot of them are duplicates (even though a cow comes with the farm, you can buy more cows, etc), so you wouldn't be missing out on any common animals. They make everything from cows to hedgehogs, princesses to mechanics.

There are a whole lot on eBay but most want to sell them individually (like the pack of 5 people is broken up and they want $2.50 for each person, whatever!). I find some at Big Lots, some at Toys R Us, and there are some on Amazon too. And you can always buy from Fisher-Price. They make a huge variety and they really are the perfect size.

[nameisrio]

Little People were my favorite as a kid and now my daughter loves them too. At 3 she still plays with them!

[rightkindofme]

My daughter loves the Plan Toys people and Anamalz. We have almost the whole zoo because mamabargains.com had them on sale for super cheap a while back.

[Ruthie's momma]

DD really enjoys playing with her Little People, Schleich animals, and Playmobil Take-Along dollhouse.

*Little People-DD has one of the builder sets that includes people, some animals, and building blocks.

*Schleich animals-DD has several different farm animals, an elephant and some dogs.

*Playmobil-The house came with an assortment of accessories. Except for the family, some of their furniture and the stroller, I have put the rest of the tiny(!) pieces away until later.

[JudiAU]

My toddler has played with people and animal non-stop for the last year. 18m- 2 1.2

I avoid plastic (safety-China issues-aesthetics) but make exceptions for a very few things.

We seem to have a ton of Schleich animals (sneaky hedgehog, pokey, super pokey, and super dokey pokey, sad bison (no baby) and they get played with all the time in a million configurations. I like them better than the other phylate free brands...better detailing. They are a bit smaller than some other brands which is a good thing.

If you do want wood Haba makes a simple, fairly inexpensive Farmer's Family set as part of their blocks. I bought it for DS and then realized it duplicated some other animals so I'll save it as a gift.

DS loves to build with duplo, my other big plastic purchase. But I think they are safe and get played with all the time. A tub of blocks + a building mat + a few animals kept DS entertained on a plane for THREE hours. They also have some people. One day I will spurgle on the big bucket of people and give them as gifts. Everyone has a name, a family relationship, etc.

Finally, we also have a some various plan toys road/rail/airport/people collections. These are our primary people. I like the various ethnicities on offer. We play with all the time. Some of the companion toys require a little more coordination and "nice play" than something like Little People but I prefer to avoid those and my toddler's personality is fine for them, even through he is young.

All are great, sized well, etc. We have some of the Grimm's shapes "fire" "wave" etc. sold at the natural stores and some combination of the people + animals + tracks/airport/blocks come out EVERY DAY.

[dutchgal]

We have the Playmobil 1-2-3 stuff, vintage Fisher Price Little People, and the plastic animals mentioned above. Of the three, the animals get the most play--'dis is the momma, did is the dadda and this is the baby!' That and a set of Little Pony Figurines

I thought the Playmobil would get way more play. We take it along on holidays in small bunches, and then it gets played with a lot.

[Anastasiya]

My kids have Schleich animals and every one of the kids loves them. We've got tons of farm animals (horses, pigs, sheep, cows, donkeys, etc.), we've got jungle animals, dinosaurs, dogs and cats, etc....

Wooden animals were painfully ignored here too and I got rid of them. I can see why. You can only do so much detailing with wood, and my kids are into fine detail. They want things to look "real" or close to it.

They also LOOOOVE Playmobil.

[4Marmalade]

Another vote for the Schleich animals. We only have about 10 or so but my 20 month old twins love them. 4.5 year old dd plays with them too.

[bluejaunte]

Wow, thank you all so much! Off to spend some money!

[PiePie]

fisher price little people -- we have the bus, the airplane, and the garage

ryan's room dollhouse, with accessories from both ryan's room and plan toys

[sweetcheeks]

Schleich animals and the Playmobil 123 stuff get played with a lot around here. I love the Playmobil 123 stuff as it's bigger than the regular Playmobil stuff and easier for DS2 to hold and play with. We had some Little People sets for my older two but they never got played with so we sold them. We did get a couple of the 50th anniversary Little People sets that were out over Christmas and DS2 plays with those a fair bit.

[brennan]

We only have wooden people/animals. I got them from http://www.etsy.com/shop/ZooLooNaturals (though they aren't taking custom orders atm)
http://www.jalutoys.com/
Some other brands are Ostheimer, Holztiger and Nova Natural has some as well. I'm sure there are others that I'm not thinking about right now. They are pretty pricey, to me they're worth it but to others the plastic ones are just fine!