Schleich Farm World Advent Calendar Review

Reviewed by Amanda Hayes

With Christmas gifts and festive food beginning to fill the shelves, you may well be turning your mind to purchasing an advent calendar. The Advent calendar has become more and more popular over the last few years with a huge selection for both young and old alike. Where there were just the two main choices, card or paper with hidden festive pictures, or if you were really lucky, chocolate inside, now you can choose from pretty much any type of product from beauty to alcohol.

If you are looking for a child you are a bit more limited, but the selection is growing quickly with a new offerings out every year. If your child loves ponies and animals, you would have no doubt heard of Schleich, the manufacturer of great quality farmyard, equestrian and other animal toys. My son is a big horse lover so we have several Schleich horses, and also a selection of Schleich dinosaurs, so I was very happy to be offered a Schleich Advent Calendar to review.

Several of the Schleich advent calendars have been updated for 2021, and I was sent the 2021 version of the Farm World Advent Calendar which contains lots of different small animals and associated items. When the box arrived, I was surprised at just how big it was, chunky A3 size in a highly decorated, easy to recycle, cardboard sleeve. The front of the sleeve shows a lovely snow covered scene including all the items from the calendar. On the reverse it has an illustration of the contents and a decorated Christmas tree to cut out to add to the finished scene.

Removing the sleeve, I found the box beneath to have 24 numbered doors in many different shapes and sizes to fit the variety of contents. To entice you in there is a very large door for number 1, inside I found a see through bag containing a dog. The bag clearly stated it was a Shih Tzu Maltese dog, which was lucky as I wasn’t sure! The dog also had a Schleich tag on its leg with a code on it, with the code you can look it up on the Schleich website and find out lots about the breed, which I thought was an excellent idea. I am not going to give all the contents away, but behind door 2 there was a young boy to add to the farm scene. By the end of day 24 there is a lovely little play set up, with small animals such as cat, guinea pig and hedgehog, they aren’t necessarily all farm animals, but still very cute.

The recommended age on the box is 3-8 years and I would say that’s just about right, some of the pieces are small, so care needs to be taken with a younger child, but they are all excellent quality, not cheap plastic that will break. I think the idea is great, especially as after Christmas you can add the items to your existing collection as they are all from the current selection on the website. I also found it good value for money as most of the items brought separately are around £3.00 each, so you get a nice little set for a good price plus the excitement of opening it everyday.
If you have a farming mad child who is into tractors and machinery, the farm world advent calendar probably isn’t for you, but if you child loves animals, and / or collects Schleich products then the calendar would be a perfect gift. The Schleich Farm World advent calendar is an excellent alternative to chocolate, that will last for years to come. Great quality, good value & recyclable packaging, make it the Advent Calendar of choice for any young animal lover.

Rating: Highly recommended 5/5

RRP: £24.99. This product can be purchased from all good toy shops.

This product can be purchased from Amazon here.