Recently, on May 23^rd, we celebrated the 17^th annual World Turtle Day. I never knew there was such a thing until recently so I am super excited about this. Why? Not only do I love animals, including turtles, but my kids do as well. Not to mention we have a red eared slider turtle named Bella.

If you’re like me and didn’t know about World Turtle Day, here’s some information about it:

American Tortoise Rescue, a nonprofit organization established in 1990 for the protection of all species of tortoise and turtle, is sponsoring its 17th annual World Turtle Day® on May 23. The day was created as an annual observance to help people celebrate and protect turtles and tortoises and their disappearing habitats around the world.

 

Susan Tellem and Marshall Thompson, founders of ATR, advocate humane treatment of all animals, including reptiles. Since 1990, ATR has placed about 4,000 tortoises and turtles in caring homes. ATR assists law enforcement when undersize or endangered turtles are confiscated and provides helpful information and referrals to persons with sick, neglected or abandoned turtles. 

So to celebrate World Turtle Day, even though we’re a little late, we found two awesome products perfect to use when teaching children: Smart Splash® Shape Shell Turtles and GeoSafari® Jr. Great Excavations Turtle™.

As you all know, I homeschool my children so each of these toys was great! My 3 year old son is just starting to get introduced to homeschooling and learning and he really loves learning toys to begin with. Combine the fact that each of these toys are perfect for bath time and they were definitely a hit.

I introduced the toys to my son (as well as my 9 year old daughter) while they were playing in their little pool in the backyard and they played with these for HOURS! I knew they would enjoy them, but honestly I did not expect them to be such a hit! The shape shell turtles are perfect for teaching shapes and color recognition, which is what I’m working on with Jace, my 3 year old. You get a total of 8 turtles and they feature the following shapes: moon, star, cross, circle, square, rectangle, triangle, and oval. There’s one shape per turtle and each are a different color. This set also comes with a mesh bag – perfect for letting them dry off after each use.

The Great Excavations Turtle was more appropriate for my 9 year old, Sophia, as far as using it for its intended purposes, however, Jace loved seeing a big turtle and watching the water pour through its shell in the pool. This turtle is a decent size and is a total of 5 kid-friendly tools to use in the dirt and sand. I love how they set it up so that the turtle shell is one tool and its 4 legs are 4 different tools, which all connect to make the one whole turtle. Jace was able play with it, but he doesn’t quite fully understand it yet.

Both toys were high quality and seriously hours of fun. To top it off, I was able to throw out a few fun facts about turtles to my kids so they were able to learn a bit more about turtles while having fun and enjoying the new toys. Needless to say these were a hit and we look forward to incorporating World Turtle Day in future homeschool lessons now that we are aware of it!