My eight year-old friends (one of whom regularly rides a horse) were delighted to be chosen from classmates to be able to play with the mobile vet clinic. I left them to set up their story as they putt the halter on the  horse, set out the vet’s tools, hung the x-rays and got the examination table ready, chatting away as they realized all the themes they could explore.  When I came back, they wanted to tell me their story, ” The horse was running wild. The halter, the string was tangled around his foot and he was crying. Then the medical doctor came and saw both his feet were tangled.” She untangled them but found “marks” on both his hoofs and took him up to her medical van. I love this, “She gave him a shot and a bandaid!”  These kids knew the medical routine–get medicine, fall asleep and then get the cast on his foot. Schleich’s “Horse Club Mobile Vet With Hanoverian Foal” has all the props to tell a creative story of horse care: ramp up to the inner examination room, mobile x-ray machine, syringe, medicine bottle, stethoscope, cast, first aid kit, apples, x-rays, a pad to make notes on medical conditions, a vet. and a foal. Schleich takes such care in creating hand painted, realistic people and animals that excite kids to tell stories, building essential skills for reading and writing.

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