Plush are a big part of imaginative play for kids developmentally, especially when it comes to exploring interpersonal relationships and understanding the world around them. Through supplemental content and tools like a big kid friendly poster, tweezers to explore, and a diagnosis card game, kids can practice empathetic solution finding through play. Also, of course, learn about anatomy & physiology along the way!
Part of making physiology kid-friendly was presenting the prognosis like a story. So cute to see kids adding to it, acting it out, & narrating their daring surgery in kid testing.
Initial sketches below:
Frog Facts! Frog kidneys, digestive tract, and lungs look very similar to humans, but they have an extra lobe in their liver to help offset toxin intake from porous skin, which is constantly secreting mucus. Also, their heart only has 1 ventricle. Because a lot of frogs can actually breathe through their skin, their heart is not too worried about what blood goes where. So, some oxygenated blood gets sent to the lungs and some unoxygenated blood gets sent to the body, completely at random. Totally wild. They also have "fatty bodies" (the pom poms), which are fat globules for hibernation. Yum.
Each organ is made of 2 pieces of felt, sewn together along one side. They each open like a little book, with "cross-sections" of the organs (pictured above) waiting inside!
A product with legs! Froggie became an evergreen for KiwiCo, and even hopped it's way into Target for KiwiCo's first ever forray into a major toy aisle.
We reworked the MSRP a bit lower, opened up the packaging, and updated the belly to a simpler velcro closure to be friendlier to Target shoppers.
