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A wooden toy is a toy mainly constructed from wood and wood products.
People often prefer to buy wooden toys because they do not break as often or quickly as plastic toys but also because their natural feel makes the play experience much deeper for kids. They are also safer to play with. They are simple but multidimensional and are extremely helpful for children’s cognitive, social and physical development.
Interesting facts
- Research shows that children experience a more tranquil and advantageous quality play through wooden toys than from any other material.
- Playing with wooden blocks prepares the child for more complex tasks, such as holding a pencil and tracing as well as additional complex coordinated movements.
- A recent study shows that an average of 3 months after Christmas, 41 percent of all plastic toys ends up in the landfill. Wooden toys, if they ever do end up in the landfill, will not cause much harm.
Why wooden toys are important for the development of children?
Wooden toys were longer around than any other toy. They are in fact, thought to be the earliest toys in existence. The developmental advantages of wooden toys are however, consistently researched and confirmed. Some of the many benefits of allowing your children to play with wooden toys are as below:
- Helps in sensory development. The organic experience of touching, feeling the wooden toys’ surface, form, length and weight creates complicated neural connections in the brain of the child and improves their memory. Children become expert in understanding the world’s main elements and characteristics: hot or cold, sticky or rough, wet or dry, soft or rigid.
- Wooden toys Promotes cooperation and sharing. Wooden toys allow kids to connect and collaborate efficiently, an important factor in the growth of a child. For example, by playing with a friend with wooden building blocks, they learn to share their thoughts, create new relationships, and learn to listen and understand, as well as develop empathy.
- Wooden toys are essential to the development of fine motor skills, which are the coordination of small muscles and the synchronization of hands and fingers with eyes. It enhances fine motor skills. Pinching, lifting, balancing wooden toy pieces exercise the nervous system and develop the brain parts responsible for dexterity and coordination.
- Wooden toys promote the cognitive development of a child, improving their thinking, reasoning, and logic. Kids learn to draw logical conclusions and develop an understanding of the physical attributes and rules of weight, dynamics, geometry, and volume by grabbing and lifting, balancing and stacking, wooden blocks and toys.
- Wooden toys have many educational benefits They are designed to help children learn about shapes, sizes, colors, textures, as well as to improve critical reasoning, cause-and-effect and organizational, problem-solving, decision-making skills, among others.
- Wooden toys trigger the imagination. With their simplistic but functional nature, wooden toys offer enough room for the little ones’ wild imaginations to roam. This in turn, shapes imagination, and boosts confidence in children.
For what ages do we suggest wooden toys?
Traditional toys, such as building blocks, are commonly targeted at young children between the ages of a few months and five years old. However you can find wooden toys for all ages, thanks to the versatility and simplicity of the material.
Are wooden toys environmentally friendly?
People are not only concerned about the non-organic toxic substances in toys and daily goods, but also about their adverse environmental consequences. Landfills and oceans are clogged with non-biodegradable plastics that damage living organisms. Wood is on the other hand, a material that is renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. Its overall environmental impact remains smaller than that of plastic toys that are mass-produced.
Here is my recommended list of 9 great wooden toys for toddlers and kids:
Wooden Wobble Balance Board
Montessori Sensory Board for Toddlers -for Fine Motor Skills
Wooden Building Blocks Set, Educational Toys
Le Toy Van – Wooden Petilou Forest Stacker Puzzle
Le Toy Van – Wooden Toy Educational Excalibur Knights Castle
Hape Beaded Raindrops | Mini Wooden Musical Shake & Rattle Rainmaker Toy
Early Learning Centre Wooden Toddle Truck
Play Food Cutting Fruits and Vegetables Set for Pretend Role Play
I hope you found this article interesting, and that it will help you for your next purchase!
In addition to those selected toys and gifts, I highly recommend you to read about “My 5 Best Family Games that Develop Attention to Detail & Visual Memory”
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