In our house
We love a good stacker
Stacking toys are brilliant
For children of all ages
They come in all shapes, sizes and materials
And often have multiple uses
Our stacker collection is used by children
Aged 1 to 8
And they are used all the time
The stackers in our home are mostly wooden
Or made of sturdy cardboard
I would like to share with you some of our favourites
In case there is a little one in your home
That might like a stacker in their stocking this Christmas time
JANOD NUTTY SQUIRREL BALANCING GAME
This is a beautiful toy
The large wooden squirrel
Comes with a cloth bag filled with wooden acorns
The idea is to balance the acorns
On top of the squirrel
You can stand the squirrel on a flat surface
Or upon the wooden wobble board
As an extra challenge
The pieces are chunky
So safe for the littlest of hands
This is a great toy for developing fine motor skills
As well as practising counting
Colour recognition and hand eye co-ordination
It is great fun to play alone
Or with friends
This fox stacker from Janod
Is a traditional toy
With coloured wooden rings for children
To stack on to a wooden pole
The fox head on this stacker is so pretty
Edie loves playing with it
And it is such a pretty toy to have out on display
This is a lovely toy
Bright and colourful with beautiful patterns
This train has an air of magic about it
A perfect fairy tale train!
This Hape train is great for learning colours
It is fantastic for grouping, sorting and counting
As well as developing fine motor skills
It has a lot of early educational value
It sparks the imagination
And is lots of fun
A fabulous addition to small world play
And again looks so pretty when out on display
William
Age 8
Loves these stacking acrobats
He loves making different shapes and routines with them
The balancing tree from Plan Toys is truly beautiful
It is a versatile toy that my oldest children come back to
Time and time again
They take great care building and balancing their tree
Then carefully placing the birds on the branches
This is a great toy for learning patience and perseverance
It is perfect for developing fine motor skills
You need a steady and controlled hand
This toy is also good for imaginative play and storytelling
Esther loves to act out stories with the little wooden birds
A wonderful gift that keeps on giving
So many creative ways to play
The Plan Toys game is beautifully made from painted wood
The colours are brigh
There are six hives and six matching bees
The game also comes with tweezers or tongs
This is a game that can be played in many ways
By children of different ages and abilities
Learning different concepts and skills
Bee Hives is great for colour identifcation and colour matching
Children can use their fingers to move the bees
Before they are ready to try and manipulate the tongs or tweezers
It is great for developing concentration and the pincer grip
When using the tongs to place bees in the correctly coloured hive
Using the tweezers builds the muscles and movements needed in the fingers for writing
So this is a great pre writing activity
The hives can be stacked in a number of arrangements
Making it more difficult to place and remove the bees from the hives
You can arrange the hives on a flat surface or build them up like a tower
It is a great way of introducing tessellation to small children
The stacking also allows for creative thought as you find as many different ways to stack the hives as possible
While still being able to place a bee in each one.
The bees and hives can be used for a memory game
Under which hive is the blue bee?
What colour hive is hiding the red bee?
They can also be used for a speed game
Who can put all the bees into the right hives with the tweezers in the quickest time?
So many wonderful ways to play
Have a look at little Bea playing with our bees
We have owned this game for four years
And it is played all the time
It is great for resilience and thinking skills
Problem solving
And as with all stackers
Great for the development of those vital fine motor skills
This is a beautiful wooden toy
Can be played alone or with friends
Roll the dice and stack a coloured cylinder
As shown on the dice
Can also be used as a stacker without the dice
A simple toy for all ages to enjoy
BRITISH LIBRARY CAT BALANCING GAME
Another fun balancing game
This time from The British Library
Beautifully crafted
And so cute
A cat playing with colourful balls of wool
This would be such a lovely gift
I wonder if our Granny might like this one?
Fun to play with
And would look lovely out on display
A definite conversation starter
And who knew you could find lovely gifts
Online at The British Library!!
MELISSA AND DOUG NESTING AND SORTING GARAGES AND CARS
Edie absolutely loves cars
This set has 7 numbered cars and garages
The garages stack and nest
You can match each car to their garage
By colour or by number
Great for early learning through play
At 18 months Edie can count to six with help
Partly through playing with this toy
There is so much to be learned through playing with this toy
It is brilliant!
The colourful garages have counting pictures on the back walls
To help with one to one correspondence when counting
Children can build a tower or create a colourful town
This set is great for hand-eye coordination
And for exploring the concepts of colour, size, and number
It encourages counting, problem solving and creative play
This is definitely one of our most loved toys for babies between one and two
DJECO NATURE AND ANIMAL CUBE STACKER
This nesting and stacking toy from Djeco is an old favourite
Esther and William adored it
Now Bea and Edie do too
These sturdy cardboard cubes are truly beautiful
Painted pictures and patterns
The five faced cubes show animals and things from nature
They also offer patterns for counting
The cubes can be used to create traditional towers
Or used as scenes for storytelling and small world play
We have used the blocks for measuring
And for playing Peekaboo with toy animals
Edie loves to knock down towers
And she loves filling each box up with different things
This is another versatile toy
Offering lots of creative ways to play
Edie has been known to use the cardboard cubes
As shoes and hats!
Edie loves owls
And so we have lots of owl books and toys
We love to combine our love of stories and play
Grimms Mountain Owls Building Blocks
Are perfect for complementing owl books
They are great for stacking and storytelling
They are wonderful for adding to sensory and small world play
They can be used as puppets
As characters in animated movies
They can be bashed together
Wherever Edie goes at least one owl goes too
And these are great for taking out and about
We also have the Grimms Sea Owls
These are great for building wibbly wobbly owls
And building a tall tall tower
By combining sets to make our very own parliament
As with all our wooden stacking toys
These owls look beautiful on the shelves in our playroom
I hope that you have enjoyed a sneak peek at our stackers
Follow the link below for a few more ideas
For Christmas stackers!
If you do buy any of the toys
You see here
I would love to know
And I hope that you will enjoy them
As much as we all do
Happy stacking!
This is a collaborative post