As your babies turn into the beautiful toddlers they are, you start to notice some changes in how they move, look, and think. Their curiosity grows just as their bodies do, and they become brave enough to explore the world around them. From just observation and reaching around things within their space, their adventures evolve into questions and experience-based learning.
Through the years, studies have shown that equipping toddlers with the right instruments for learning improves physical and mental development. One such instrument of learning that parents love is the puzzle. Puzzles universally improve children’s mental capacities, but a benefit that is often overlooked is the ability of these educational novelties to improve physical skills as well.
Toddlers’ bodies are still developing, and one of the important skills to improve is children’s motor skills. As kids navigate puzzles, the pieces they put in place with their hands help enhance motor skills, dexterity, and hand-eye coordination. These skills are vital to children’s development as they are crucial to gathering information.
Important as they are, it’s important that parents in these innovative instruments for their kids’ growth. As long as your budget permits, it is highly recommended that you find puzzles that possess a long life span to get the most out of their value. Research suggests that it’s important that children have ample time to explore their toys. Affirming Montessori-inspired learning, academics discovered that quickly moving from toys hastily or having too many options affects children’s focus. Data suggests that when exploration of a toy is rushed, children have a hard time processing what they’ve learned.
This factor is why experts recommend wooden toys. Wooden toys guarantee safety, quality, and durability, three elements that allow children time to process the information they gather from playing with puzzles. Through this article, parents can learn more about wooden puzzles, why they’re preferred, how they benefit children, and finding the best ones on the market.
Why Wooden Puzzles?
Wooden puzzles offer opportunities for learning not limited to just mental development. Contrary to misconceptions, puzzles, for toddlers, provide various ways to grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially.
Durability and Lifespan Lead to More Lessons
Puzzles are extraordinary instruments for learning. However, children can be overenthusiastic at times, and this may lead to rough playing and, at worst, impatience. These instances often lead to damage, ultimately shortening the lifespan of puzzles and leaving the learning process cut short.
Durable wooden puzzles provide the durability these novelties need to maintain a steady course for children’s education. If a puzzle is sturdy enough to withstand the worst a bad tantrum has to offer, it will be able to last long enough to offer all the wisdom it can to curious learners.
Improved Sensory Learning
Education legend Dr. Maria Montessori believed that wood provided babes, toddlers, and even older children with an unrivaled sensory experience. This belief spawned a learning principle people love and subscribe to today.
Wooden toys provide a unique sensory input that plastic, cardboard, and other materials can’t match. Studies also record that this one-of-a-kind sensory stimulus improves the educational experience when integrated into learning instruments. These factors all contribute to your toddler’s learning experience.
Multifaceted Education
When it comes to education, people often have a misconception about what puzzles contribute to learning. In most cases, people believe that puzzles exclusively contribute to mental health. However, experts report that wooden puzzles also greatly affect other facets of learning, such as physical, social, and emotional growth.
Puzzles develop physical skills through activities like moving small and fine components around and navigating the spaces available with the pieces. These tasks improve children’s hand-eye coordination and motor skills.
Giving kids the opportunity to work with children their age or the family helps your toddler’s social and emotional skills. Through collaboration and cooperation, children develop social and emotional skills like interpersonal interaction, patience, and sharing.
Unlimited Subjects to Explore
When it comes to learning, there is no such thing as too early. The tricky part is finding the subjects of learning that are age-appropriate for your toddlers. In many cases, around the toddler years, young minds tend to gravitate toward the world around them, numbers, and foundational language.
Puzzles are amazing educational instruments that work wonders for introducing these concepts. Kids can start learning about numbers, the alphabet, and basic science facts through thematic wooden puzzles. Simple yet powerful, it is no wonder why parents, experts, and even children themselves love puzzles at school or even at home.
The Best Wooden Toys For Your Kids
Finding the best toys for your toddlers is no small task. Children learn and play in many different ways, and as parents, your job is to make sure to find the wooden puzzles that address your children’s needs and curiosities.
On a general note, some of the features and elements to consider include difficulty, durability, area of learning, size of the pieces, and maintenance.
The main purpose of these toys is to ensure that the kids learn a thing or two from playing. Choosing puzzles that might be a bit too complex or complicated may cause children to give up or become impatient. On the other hand, durability allows children to spend more time with the puzzle and allows them to learn better. Be careful with how big the puzzle pieces are, as trinkets or small objects can easily become choking hazards.
Considering the area of learning also helps you nurture your children’s passions and interests. This effort encourages kids to explore the things they like and develop independent play. As parents, you still play a role in maintaining and cleaning the toys. Make sure you choose toys that will give you an easy time in cleaning and maintaining. This will allow you to go about your tasks for the day.
With these factors in mind, below are 25 different wooden puzzles that can help you with your toddlers’ child development needs. Each product presents its own pros and cons, so make sure you choose the right one for your growing geniuses.
Child Universe Wooden Alphabet Puzzle
The Best High-Quality and Customizable Wooden Alphabet Puzzle
Like the timeless alphabet song, the Child Universe Wooden Alphabet Puzzle teaches children about the basics of language. This busy board features all 26 letters of the alphabet in durable wood and the aesthetically-pleasing colors of the rainbow. Manufacturers even offer parents the option of having a name personalized for the customers. Popular requests include the customization of the toddler’s name right on the busy board.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
This alphabet puzzle is an amazing interactive and personalized toy. Its primary charm keeps toddlers engaged as they learn about the basics of spelling and writing. Child Universe’s trademark personalized name makes the product extra endearing to both parents and toddlers. Painted in the colors of the rainbow, the Montessori-inspired innovation also nurtures children’s color recognition skills through visual experiences.
Each of the letters and the board the developers use are all organic, safe, and non-toxic. All of the puzzle’s components benefit from the durability of birch plywood. Birch plywood is a material prominent for its sturdiness and quality.
Aside from the alphabet and color recognition, the busy board also improves hand-eye coordination and motor skills. As kids lift the pieces and move them to their proper places, they strengthen and refine their bones and muscles for tasks that require coordination and dexterity.
Pros
Beautifully Personalized and Customized for the Family
Excellent Sensory Experience
Organic and Non-Toxic
Multifunctional and Multifaceted Learning
Cons
International Shipping Can Be Unpredictable In Some Cases
Dreampark Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles
The Best in Introducing Jigsaw Puzzles to Toddlers
Developers designed this educational wonder specifically for younger toddlers and babies who have tiny hands. The Dreampark Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles provide parents with the best way to introduce the concept of jigsaw puzzles to their young and developing minds.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
The Dreampark Puzzle introduces your toddlers to a variety of creatures ranging from land-exploring bears, airborne butterflies, and sea-living crabs. Each adorable creature is a jigsaw puzzle that children can solve as they navigate and explore how the pieces fit together.
Manufacturers smoothed the edges of each wooden piece to guarantee safe edges for your toddler’s playtime. Designers of the puzzle painted the novelty with bright colors to enhance children’s sensory experience. The puzzle is a fantastic educational tool that helps toddlers develop hand-eye coordination, motor skills, and shape recognition. The Dreampark puzzle is especially effective in improving kids’ problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
Pros
Excellent Visual and Tactile Experience
Durable and Safe For Babies or Toddlers
Size-Appropriate for Babies and Toddlers
Cons
Customers Don’t Get To Choose a Theme and Creature
Learning with puzzles can never start too early. With the Mirror Peekaboo Puzzle, your babies can start learning about solving puzzles as soon as about three or four months old. You certainly wouldn’t want a baby that young to be handling a complex puzzle with several pieces. The mirror puzzle jumpstarts children’s problem-solving skills using just a single puzzle piece that reveals their own reflections underneath.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
You can get your baby started with the foundations of problem-solving skills and critical thinking skills with this innovative mirror puzzle. Through exercises such as grasping at the puzzle’s components and holding the toy, kids can also sharpen the foundations of motor skills and dexterity.
This puzzle draws inspiration from Montessori learning as designers crafted the toy with high-quality hardwood. The materials that manufacturers used to create the puzzle ensure durability and safety as natural components are all non-toxic and chemical-free.
The mirror puzzle is an excellent Montessori toy as it guides the development of self-recognition through exercises that improve physical and mental growth.
Introduce your young learners to a challenge through the highly educational LITTLEFUN Cognitive Alphabet Spelling Game. The spelling game is an amazing puzzle game that will help your kids learn about the alphabet and its role as the bedrock of language. This LITTLEFUN masterpiece assists in teaching kids about spelling and basic words that they need as they grow.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
The most charming function of the spelling game is how it teaches toddlers about letters and how they interact to form words. Each puzzle piece is a letter that toddlers can explore and memorize. Putting the letters together through the puzzle educates children about language and spelling, jumpstarting their linguistic prowess in the process.
It is, however, not the only lesson that your children can learn. Designers painted each puzzle piece or letter with bright and solid colors. The variety in each of the letters’ colors excites children as they mix and match the colors. They can form color combinations through the words spelled with the pieces and discover which colors they like best together.
The package includes a total of 52 wooden letter blocks and 28 double-sided pattern cards that children can use as their guides. Overall, the Alphabet Spelling game is a stellar multifunctional toy that educates children on linguistics and colors through puzzles and sensory stimulation.
Help your kids get to know each and every one of the letters of the alphabet with the Melissa & Doug See-Inside Alphabet Wooden Peg Puzzle. In many cases, educational toys on language often focus too much on teaching toddlers about words. This alphabet puzzle mainly focuses on educating toddlers about each of the letters and how they work together to create words.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Teaching children about how each letter works is often overlooked in teaching kids how to spell and string words together. This is why it’s important to find toys that specifically cater to teaching children about the sounds each letter makes and how they can sound together.
To help toddlers navigate the puzzle, designers specifically sized the letters to be appropriate for growing children’s developing hands. The entirety of the package includes 26 wooden letters that represent the alphabet from A to Z, pegs that show the pictures under each piece, and a sheet of fully-colored illustrations that match the images under the letters.
This puzzle helps children understand what the letters look like and how people use them in forming words. The innovation also helps kids learn through experience and spend time away from gadget screens or technology.
Shape-based puzzles are classic learning instruments for learning children. This novelty from Elite Montessori is inspired by the classic sorting and organizing wonder, the Single/Multiple Shape Puzzle. It follows the classic colorful design that features the puzzle on sizes and shapes. Children worldwide enjoy and learn from this Montessori classic as early as they are a year old.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
The Elite Montessori shape puzzle is an outstanding introduction to the concept of puzzles. Through this innovation, your toddlers can start mastering the recognition of shape one figure at a time. From this simple product, you and your kids can work your way up toward more complex puzzles, each more challenging than the last.
Solving the circular puzzle is the easiest level, so you and your children can start with that. As your toddler starts to master the circle, move to solve the square and then the triangle. Explore other orders to diversify the experience and make learning more effective.
Learning with the Elite Montessori Puzzle can start as soon as nine months old. The educational toy can develop children’s hand-eye coordination and dexterity as they master the puzzle from one shape to the next.
Pros
Simple and Effective
Easy to Understand
Montessori-Inspired
Durable and Safe
Cons
Cleaning Requires Special Instructions
TOP BRIGHT 100 Piece Wooden Jigsaws Puzzle
The Best 100-Piece Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle for Toddlers
Give your toddlers a challenge with their first 100-piece puzzle. The TOP BRIGHT 100 Piece Wooden Jigsaws Puzzle is a great place to start. This novelty provides astonishing images that children can unravel as they find the pieces that fit together. The images available are whimsical and adorable, giving your children a sense of great accomplishment as they complete the puzzle.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
As this puzzle is certainly at a more challenging scale, the 100-piece jigsaw puzzle is a teaser for older toddlers. The company delivers children in a highly durable wooden tray. This feature allows your kid to take the challenge in places where they feel comfortable and ready. The wooden tray also helps in ensuring that the puzzle pieces are easy to store or transport. Each component is thick, solid, and guaranteed to withstand use for a long time.
Designers smoothed the edges of the product to ensure that the toys are safe for your toddler’s hands and burr-free. The puzzle pieces benefit from fine slicing techniques to deliver size-appropriate components. These techniques allow your children to navigate the puzzle as they solve the challenge with their own hands.
To guide children who find themselves lost in the puzzle, each piece has a corresponding number according to its position. This gives toddlers a chance at trial and error, allowing them to master the puzzle bit by bit as they learn from their mistakes.
Pros
Beautiful and Visually Appealing Illustrations
Encourages Trial and Error
Durable and Safe
Cons
Choosing Designs Will Require Some Searching
Child Universe Solar System Puzzle
Best Solar System-Themed Wooden Puzzle for Toddlers
Toddlers are curious creatures. They have a million questions about the world they live in. Some of the most famous questions are classics like “why is the sky blue?” and “how do airplanes fly?” If you live with a toddler of your own, you might have encountered your share of questions that have left you stumped. However, this curiosity and thirst for answers should be nurtured and encouraged. For kids who have questions about the Earth, and the planets, the Child Universe Solar System Puzzle is a perfect match.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Your toddlers will eventually grow a healthy curiosity for the world they live in. Among the many exciting concepts to learn, the exploration of planets is an interesting starting point for your passionate children.
The Solar System Puzzle is a fantastic activity board that can impart the beauty of space and planets to your children. Designers bank on spectacular art and engaging colors to nurture children’s passions and curiosities.
The activity board includes all the planets of the solar system and the sun, ensuring an accurate depiction of science for children to learn. Working on this awesome puzzle sharpens hand-eye coordination and problem-solving skills. Each component is safe and non-toxic as manufacturers guarantee natural and safe materials.
Pros
Teaches Children About Planets and Space
Nurtures and Encourages Curiosity
Excellent Visual and Tactile Experience
Durable and Safe
Cons
Exclusive to a Few Stores
Coogam Wooden Blocks Puzzle Brain Teasers Toy Tangram Jigsaw
The Best Puzzle For Improving Problem-Solving Skills for Toddlers
Give your kids a worthy challenge that will sharpen their cognitive skills. The Coogam Wooden Blocks Puzzle Brain Teasers Toy Tangram Jigsaw is a novelty that children can enjoy in various ways. Versatile and multifunctional, toddlers can use the Coogam puzzle as a fresh and challenging puzzle and as a building toy.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Built with a high-quality and smooth surface, designers of this Coogsam puzzle utilized natural and healthy basswood. These materials guarantee durability and safety for kids as they explore the puzzle presented to them.
The package includes 40 puzzle pieces that seemingly take from the blocks in the classic arcade game, Tetris. Designers painted the puzzle pieces in unique hues that range from white to the bright colors of the rainbow.
You and your kids can play with the Coogam puzzle in two ways. You can either use the pieces to create awesome structures like houses, pyramids, robots, and animals or explore the many different ways to fit all the pieces together on the wooden board. Either way, there are a thousand possibilities and shapes to explore. These activities enhance and nurture creativity, problem-solving skills, critical thinking capabilities, hand-eye coordination, and motor skills too.
Pros
Excellent Sensory Toy for Kids
Multifunctional Toy
Sharpens Mental and Physical Skills
Durable and Safe
Cons
Can Be a Challenging Puzzle for Younger Kids
Melissa & Doug First Shapes Jumbo Knob Wooden Puzzle
As children grow, their hands become more and more important as they are children’s natural instruments for learning. Children’s hands are essential for gathering information around them. It allows them to acclimate to the space that surrounds them and reach for things they’re curious about. The Melissa & Doug First Shapes Jumbo Knob Wooden Puzzle develops vital bones and muscles in hands to enhance learning.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Experts found that knobs are effective instruments for improving children’s hand-eye coordination and motor skills. Manufacturers designed the Jumbo Knob Wooden Puzzle to be easily grasped and gripped by children’s developing hands.
The knobs are small and easy to grasp, thanks to developers’ dedication to ensuring that the toys are size-appropriate for toddlers. The activity board where the knobs fit snugly is extra thick so children can handle and navigate the components with ease.
Manufacturers designed the activity board to be aesthetically exciting for kids, featuring colorful artwork. The Melissa & Doug puzzle is best for kids 12 months and above, nurturing both mental and physical skills through sensory experience and puzzle-solving.
Pros
Amazing Visual and Tactile Experience for Toddlers
Refines Physical and Mental Skills
Durable and Safe
Cons
Only the Knob is Wood
Rolimate Wooden Puzzle Montessori Developmental Sorting Stacking Toy
The Best Sorting and Stacking Wooden Toys for Toddlers
Professionals in the field of child development and learning have recognized stacking as one of the most effective activities in nurturing early education. Alongside the classic building blocks and imaginative play, sorting and stacking are among the best ways to develop growth. The Rolimate Wooden Puzzle Montessori Developmental Sorting Stacking Toy provides children with opportunities for multifaceted learning.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Toddlers can play with the Rolimate sorting and stacking toy in all sorts of ways. Its primary function is to provide kids with sorting and stacking activities. Sorting and stacking improve motor skills and hand-eye coordination, giving toddlers opportunities to exercise bones and muscles for refined movement.
Parents and children can also use this wooden puzzle for color recognition, counting skills, shape familiarization, and building blocks. These activities all help toddlers develop mentally, physically, socially, and emotionally. As manufacturers crafted the wooden puzzle with natural materials and eco-friendly components, this product is safe and durable.
The entirety of the package includes 35 colorful and differently-shaped pieces. The toy is an amazing gift idea for kids above three years old as it caters to older toddlers’ interests.
Pros
Develops Physical and Mental Skills
Provides Activities for Multifaceted Learning
Natural and Non-Toxic
Exciting Sensory Experience for Toddlers
Cons
Recommended for Older Toddlers as Small Components May Become Choking Hazards
Studies have discovered that children who develop a liking for animals or dinosaurs benefit from enhanced brain development. To encourage children to nurture their interests in animals, the Child Universe Farm Board provides kids with engaging puzzles for kids to solve. The farm board features adorable illustrations of animals that children love.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Nurture your children’s curiosities, interests, and passions for adorable animals through a farm-themed wooden puzzle. This farm board features cute illustrations of a rooster, a cat, a chick, a duck, a sheep, a bunny, a pig, a dog, a cow, and a horse, laid out on an activity board with holes shaped like each animal.
Developers designed the activity sheet to look like a farm setting, perfectly depicting a barn and its animals through art. The farm animal board helps enhance children’s motor skills and shape recognition, and color familiarization.
Designers crafted the product with birch plywood, ensuring durability and longevity. The creatives behind the product used Adler paint for a visually-exciting aesthetic and eco-friendly coloring.
Pros
Encourages Children’s Interests and Passions
Durable and Safe
Amazing Visual and Tactile Experience for Kids
Customizable and Personalizable
Cons
Delays May Occur for International Shipping
Melissa & Doug Vehicles Wooden Chunky Puzzle
The Best Transportation-Themed Wooden Puzzles for Toddlers
Children love a good-looking car. While some prefer trucks like ambulances, firetrucks, or even tractors, the common denominator is a passion for marvels of transportation. This excitement for things that go fast and loud can transfer over to learning opportunities. The Melissa & Doug Vehicles Wooden Chunky Puzzle is an amazing educational novelty that uses car and truck designs to keep children engaged and learning through puzzles.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Accelerate your children’s physical and mental development through this transportation-themed puzzle. The Melissa & Doug Puzzle guides children in nurturing hand-eye coordination and motor skills through sensory learning and solving puzzles.
The product features vehicles like airplanes, trains, police cars, fire trucks, school buses, cruise ships, and yachts. Each of the vehicles is a puzzle piece that can be lifted and moved around the activity board to be matched with the images beneath their original locations.
The puzzle pieces, or vehicles, are thick and easy to grasp, encouraging children to use their hands to navigate the activity board. Many of the product’s components are wooden and durable, providing children with a robust yet eco-friendly toy. Be it for pretend play or solving the puzzle, there’s always a fun way to play with trucks, cars, planes, and ships.
Toddlers learn in two ways: the information they receive using their senses and play. Puzzles, like the Fansteck Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles, provide ample information for children to explore that cater to their learning ways. This Fansteck product provides children with a puzzle to solve and a great sensory experience.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
The wildlife animals depicted in each of the Fansteck product’s jigsaw puzzles are charming and adorable. Children will absolutely love the cute aesthetic, encouraging them to do their best as they solve the puzzle.
These endearing animal jigsaw puzzles develop children’s mental and physical capacities. Navigating the puzzles and solving them improves problem-solving skills and critical thinking abilities. In the context of physical development, moving the pieces to their proper places refines children’s motor skills and dexterity.
Toddlers can use the puzzle as soon as they turn a year old. However, for children under two years, adult supervision is strictly required. Each of the puzzles includes six jigsaw puzzles that children can explore. The pieces are carved from wood, completing a natural and safe product that is eco-friendly and non-toxic.
Pros
Amazing Sensory Experience for Kids
Endearing Animal Theme and Visuals That Children Will Love
Improves Physical and Mental Abilities
Durable and Non-Toxic
Cons
Pieces Fit So Well Children May Need Help Lifting the Pieces For the First Few Times
Specific Washing Instructions Must Be Followed For Proper Cleaning
B. Toys – Counting Rainbows – Wooden Puzzle Toy
The Best Rainbow-Themed Counting Wooden Puzzle for Toddlers
Toys bustling with color and visual stimuli are always amazing for children’s early development. Research shows that colors improve learning and education for young minds. The B. Toys – Counting Rainbows – Wooden Puzzle Toy is an outstanding product that delivers stimulating visuals and lessons in numbers, counting, and color recognition.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Counting is a foundational skill that children need to develop and hone early as they grow. To give children tools to help them understand numbers and counting, this counting rainbows puzzle musters the perks of color-coding. This color-coding strategy help toddlers remember numbers as they navigate the puzzle. Matching the properties of the puzzle pieces helps children recall numbers, their values, and their order on the activity board.
This B. Toys product includes numbers from one to ten, ten bars of color that cover the colors of the rainbow, and an activity board that match the puzzle pieces. The activity board is designed with a guide that will help children figure out the puzzle through trial and error. This gives them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, improve mental and physical skills, and grow.
Experts crafted the toy mainly using wood. The high-quality wood guarantees an excellent tactile experience and an eco-friendly product. This product is natural and non-toxic and even the packaging is completely recyclable.
This innovative product comes in two different versions. The run-off-the-mill PlanToys Shape Sorter delivers excellent educational and entertainment functions overall and an exclusive Pottery Barn variant.
The limited-edition offering is a product of the collaboration between industry leaders PlanToys and Pottery Barn. The PlanToys x pbk Shape Sorter is a variant of the original product, specifically redefined to be more visually soothing. The variant features a minimalist aesthetic that blends in more at home as decor.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Give yourself a treat as you provide your kids with educational and entertaining puzzles with the limited edition Pottery Barn variant. The product of the collaboration carries important advocacy, too, making it a popular choice for concerned environmental advocates.
Pottery Barn and PlanToys crafted the PBK variant with reclaimed wood particles, making it eco-friendly and environmentally positive. Despite serving advocacy and a noble cause, the shape sorter still delivers educational value. The puzzle targets the improvement of motor skills and hand-eye coordination by encouraging children to lift and move the pieces.
The companies recommend the puzzle to children over two years old. The components of the toy are natural, safe, and non-toxic, as developers also used sustainable rubberwood for its creation.
Pros
Visually Pleasing for Both Parent and Children
Can Blend in with Rooms at Home
Excellent Puzzle for Physical and Mental Development
The Hape Creative Peg Puzzle is an amazing multifunctional puzzle that offers four varieties of puzzles in one product. Each of the puzzles is different in nature and mechanics and provides a complex challenge to your young geniuses.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
This Hape product refines multiple aspects of growth. During early education, exposure to this toy sharpens physical and mental skills. Moving the puzzles together and solving their components improves children’s hand-eye coordination, motor skills, and dexterity. On the other hand, it also bolsters problem-solving skills, critical thinking capabilities, and spatial recognition.
The easiest of the puzzles is the jigsaw base of the product, an exercise your toddlers can solve by fitting the pieces together. The second puzzle is in recognizing the shapes and sorting the geometric shapes together. The third puzzle involves the arrangement of the shapes according to color. The fourth and most challenging puzzle involves the maneuvering of the puzzles through a peg with obstacles.
All these challenges are available through a single fantastic product that also boasts durability because of its wooden constitution. This Montessori-inspired novelty is an educational powerhouse that pushes children to explore and learn with fun puzzle mechanics and sensory experiences.
This customizable and bespoke novelty by Child Universe is an amazing activity board that can feature your children’s names. The charm of this activity board is that the name itself and other components on the product are simple puzzles. With a mix of an endearing theme and a beautifully personalized set of letters, the Child Universe Woodland Name Board is an amazing wooden puzzle toy for your toddlers.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Provide your children with an amazing puzzle that they will remember for a long time. This elegant woodland-themed activity board can highlight the letters of your toddler’s name accompanied by adorable forest critters. These letters and critters can act as puzzle pieces that your children can use to learn and play.
This puzzle is a fantastic way to improve children’s fun motor skills, providing exercises that strengthen hand bones and muscles. This game also allows children to refine their spatial recognition and critical thinking skills as they solve the puzzles.
But perhaps the most important function this Child Universe product can bring to the table is its capacity to help children remember how to spell their names. Through this activity board, toddlers are constantly reminded of how to spell their names. They are reminded of the letters, how they’re read, what each character looks like, and order according to their names.
Stacking activities are amazing for early development education. Research shows that close-ended play, like stacking toys, improves brain development and body development. The Montessori learning philosophy particularly utilizes stacking toys as a way to encourage learning among younger children or toddlers as they play.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
The Begin Again Gear Stacker is a fantastic toy for developing fine motor skills. The stacking toy and its gear mechanics is an outstanding activity that develops essential hand bones and muscles. At the same time, the toy features remarkable visual stimuli and amazing tactile materials for a great sensory experiences.
Your toddlers will have hours of fun with this Begin Again novelty. The goal of the game is to have your kids arrange each gear-shaped puzzle piece in order of size, from largest to smallest. Developers painted the gears with a color palette inspired by the colors of the rainbow. The Begin Again team used wood from Rubber trees to ensure that a durable constitution protects the product.
Pros
Effective Montessori-Inspired Educational Toy
Exciting Bright and Solid Colors
Natural and Safe
Develops Physical and Mental Skills
Cons
Smallest Cog May Be a Choking Hazard so Recommended for Older Kids
Take your toddlers through an exploration of interesting everyday things using the Melissa & Doug See & Spell Wooden Puzzle. This spelling-based puzzle introduces toddlers to common objects. The novelty educates children on what the things are called and how they’re spelled. This toy will take your toddlers and their young minds through adventures right in the comfort of your own home.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
This Melissa & Doug innovation contains over 50 letters for eight different puzzles. Holes shaped like letters of a word accompany a corresponding image that your children have to fill up. Letters that are easy to handle for kids are available in a stash beside the puzzles. Most of the images are three to four-letter words that depict things that your toddler can recognize in a day.
This toy is particularly effective for developing sight-reading, vocabulary, spelling, and motor skills. The components come in a wooden case, giving parents a nice option for cleaning and storage. The letter pieces are small, so this toy is recommended for children who have outgrown the phase where they put everything in their mouths. The toy is best for children over four years old and supervision is still advised.
Pros
Introduces Toddlers to Everyday Common Things
Strengthens Spelling and Language Skills
Safe and Non-Toxic
Durable and Robust
Cons
Pieces May Become a Choking Hazard so Recommended for Older Kids
Mudpuppy Animals of The World Puzzle Sticks
The Best Popsicle-Based Wooden Puzzle for Toddlers
This unique rendition of a puzzle utilizes the flexible nature of popsicle sticks in creating fun and beautiful artwork. Moving away from the typical jigsaw and 3D shapes, the unique Mudpuppy Animals of The World Puzzle Sticks are a breath of fresh air for toddlers who love their puzzles and great artwork.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
The Mudpuppy puzzle features six different puzzles that the toddlers can explore. Each puzzle depicts an adorable artwork of different animals related to the theme. Several other themes that kids will love are available in the market, too, such as transportation, space, and dinosaurs.
Each package includes 24 double-sided popsicle sticks that host the puzzles. The puzzles are an easy challenge that even three-year-olds can solve with some guidance. Eight sticks make up each puzzle, and the range of animals features fun creatures like lions, turtles, red pandas, koalas, whales, and penguins.
The novelty is an awesome boredom buster when on the road, as its portable and lightweight features ensure a fun and educational time on the road. Take the fun wherever you go, whenever you go.
This Child Universe product gives an innovative twist to the typical jigsaw puzzle. Departing from the typical jigsaw form, the Child Universe Fruits Round Jigsaw Set is a set of circular puzzles that have a variety of subjects to share with your toddlers. Through this educational toy, you can teach your babies about basic concepts like fruits, animals, and vehicles, their names, and how to spell them.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
These Child Universe puzzles present an opportunity to learn about basic concepts such as vegetables, fruits, and vehicles. The illustration experts designed the jigsaw puzzles with bright and solid colors to provide toddlers with exciting visual stimuli. To augment this sensory experience, the wood that the manufacturers use delivers a fantastic tactile stimulus as well.
Developers chose sturdy, durable, and flexible birch plywood for the puzzle, ensuring customers high quality and a long lifespan. The puzzle, through labels on each of the illustrations, can be an instrument for teaching kids about letters and how to read them.
A single Round Jigsaw Set features nine circles and 27 pieces in total. The puzzles are size-appropriate for toddlers and have mechanics easy enough for their developing minds.
Suppose you give your toddlers 300 puzzle pieces to play with to develop their imagination and creativity. The SpriteGru Wooden Montessori Puzzle provides children with nearly unlimited possibilities to express their imagination and learn. The product features 300 wooden pieces that your toddlers can use to build structures and shapes. To guarantee a fun and educational time, the package includes cards of different shapes that your children can use as guides for shapes and structures.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Encourage creativity and develop your toddler’s imagination with this SpriteGru puzzle that features about 300 puzzle pieces. Children can use these pieces to build an unlimited range of structures and shapes varying in shapes and sizes for a fun and educational playtime.
The SpriteGru Puzzle is an amazing companion for kids’ early childhood development. The toy provides children with a toy that allows them to explore geometric shapes and how they interact to create structures. The SpriteGru Puzzle is an amazing product that combines the best of Montessori-inspired learning and STEM-fueled education.
The core of the product is teaching children critical thinking and problem solving through engineering activities. Through the building activity, the toy also improves motor skills and hand-eye coordination, giving more value to playtime.
This product is natural and safe. Manufactured with sturdy and non-toxic materials, this SpiritGru puzzle is perfect for your growing toddlers.
Pros
Colorful and Visually Appealing
The Set Includes 300 Pieces
Unlimited Patterns to Explore
Encourages Creativity and Expands Imagination
Cons
Recommended for Older Toddlers as Pieces May Become Choking Hazards
Dinosaurs are awesome, and most children would agree. However, often overlooked are the dinos’ ability to spark education and learning in growing children. Research has found that children’s interests in dinosaurs result in improved cognitive development. The BeginAgain Dinosaur A to Z Puzzle and Playset musters children’s passion for improving learning. Through a simple and elegant design, children will be able to enhance their learning experience during playtime.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Shipped to homes in elegant wooden boxes, the BeginAgain Dinosaur Playset provides children with a nice challenge to solve. The puzzle features bright solid colors and pieces labeled with the letters of the alphabet.
Aside from being your run-off-the-mill puzzle, this BeginAgain novelty comes in the shape of a dinosaur – a stegosaurus – which your children will surely love. The puzzle has 26 different pieces, one for each letter of the alphabet, and is challenging to piece together.
Each of the puzzle pieces is 100% natural wood and eco-friendly. The materials come from Rubber Trees, ensuring a high degree of durability and flexibility. This BeginAgain innovation is best for kids over two years old, helping them develop physical and mental skills. The toy is an amazing instrument for developing motor skills, hand-eye coordination, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
Pros
Fun Dino-shaped Puzzle for Toddlers
Improves Physical and Mental Skills
Excellent Sensory Experience for Kids
Natural and Non-Toxic
Cons
May Be Hard for Two-Year-Olds to Solve but it is a Nice Challenge for Growing Children
Melissa & Doug Self-Correcting Letter and Number Wooden Puzzles Set
The Best Letter and Number Combo Wooden Puzzle for Toddlers
Letters and Numbers are among the foundational information children need to learn about as they grow. These two subjects are the pillars of math, english, and science. Parents equip children with an amazing tool for learning through the Melissa & Doug Self-Correcting Letter and Number Wooden Puzzles Set. This novelty from Melissa & Doug uses colorful images and sensory stimuli to teach kids about important concepts.
Features, Specs, and Pros and Cons
Give your children the best tools for learning with this Melissa and Doug Puzzle Set. The innovation features images that designers printed on wooden cards. The cards contain images of letters and numbers, teaching kids about counting, spelling, and language.
This toy guides children as they learn how each letter sounds and what order they come in in the alphabet song. At the same time, the product also teaches children how to count using visual representation to help children learn. The images featured in cards range from fruits, animals, and various other interesting objects.
The company delivers the wooden puzzle sets to families in elegant boxes equipped with slide-in lids for easy storage.
Hi, my name is Elena Jones, and my full-time job is a teacher. Through teaching, I have discovered that children learn in many different ways, and have seen the positive impact both STEM and Montessori toys have on children.
Through this site I hope to educate parents and adults about these toys, providing them with useful information on how they can be used, and provide some in depth reviews of different toys to consider too.
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