Don't be fooled by appearances: stacking toys are a great learning tool! These seemingly simple toys are an essential item that provides both fun and entertainment, while supporting your little one in several areas of their educational development.
The skills learned with stacking toys become the basis for more complex skills and are perfect for babies as young as 6 months.
In this article, we explore some of the great developmental skills that stacking toys promote.
Fine motor skills
Fine motor skills are movements involving smaller muscle groups, such as those in the hand and wrist.
Stacking toys are great for developing these skills because picking up and putting objects works a child's hand muscles and muscle control, intentional grasping and releasing skills, as well as as the control and positioning of his fingers.
hand-eye coordination
Hand-eye coordination is the ability of the eyes to guide the hands in movement. For example, to catch a ball, or to stack components on top of each other. Stacking trains the child to visualize the object and get information from the eyes about how to move their hands and the objects.
Depth perception and spatial relationships
Stacking teaches children depth perception and spatial relationships, that is, the ability to understand where objects or their own bodies are in space (e.g. below or above ).
Balance
Balance is not only achieved by balancing one's own body, but also by engaging with external objects such as toys.
Stacking toys help children learn balance because they must control the movements of their arms, hands and fingers to move the different components of the toy and stack them on top of each other without the tower falling over .
Open play
There is no wrong way to use a stacking toy:
- It can be stacked like a tower;
- it can be used as a "babushka" where the cups are nested inside each other;
- it can be stacked upside down.
- They can be used in sand, in water, with or without other toys.
The multiple ways to play with a stacking toy encourage children to be creative and find their own ways to play.
