Wooden toys and encouraging simple, imaginative play

Before we had our first child, I hadn’t really given too much thought to the type of toys that we would rather fill our home with. Being the first grandchild on one side, and the closest living near her grandparents on the other, she ended up being gifted lots of toys over the first few years, for birthdays and Christmas’. While our families generosity was very much appreciated, we soon ended up with a houseful of plastic toys – most of which weren’t particularly amazing. By the time we had our second child, we’d begun to really think more about toys and what benefits that had for our children.

We slowly began to declutter, ditching the noisy, flashing, plastic toys and favouring natural, wooden toys more. Now, I’m not entirely ‘anti-plastic’, there are some fantastic toys that are plastic, that still last years and get played with over and over – our Mega Blocs and lego have stood the test of time – four kids on and they’re still going strong. The reason is that while, made of plastic, they are still simple toys that encourage children to use their imagination.

The toys that we realised we really didn’t like, are the ones that are loud, plastic, flashing, have one ‘role’ and don’t encourage children to make up their own stories – for example, Vega for Christmas got a plastic car track with these little cars that make noises and talk. Annoying to us grown-ups, and not encouraging to little ones. He has a whole load of wooden and metal cars that he loves, that make no noise or talk – so he can do that for them. As he grows, he can make up the stories himself. He loves the wooden train track that we have left over from his sisters – he spends hours and hours playing with it – we’ve just added in this Tidlo 50 piece set to extend what we already have. He loves putting all the trains in a line, making the noises and standing up all the animals in the field.

Wooden toys let kiddos take control of playing. Even the wooden toys that are vehicles, food, or common household items still encourage children to use their imaginations to incorporate them into learning and play. Toys that are open-ended and need children’s input to bring them to life. They encourage kiddos to create all the voices, alarms, and other sound effects, rather than listening to the toy, which keeps their mind clear to think through different scenarios.

Aside from his train track, Vega’s two favourite toys are his bucket of wooden blocks and his Noah’s Ark – he loves making all the animal noises, lining them up in one long line, and posting the shapes through the right holes. These toys will grow with him, as he gets bigger and his play changes, these simple toys will adapt to his stories, they’re not so quickly grown out of and stand the test of time.

we received the train set and Noah’s Ark in exchange for a review, but they really are Vega’s favourite things!