We love stacking toys! They are one of the most popular educational tools and are a great way to encourage fine motor and problem solving skills in young children.

Between the age of 6 months and 1 year, your baby will start to learn some developmental skills that will help them learn more later on.

Stacking a toy on top of another is a great way to teach them hand-eye coordination and cognitive skills such as color and size concept. You can start to introduce blocks and stacking toys as early as 6-7 months old.

By the time they are between 15-18 months, your child should be able to stack 2 blocks and stack 6 blocks between 18-24 months.

Once your child masters the basic ‘one on top of other’, there are a lot of toys out there that will further challenge them to think a little more and problem solve while they’re stacking.

Here are 9 great stackers for kids 2 and older:

1. Stacking Construction Vehicles – This cool set includes a bulldozer, a dump truck and a cement mixer. Each vehicle has a free wheeling base and is constructed of solid wood stacking parts. The fun is endless, as they can be taken apart and rebuilt again and again. Interchangeable? Probably! ($20)
2. Plan Toys Stacking Tree – This stacking set is designed based on the concept of nature. Each wooden piece can be stacked to form different kinds of trees. Children can learn the color variation and size..($20)
3. P’kolino Stacking Toy – Children are initially challenged to fine-tune motor skills by placing the easy to hold rings on extra thick stacking pole. With that mastered the child begins to enhance spatial logic by interlocking anyone puzzle piece to any other; in any order. Finally, through “solving” the puzzle sequence the child learns color and size recognition.
4. Voila Four Load Truck – A pull-along truck with 4 stacks of 4 colored pieces perforated with 4 different geometric shapes.
5. Wooden Fish Boat Stacking Toy – Stick a small passenger in the boat and have the fish swim all around or stack the fish to create a beautiful rainbow-colored sail. This fish stacker is made of hardwood. 10 pieces in total.($37)
6. Rubbabu – Rubbablox – These multi-colored, natural foam building blocks have soft connectors so children can easily build with them. They are tactile and great for early spatial learning. Includes 9 blocks and 18 connectors.
7. Melissa and Doug Stacking Train – With just a little imagination little ones can custom build their own train from the 15 interchangeable pieces and three linking cars. My boys have this train and love it.
8. Wooden Numbers Stacking Board, Rings from Bajo – Made of solid wood and finished with completely non-toxic, child-friendly paints and finishes, the nicely sized disks are perfectly sized for a young child’s hands. What’s even better, you don’t have to worry about losing any of the disks, because they are all attached to their posts via a long string with a balled end. 55 disks total.
9. Geometric Stacker – This large, colorful wooden toy has three different stacking towers, and includes 25 durable, solid-wood pieces to match, sort and stack.

Now, an Environmental group says many items for sale have high levels of lead, arsenic and other chemicals.

In a report that was released yesterday, the group find that one in three toys tested was found to contain toxic chemicals such as lead, flame retardants and arsenic.

Researchers for the Michigan-based Ecology Center tested more than 1,500 popular toys for lead, cadmium, arsenic, PVC and other harmful chemicals. They said they found that one-third of the toys contain “medium” or “high” levels of chemicals of concern.

Also according to the study, children’s jewelry is 5 times more likely to contain lead above the toxic 600 ppm-level than other toys. In particular, the report mentioned that several Hannah Montana brand jewelry items tested high for lead.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children’s toys have less than 40 parts-per-million of lead. The levels of lead detected in “many” of the toys was “significantly” above those guidelines, according to the release.

Here are some things they found:

• 21% of toys from China and 16% of toys from all other countries had detectable levels of lead.
• Of the 17 toys made in the United States that were tested, 35% had detectable levels of lead. A U.S.-made Halloween pumpkin pin had 190,943 ppm of lead.
• 62% of the tested products – or 954 items – contain low levels of chemical concern.
• 21% of the products tested – or 324 items – contained no toxic chemicals to be worried about.

To see how the toys were rated please visit www.healthytoys.org

Some of the companies that do well are many that we have covered on this site.

Plan Toys, Melissa and Doug, Alex Toys, iPlay, Haba, Lego, Corolle and Baby K’tan are listed as some of the best.

 SOURCE

The story of Noah’s Ark is a great story for kids of all ages because of it’s simplicity.

Many toy companies have created their versions of the centuries old tale, giving parents the perfect opportunity to teach their children new skills and lessons.

Some of these lessons include:

• learning the various types of animals in Noah’s Ark and their characteristics through stories using these animals as characters.
• telling the history relating to Noah’s Ark to teach children kindness, virtue and morality through play.
• learning that Noah and his family traveled by ark using the water way and also the other various transportation method available today such as air, road, railroad and ship.

We have found 9 great ways to play with Noah’s Ark. Some of these toys encourage important developmental skills like co-ordination, stacking, sorting and creative play.

*Additional information for each toy is available by clicking on the ‘notes’ link under the picture*

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Sorting toys are a great way to encourage motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Here are a few of the ones that I have found that stand out.

The shape sorting Caterpiller – This multi-colored caterpiller encourages stacking, sorting and creativity. The brightly colored discs helps toddlers to recognize shapes and patterns.

$16.00

Wooden Shape Sort Cube – This wooden cube features unconventional shapes on 3 sides of the box. When your toddler puts the colored shapes through the right holes they receive a satisfying “clunk.”

$24.00

Stacking Clown from Plan Toys- While this toy is primarily a stacking toy, it also features a neat shape sorting feature. In order to be able to stack it properly, your toddler must be able to match the right shapes first. We will eventually have this clown in our house, he is just a tad intermediate for my guy yet.

PlanToys are made from natural, chemical free rubber wood and finished with non-toxic and child friendly colors.

$19.99

Shape-O® Toy by Tupperware - This classic toy is a must have in any toybox. Toddlers can use the 10 pieces to match the shapes on the toy, allowing them to identify shapes and develop coordination and dexterity. Each piece also has a number on one side with the corresponding number of dots on the other to teach preschoolers number recognition and counting.

On sale right now at Tupperware for $17.50

Haba Shape Sorting Board – Haba is famous for their solid beech wood toys that are made with completely non-toxic paints. This shape sorting peg board will teach colors, shapes and different sizes. Set comes with 20 large wooden blocks and one base.

$48.95

Geometric Sorting Board by Plan Toys - I love this sorting toy because it teaches so much. Your toddler will learn sorting, colors, numbers and shapes with this toy. lanToys are made from natural, chemical free rubber wood and finished with non-toxic and child friendly colors.

$11.99

Battat Shape Sorter House – This house helps kids to develop hand-eye coordination and teaches them colors, matching and sorting skills. It comes with 6 doors with locks, 6 geometric shapes that fit into doors, 6 different shapes fit into the chimneys and a key ring with 6 keys for the door.

$17.99

Fisher-Price Laugh& Learn Cookie Shape Surprise – This smiling-face cookie jar features a magical opening that senses baby’s hand, or the cookie shapes, and plays music and sounds and says phrases. It has a shape mode and a number mode. Includes 5 cookie shapes, magical cookie jar and lid

$14.99

Plan Toys has received one report of the head of a penguin toy detaching. No injuries have been reported.

The wood penguin-shaped toy has a black head with rubber fins, a yellow nose and a white body with red on the base. The toy is round-shaped and creates a soft bell jingle when spun. The toy measures about 3 ¾ inches in height and about 3 inches in diameter. “PLAN TOYS” and UPC number 084543521109 or EAN number 8854740052117 are printed on the outside of the packaging of the toy.

Parents should immediately take the penguin toys away from children and return them to the store where purchased to receive a refund. Consumers also can contact Plan Toys toll-free at (866) 517-7526 (between 8-5 PT M-F), or visit the firm’s Web site at www.plantoys.com to receive instructions on returning the penguin toys via mail for a refund.