Stacking toys are a great learning tool. These seemingly simple toys are an essential item that will provide both fun and entertainment, while also supporting your child in several areas of their learning development.
The skills learned from stacking toys become the foundation for the more complex skills and are perfect for babies from 6 months of age.
In this blog post, we will explore some of the great developmental skills stacking toys support.
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 those, since picking up and putting objects in place train the child’s hand muscles and muscle control, intentional grasp and release skills, as well as how to control and position their fingers.
Eye-hand coordination
Eye-hand coordination is the ability of the eyes to guide the hands in motion. 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 on how to move the hands and the objects.
Depth perception and spatial relationships
Stacking teaches children about depth perception and spatial relationships, which is the ability to understand where objects or their own body is in space (like under and on).
Read our blog post about the benefits of BIBS Wobbly Tower >
Balance
Achieving balance is not only achieved by balancing your own body, but also by engaging with external objects such as toys. Stacking toys help teach children to balance since they need to control the movements of their arms, hands, and fingers to move the different components of the toy, stacking them on top of each other without the tower falling over.
Creative play
There is no right way of stacking a stacking toy. It can be stacked as a tower; it can be used as a “babushka” where the cups are placed inside each other, it can be stacked upside down. They can be used in sand, water, with or without other toys, and much more. The multiple ways to play with a stacking toy encourage the child to be creative and find their own ways of playing.
