Manufacturer’s recommended age: 3 and up

We have a problem at our house: Crap Overload. Every Christmas or birthday, the problem gets worse.  Considerably worse. If plastic were a toxin, we’d all be dead.

So, when trying to find a Christmas present for Luke this year, I shrank in horror from anything that  might add to The Crap. I mean, really, do we really need any more toys?

I decided to go retro-simple and chose these Melissa and Doug wooden blocks. Yes, the fact that there were 60 of them gave me pause (since those are 60 items that would need to be cleaned up and stored by me), but I loved the idea of having a basic, no-batteries-required, creativity-stimulating toy. (Please! No more batteries! I can’t take any more batteries!)

The blocks are “standard unit” meaning that all the blocks are a multiple or fraction of a standard “unit.” So, while kids play and build, they are hopefully also absorbing math concepts like length, volume, fractions, etc.  Shapes include varying sizes of rectangles, squares, triangles, columns, quarter-circles and similar. The blocks come in a wooden crate for storage. (Read more…)