A shape sorter is a staple for any nursery, but the Tolo Toys Rolling Shape Sorter offers more than just shape sorting, covering several important developmental learning opportunities in one item: shape and color matching, both fine and gross motor skills, and auditory perception.
Shape Sorters
As any parent will tell you, there are literally hundreds of shape sorter toys on the market, and each of them does its main job very well. The primary function of a shape sorter is to help develop fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination, a lot of dexterity is required to pick up the different shapes and manipulate them into the shape slots, as well as promoting the logic and reasoning that is needed to figure out which shape goes where.
Stimulating Vision
However, what is brilliant about the Tolo Toys Rolling Shape Sorter is that it does this primary function and much more! For a start, the bright colors stimulate baby’s vision and, what I like very much, is that the shapes and slots are color-coded. This means that when you sit with baby playing with the sorter you can explain that both the shape and the color match, and you have two learning opportunities right there. So, baby gets to think not just about the shape but also about the color. There aren’t that many shape sorters that also have these color-coded aspect.
Rattle and Roll
Secondly, unlike the more traditional cube sorters, the cylinder configuration of the Tolo Toys Rolling Shape Sorter means there are no sharp edges, and baby can roll it along the floor and crawl after it thus encouraging gross motor skills. Thirdly, the award wining toy makers – Tolo Toys – have also seen another learning opportunity here: each of the shapes is also a rattle, each with a slightly different sound, and this stimulates auditory perception.
Slots Bottom and Top
Finally, I also like the fact that the shape slots are on both end of the sorter – there are six shapes in all – so there are three slots on each end. It means that baby has to work quite hard to figure it out, and that the sorter has a greater life span. The sorter is recommended for babies of 12+ months, but we’ve seen that it can entertain younger babies too: as early as 6 months you can simply position the sorter on one side and let baby play with just the three shapes for that side and then, when baby is older, introduce the other shapes and show baby how to turn the sorter over to find the different slots.
Personally I also like the fact that, whilst the ends are easy enough (for an adult) to open and get the shapes out, they don’t fall off all the time like with some sorters – it is very robust, and will take any amount of bashing about! The perfect baby toy! Check out other great baby and toddler toys on Tommys Top 10 baby and toddler toys list 2011.
