Top Toys for Developing Stacking Skills

Why do children need to learn how to stack things?

Learning how to stack things up high is something that children love to do – but do you know how many skills they are learning when the complete a stacking activity?

Stacking helps children develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and problem-solving abilities. Your child will have to problem solve which block will fit atop another.

It also provides opportunities for children to learn about balance, spatial awareness, and cause-and-effect relationships, which are important for their overall development. If a block falls off then your child will learn about how balance is a tricky skill. Spatial awareness will be developed as they realise it’s easier to stack a smaller ring on top of a larger one.

Additionally, stacking can be a fun and engaging activity for children, helping to foster their creativity and imagination. When your child is having fun they are more likely to continue the activity they are involved in. Make a game of it, like let’s see who can stack the tallest tower, or who can make the puzzle pieces balance!

3 Ways To Practice Stacking Toys

Simple Stacking: Start with simple toys such as blocks or cups and encourage the child to stack them one on top of the other, building tall towers. This will develop fine motor skills, cognitive skills and even gross motor skills if the tower is super tall!
Sorting and Stacking: Provide toys with different shapes, sizes, and colours and encourage the child to sort them and then stack them in different combinations. Stack all the same shapes together. Maybe see if you can make a pattern with the blocks by going red, yellow and green in a row.
Balance and Stability Challenges: Encourage your child to stack items in a way that challenges their sense of balance and stability, for example, stacking blocks on top of each other while building a bridge or tower that covers a gap. Or stack a tower that starts with the smallest pieces first to make it tougher as it gets higher. Another idea is to stack things that might not typically be used for stacking such as teddies or pillows – this is particularly good for gross motor skills as you run around and collect the items.

At CleverStuff we have a huge range of fantastic stacking toys for you to choose from – shop now for fast dispatch!

If you want to read about the benefits of stacking toys check out this blog.