Best Wooden Stacking Toys: 7 Sets You Wouldn't Expect
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Do you want to practice hand-eye coordination with your child? Or a little patience? Then stacking games are great fun.
For instance this Petilou Stacker from Le Toy Van. Super cute animals that can participate in pretend play, but can your child (or you) stack them on top of each other without them falling?
In this buying guide I tell you what to look for at different ages and I discuss the 7 best sets.
Let's take a quick look at the options. Then I'll go into more detail about each of these choices.
Best stack of toys
A stacking set made of sturdy wood, suitable for hand-eye coordination and dexterity, but you can also use the pieces in pretend play.
Most colorful pile of toys
Grimm's is the inventor and maker of the original rainbow stackers. It is made of very strong wood and you can feel it.
Best Cheap Wooden Stacking Toys
This Montessori toy combines a magnetic fishing game with stacking, stringing beads and a balance game.
Most quirky brand
What is characteristic of the French is that they have style and so are the typical toys of the French brand Janod. Not only educational, but above all solid and durable.
Best wooden stacking toys for babies
A very fun stacking toy with 21 geometric shapes that you can combine or put back on the three pillars of the sturdy wooden base.
Best Natural Wooden Stacking Toys
If this isn't a Waldorf pile of toys then I don't know what is. Guidecraft keeps its products as natural as possible.
Best wooden stack train
A nice train that you can pull along with the rope, but the best part is of course that you can build it the way you want.
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What we discuss in this comprehensive post:
Wooden stack toy buying guide
Pile toys come in many shapes and sizes so there is not one thing to watch out for when buying. There are a number of things that apply to each of these types of toys.
Age
The toys must be age appropriate. For example, the Janod train has some small parts that fit in their mouths.
Pay close attention to this when you let them play alone.
Furthermore, the toys must also offer sufficient challenge for their age. That's why I've looked at each toy and arranged it by age.
 Age from |  Best age |  Age to |
Replayability
How long can they work with it before it gets boring? That's the replayability of the toy.
Some toys are also fun to use in other ways, such as the Le Toy Van animals. Or build in many different ways like the branches of Guidecraft or arches of Grimm's.
Those are the play elements that make it fun time after time.
With each set, I rated replayability on a 5-point scale.
Sustainability
How long will the toy last, even with vigorous play? With this type of toy, there will also be occasional falls, so it is certainly important here.
Toys like the set of Le Toy Van or Grimm's are indestructible. Others last a little less time, such as Boby or Janod's train.
Each of the sets has also been rated for durability.
Best Wooden Stacking Toys Reviewed
Le Toy Van Petilou Stacker
- Sturdy wooden set
- Stacking and pretend play in one
- Animals are smaller than they appear in the picture
A stacking set made of sturdy wood. These types of toys are suitable for hand-eye coordination and dexterity play, but you can also simply use the pieces in pretend play.
There are 9 cute animals, here more in the forest theme than wild nature as the Crocodile Creek animals.
Children can play with it quite early, but stacking becomes fun from 3 years old.
It is quite a challenge to balance the animals on each other, and I actually enjoy doing it myself. You can come up with the craziest combinations.
Grimm's Rainbow Bows
- Great natural wood that you feel when playing
- Challenging toys that stimulate creativity
- Expensive, very very expensive
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From 3 years
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Best: 4 – 7 years
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Until: 8 years
- Material: Wood, FSC Hardwood
- Learning objective: Cognitive development, pretend play
- Play Mode: Cooperative
- Portability: Low
- Sustainability: Sustainable production
- Production: Handmade
- Storage: Tricky
- Safety Components: Non-toxic material
- Playtime: Extended (30+ min)
- Gender inclusiveness: Gender neutral
Grimm's is the inventor and maker of the original rainbow stackers. It is made of very strong wood and you can feel it.
It is pricey though. Very pricey. But it's good wood and you can feel the wood and the grain through the paint. This helps with children's sensory experience.
In addition, the raw wood helps when stacking the bows, because that is still quite a challenge. It is also not immediately clear what you can do with it. However, the open-ended game is endless and the shapes and colors really appeal to the imagination.
There is also the possibility of social interaction because there are several arches, they are large and they can be combined with any kind of toy.
Due to these characteristics, the play value is very high. It is also an award winning toy as winners of the Spielgut seal for its educational value.
This is the kind of toy that gets picked up again and again and will last for generations.
Boby Fish Stacking Game
- Many games in 1
- Wood is sturdy and well made
- Trying to put too much in 1 game and just not well worked out
Boby's game is also very well built. It is made of Romanian beech wood.
This Montessori toy combines a magnetic fishing game with stacking, stringing beads and a balance game.
They themselves indicate that this is most suitable for 18 to 36 months, so 1,5 to 3 years.
- You can put the fish on the correct color on the play mat and then fish them up
- The large whale can be used as a base for stacking
- The back of the whale has rods to push the fish on
- There is a cord to thread the fish
It is indeed a lot of fun to play, but I have the feeling that they wanted to cram too many games into 1.
It's just not the fishing game. The fish should stand upright because the metal tip is on their nose. This is because there already had to be a hole in the middle for threading and stacking.
The threading is fun, but there are much more fun threading games. The whale is a bit crazy with wooden bars behind it because the fish can also use them.
You get a lot of game for your money and you don't have to buy such things separately, but it's not all that.
Janod Wooden rocket
- Very solidly built
- Funny set, looks nice everywhere
- Not much to do
This one just had to be added to the list of magnetic wooden toys!
The Janod rocket is quirky and very cheerful. It is a very nice toy to put in the nursery or even living room.
Very sturdy wood and good magnets. Furthermore, it is a fun stacking game with 5 pieces and a separate astronaut that can be removed.
Other than that it's not much anymore, but I have to say that he has often participated in fantasy play.
He is the best from the age of 2 to make a nice start with stacking.
Melissa & Doug Geometric Stack Tower
- Sturdy base and wooden pieces
- geometric shapes that fit together gives an extra challenge
- Not much else to play with
A very fun stacking toy with 21 geometric shapes that you can combine or put back on the three pillars of the sturdy wooden base.
Children from about 1,5 to about 3 years old will love to match the different shapes or sort them by color.
Because they have different thicknesses, it is also quite fun to build, but it is mainly a shape sorting game.
The square building blocks in particular are a nice addition. They collapse in half, which creates an extra building challenge. You don't often see that in shape sorters.
Lees meer: this is the best wooden toy for your baby
Guidecraft Branch Blocks
- All natural product with intact bark
- Stimulates organic play
- Quite pricey for a bunch of branches
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From 2 years
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Best: 3 – 5 years
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Until: 8 years
- Material: Wood, FSC Hardwood
- Theme: Building and construction, Blocks
- Play Mode: Solo
- Price at time of writing: €44,09 – $46,95
- Sustainability: Sustainable production
- Learning objective: Cognitive development, Sensory play
- Storage: Storage compartments
- Safety parts: Rounded corners
- Playtime: Short (<10 min)
- Gender inclusivity: Gender neutral
If this isn't a Waldorf pile of toys then I don't know what is. Guidecraft keeps its products as natural as possible. They are ordinary branches and pieces of wood that have been chosen together to create a challenging way of building and to stimulate sustainability awareness. Guidecraft has chosen FSC hardwood for its products to make it a sustainable production process.
They even still have the bark texture for the best sensory experience. These types of toys are designed to encourage free play patterns without any rules for how to play with them. This is extremely good for the play value and makes it more challenging than other building blocks.
Guidecraft has won multiple awards, including the Tillywig Brain Child Award, National Parenting Center's Seal of Approval and Parents' Choice Silver Award.
Janod Sophie the Giraffe Train
- solid wood
- Very cute theme
- Small pieces can be dangerous
A nice train that you can pull along with the rope, but the best part is of course that you can build it the way you want.
With 17 parts you can make a new creation every time. Each wagon has its own shape when they get the pieces from the train they have to put them back in the right place.
It is recommended from 18 months, but there are also very small pieces that fit in mouths, such as the red chimney pieces.
With these toys you should definitely stick with them, or put the smaller pieces aside until they are a little older.
Conclusion
Stacking games can provide a good challenge for kids of any age. Hopefully this guide has given you inspiration in the possibilities for a beautiful wooden set.
Also read: we have seen many brands, but wooden toys as good as this one are rare
Always something to do for the holidays or rainy day?
Play Choice now has the ultimate activity book collection, with over 60 pages of fun coloring pages and educational puzzles.
Joost Nusselder, the founder of Speelkeuze.nl is a content marketer, father and loves trying out new toys. As a child he came into contact with everything related to games when his mother started the Tinnen Soldaat in Ede. Now he and his team create helpful blog articles to help loyal readers with fun play ideas.
