Our love of wooden toys – Mummascribbles

In our house we love wooden toys. I have nothing against those made of plastic that play repetitive songs in an annoying voice, light up brightly and run out of batteries faster than Usain Bolt can run 100m and we have plenty of them, it’s just that I prefer wooden toys. I prefer the look of them, the feel of them, the quality of them; I even don’t mind the price. Wooden toys tend to be a lot more expensive than plastic ones but I would far rather spend the money on a wooden one where I can. Whenever I see a wooden toy in a shop, I want to buy it for Zach!

We have quite a selection of wooden toys that we have collected over the last three years. He has a wooden kitchen that we bought for his second birthday, cost us a small fortune, took hours to put together but is just simply divine and he adores it. He even has wooden pots and pans to go with it.

He has a beautiful wooden train set that he once again is obsessed with adores.

He even now has a beautiful wooden shop with all sorts of gorgeous wooden pieces of food and even some weighing scales. He was lucky enough to get that from my family for his third birthday.

Now the latest addition to his wooden toy collection is a gorgeous, brightly coloured rocket from George at Asda. Just like his kitchen and shop, brightly coloured wood can be absolutely stunning. It just gives off such a different look to plastic, so elegent.

One reason I love wooden toys is because they require far more imagination to be used on them than their plastic counterparts. They don’t tend to have buttons that make lights flash, voices that talk to you. They require your child to use their full imagination. With Zach’s train set, he has to make the chugging noise of the train, he has to shout “all aboard” and he has to physically push it around the track. With his kitchen, he makes the noise of the microwave before he makes the beeping noise when his food is ready. With his wooden scales, there is no little digital weight that pops up. He actually pretends they are a till and as he presses the food down, says “that’s £7”. None of it does it for him. He is using his wonderful imagination to play with every aspect of his wooden toys. With his rocket, he has to do the countdown from 10 to zero, make the noise of blast off and make his little spacemen talk to each other. Watching him play like this is a beautiful sight, it really is. I love watching him so much more than I do when he’s playing with his plastic toys. They are just so much more interactive.

Of course, there is the huge benefit of the no batteries, for so many reasons. Wooden toys may be more expensive but the non requirement for batteries probably makes them cheaper in the long run. And they are safer! We all know the dangers with batteries and the more wooden toys we have at home, the less chance of that danger turning into a reality.

I have to say that I didn’t realise that George at Asda do a huge selection of wooden toys at really fab prices. The quality of the rocket is fantastic, it was so easy to put together (I did it all by myself!), and because the top section of it slots off, it even doubles up as a helipad (one of Zach’s imaginitive ideas!). He just loves playing with the little astronauts and loves telling me that the flag is flying. Despite it being pretty heavy (the quality of wood hey?), he even still manages to zoom it into the sky despite everything sliding off. He doessn’t care bless him, it goes up, it’s a rocket, it’s a winner! Here’s a wee little video of him in action.

Do you and your little ones love wooden toys as much as we do? Tell us what you have for a little inspiration!

This post was written in collaboration with George at Asda who very kindly sent us this gorgeous rocket for the purpose of this post. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.