Wooden Knobbed Puzzles - Geography For Kids - Review

Does your child like puzzles? Here is something interesting for those little hands. Montessori inspired puzzles that cover some geography🌎! These wooden toys (knobbed puzzles) are made by artisans in India. 

I came across these wooden knobbed puzzles of India, Continents 🌎🌏& Countries of the world by Stuti Gupta (Wooden Toy Lovers) . Sharing them here for your benefit and if you would like to order these for your child, here is a benefit for all you awesome members of this community. This is a token of love for being here!


PRODUCT DETAILS

Continents puzzle - 399 Rs + shipping, A4 size

Countries of the world puzzle - 700 Rs + shipping, 46*30 cm

️India puzzle - 450 Rs +shipping, 30*30cm

HOW TO ORDER

You can order these puzzles directly by contacting Stuti Gupta on whatsapp 📲 9811987124.


DISCOUNT

Mention the discount code KJUNCTION & get an instant 👉 5% OFF on the prices mentioned above. Shipping is extra for all the puzzles.


PERSONAL REVIEW

These are nice to introduce the concept, names & shapes of the continents, countries & states of India. I do not own them because I already have another version of such puzzles since a year now. But these wooden ones are a better eco-friendly alternative. It has knobs so it also helps in pincer grip. It is sturdier as compared to foam based puzzles of the same type available in the market.

I would have preferred if the country & states shapes & sizes were more to scale but since this is just for representation purposes, it is not that big an issue. The child surely gets an idea about the stuff this puzzle intends to give. Some states in the India map will not have knobs because of their small size. So those pieces wont be detachable from the map board. This is a known limitation because of small size of the state, but needs a gentle mention in this review.

Overall, nice, engaging & educational puzzles. When not used with the puzzle board, for elder kids, the individual pieces of the puzzle can be used for tracing the countries or states shape & kids can color them.

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Things To Consider Before Buying Waldorf Inspired Rainbow Stacker Toy

There are many versions of Waldorf inspired Rainbow Stackers (like Grimm's etc) available in the Indian & overseas market now but before you decide which brand to pick up, here are few pointers you should consider so that your child can make the most out of this versatile toy!

• Make sure the stackers are exact semi circles, i.e. full arch. To check that, just see the smallest piece of the stacker, does it look like an exact semi circle or close to 1/3rd of a circle? To make the most of this stacker toy, it NEEDS to be exact semi circle. 
• Make sure that the thickness of all the pieces is at least more than 4 cms. Otherwise they will not stack nicely & tumble down irritating your child 
• Make sure the color of the pieces is not glaze finish and has enough friction to bear the weight while they are stacked. 
• Make sure that the wood used is not too light (it happen in case of mdf wood), otherwise the stacking will not be neat & stable. 
• Make sure the wood used is not too heavy (some kinds of woods are heavier & denser), otherwise it will be uncomfortable for little hands to handle it. 

I hope these pointers are helpful to all. I find all these pointers fulfilled in these Rainbow Stackers by My Dream Shop owned by Surekha Jadhav. So sharing it here for your benefit.

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Check out My Dream Shop's 7 piece Rainbow Stacker HERE. 

Below are some inviting pics of the same.

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Check out My Dream Shop's 12 Piece Rainbow Stacker HERE.

Below are some inviting pics of the same.

The shop also stocks natural (without color) version of these stackers. Check out all the items of My Dream Shop HERE.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Buy Super Affordable Grimms Inspired 7 Piece Rainbow Stacker - Waldorf Open-ended Toy

Check out this Grimms inspired wooden Rainbow Stacker at super affordable price by My Dream Shop. 

I recently bought a 7 piece rainbow stacker at super affordable price from My Dream Shop run by Surekha Jadhav. And I must say it's lovely! I opted for a wood finish instead of a colored one. Check the video for the 1st day play by my 3 year old.

I love this Waldorf inspired open ended toy! And if you do not have it in your child's toy collection, it is a must have!

Rainbow Stacker is amazing Waldorf-inspired multi used toy for toddlers, kids and even adults! The bold colors of this beautifully hand made wooden rainbow will help to boost child's imagination, creativity and provide hours of open ended play.

Benefits of Rainbow stacker:

• Stimulates reasoning skills.
• Spatial awareness
• Problem solving skills
• Enhance creativity.
• Refine eye-hand co-ordination and motor skills.
• Boost critical thinking and deep play.
• Children learn about colors. 
• Nesting and stacking ability.

Uses of Rainbow Stacker

There is no right or wrong way to use a rainbow stacker hence its a unique open-ended toy for very young as well as older children. The pieces can be use together or individually as bridges, tunnels, seesaws, fences, houses, doll cradles or caves. Sometimes its just used in the background of other open-ended play. It helps to sort things practicing early maths skills. It can be used to order the arcs from smallest to largest. Challenge your child to explore force and motions with your rainbow stacker by creating a marble run or two. These are only few ways we can use rainbow stacker, actually it has boundless possibilities!!!

Colors : Waters based non-toxic colors are used in this Rainbow stacker, so it is totally safe for young ones to play.

You can buy it from the shop section of my blog HERE or directly from My Dream Shop HERE or from Amazon HERE.

I also have a complete blog post on how to play with Rainbow Stackers HERE. In that post, I have featured Rainbow Roofs from Skola Toys. Click HERE to watch.

Have you got your Rainbow Stacker yet?

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Rentoys.in - Subscription Offer Alert - Online Toy Library For Kids - Review Of Our 2 Subscription Boxes

Have you been eyeing upon expensive international brand toys for your kids & not able to justify a purchase because they are so expensive? Are you planning to buy new toys for your kids & thinking how to declutter the old ones? Are you a kind of parent who is constantly on a look out for sustainability, even when it comes to toys? Then this Online Toy Library Rentoys is the answer for you! And if the collection of this library was not awesome enough, I am sharing with you an irresistible deal for your subscriptions that you can order from Rentoys! Also in this post is my reviews on two subscription boxes that I have ordered till now from this toy library.

I recently discovered this awesome toy library Rentoys that has some really beautiful, engaging, expensive, international brands' toys for kids that they RENT out. I absolutely fell in love with their collection!!! I had wanted to buy so many of those toys but they are so expensive & hence I could not justify buying for personal use.

Till now I have ordered 2 subscription boxes from them & absolutely loved both the boxes. Currently my third box is in transit & I cannot wait to open the box!!!

And guess what!?! I have An Irresistible Offer

You can get 15% OFF + 40% cashback on your first Rentoys box if you use this coupon code "KJUNCTION" , without quotes & all caps.

Visit rentoys.in today & start adding your favorite toys into your wishlist!

Video Reviews Of Subscription Boxes

Box #1





Box #2





Need More Reasons Why To Go For Rentoys?

• The excitement of a new toy box arriving every month gives me a high as a mom, lol! A child will certainly be thrilled!
• Smart educational toys are very costly and can go for ₹5000+ a piece. Now, parents may not feel the heat if buying toys were a one-time expense. However, this is hardly the case.
• Renting a toy saves money! Rentoys has almost all the toys that are super expensive otherwise from brands mentioned below & not affordable for middle class families like mine. 
  
• Decluttering is done on the go! You do not tend to store the toys that are no more relevant to the child. You save a lot of storage space!
• Sustainability issues are addressed. The toys are reused by so many children. We leave lesser carbon footprint on Mother Earth.
• The collection of toys is just amazing! The variety, quality, brands everything is superb! Spoilt for choice! 
• Customer service is amazing! I had some issue with adding toys to my wishlist & they were super quick to revert! They even called me saying one toy from the three toys that I chose, will be available after two days so they are sending the available two toys right away & will send the third one after two days. I mean why would someone call me up for this, but they did! This shows their commitment & service for the customers!

Related Reading - Step by step guide - what are STEM toys?

More About Rentoys

Rentoys is a toy rental service focusing on educational and award-winning toys. We deliver and pickup toys from your doorsteps, anywhere in India.

Rentoys is founded by parents having years of experience of managing kids. Been there, done that. They understand how children's early experiences - the bonds they form with their parents and their first learning experiences - deeply affect their physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. This is why they are on a mission to help parents optimize their investments in the early years of children's lives to ensure children's future success.

All the toys at Rentoys are selected keeping in mind what they call "open-endedness" which they measure by asking questions such as in how many ways the toy can be played with, is there any rule book, and does the toy force the kids to think/create on his/her own.


Related Read - Tons of ways to play with Waldorf Rainbow Stackers - An open-ended toy


Check out their toys collection HERE. They deliver all over India. Do not forget to use the coupon code I shared above in this post to avail the discount!

Confused about their working? Click HERE to know how it works. And your FAQs are answered HERE.

Subscription Box Pricing

It starts with Rs 599 per month where you get premium educational toys worth at least Rs 5000 in a box! There are other plans as well, you can visit the pricing page HERE for all the details. If you are concerned about damage of toys from the library, THIS link might answer your questions. 

You MUST read this wonderful article that explains why Rentoys is into toy renting business!

Do let me know in comments below what all you have ordered from Rentoys, I would love to know!


Disclaimer : This is a sponsored post but the views shared are honest and solely mine. I believe in using the products/service myself before putting up the review or opinion about them here.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Waldorf Inspired Fairy Peg Doll Tutorial (DIY) (VLOG)

I have been loving the peg dolls ever since I browsed through them on the internet. Peg dolls are Waldorf materials as well, open-ended & natural toys. You can make so many different kinds of peg dolls as per the theme. Here in this tutorial, I am sharing how to make a fairy peg doll with felt as her costumes. Peg dolls can easily fit into the storytelling sessions, puppet shows & open-ended play. Watch the video in this post to know how you can make you own DIY Fairy Peg Doll.

After reading, researching & following Montessori philosophy with my son for over 2 years now, I have recently been attracted towards Waldorf philosophy as well. It is again an alternative education philosophy by Steiner. I have a complete blog post HERE where I am curating the resources & relevant links that I find for Waldorf. It is being populated as and when I read & research about Waldorf. So you might want to bookmark it & visit regularly if you also intend to know more about Waldorf.

Waldorf is so much into open-ended play. I have one such very popular open-ended toy - Rainbow Stackers - an awesome Waldorf material that can be used in so many different ways. You can find the details here & I have also listed some of the many ways you can play with it. 

Related Read - Open-ended learning experiences for kids.

Now, on to the tutorial of the fairy peg doll. I used a simple plain wooden peg doll as a base. I bought it from aliexpress. You can read my very popular blog post about the ultimate guide to buy from aliexpress HERE. Then I have used felt as her costumes & sourced felt from Tiara Toys facebook group. I have used a hot glue gun to glue the pieces in place, I got it from Amazon.

Watch this video below to see the step by step process to make your own Fairy peg doll.

If you wish to see the pics, here are few in the making -

This peg doll is going to be used in storytelling as a prop, I am also using it as an angel in the nativity story telling for Christmas this year. My son calls her sleep fairy & sleeps along side her. He also gives her a ride on his toy vehicles. The possibilities are innumerous. And it is a pleasure to see your child playing beautifully with something that you have created on your own, isn't it?

Related links - You might also like this wonderful set of 18 FREE Christmas activities. And if you are short of time, this Christmas story & activity book is there for rescue. It is loaded with awesome activities, watch the video review here. 

So this was my first peg doll with felt. Before this, I had done a set of Halloween peg dolls with acrylic paints. You can check them out below. There is no tutorial required, you can see it is a straightforward painting exercise!

#Art #therapy for me yesterday ... Painting these plain wooden #pegdolls for #Halloween - Pumpkin, ghost, skeleton, mummy, witch It was a meditative session with the colors!!! And my son loved playing with them :) #thekjunction #earlylearning #parenting #Montessori #Montessoriathome #Montessoritoddler #Montessorikids #homeschooling #Waldorf #Waldorfinspired #craft #art #painting #culture #tradition #festival #spooky #handmade #kids #halloweenactivities #mommyblogger #momsofinstagram #pegdolls #momstagram

A post shared by Kuhoo Gupta (The K Junction) (@kuhoogupta) on Nov 1, 2017 at 3:47am PDT

Let me know how you liked this tutorial. And if you happen to make your own peg doll, I would love to see it!

And goes without saying, there is more on Waldorf philosophy & learning coming up on this blog now, so keep a watch, or rather subscribe to this blog via email. Find the subscribe box on the right panel of the blog.

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Rentoys.in - Subscription Offer Alert - Online Toy Library For Kids - Review & Recommendation

Have you been eyeing upon expensive international brand toys for your kids & not able to justify a purchase because they are so expensive? Are you planning to buy new toys for your kids & thinking how to declutter the old ones? Are you a kind of parent who is constantly on a look out for sustainability, even when it comes to toys? Then this Online Toy Library Rentoys is the answer for you! And if the collection of this library was not awesome enough, I am sharing with you an irresistible deal for your subscriptions that you can order from Rentoys!

I recently discovered this awesome toy library Rentoys that has some really beautiful, engaging, expensive, international brands' toys for kids that they RENT out. I absolutely fell in love with their collection!!! I had wanted to buy so many of those toys but they are so expensive & hence I could not justify buying for personal use.

I have ordered my first toy rental box from Rentoys & eagerly waiting for Jr. Rainbow Blocks, Tegu wooden magnetic blocks & Dado cubes! All of these are open-ended toys and my son loves such building blocks & comes up with so many different interpretations everytime!

A video review of the box will be on my YouTube channel super soon! Stay tuned & subscribe to my channel HERE.

And guess what!?! I have An Irresistible Offer

You can get 15% OFF on your first Rentoys box if you use this coupon code "KJUNCTION" , without quotes & all caps.

Visit rentoys.in today & start adding your favorite toys into your wishlist!

Need More Reasons Why To Go For Rentoys?

• The excitement of a new toy box arriving every month gives me a high as a mom, lol! A child will certainly be thrilled!
• Smart educational toys are very costly and can go for ₹5000+ a piece. Now, parents may not feel the heat if buying toys were a one-time expense. However, this is hardly the case.
• Renting a toy saves money! Rentoys has almost all the toys that are super expensive otherwise from brands mentioned below & not affordable for middle class families like mine. 
  
• Decluttering is done on the go! You do not tend to store the toys that are no more relevant to the child. You save a lot of storage space!
• Sustainability issues are addressed. The toys are reused by so many children. We leave lesser carbon footprint on Mother Earth.
• The collection of toys is just amazing! The variety, quality, brands everything is superb! Spoilt for choice! 
• Customer service is amazing! I had some issue with adding toys to my wishlist & they were super quick to revert! They even called me saying one toy from the three toys that I chose, will be available after two days so they are sending the available two toys right away & will send the third one after two days. I mean why would someone call me up for this, but they did! This shows their commitment & service for the customers!

Check out this video to know why people love Rentoys!

Related Reading - Step by step guide - what are STEM toys?

More About Rentoys

Rentoys is a toy rental service focusing on educational and award-winning toys. We deliver and pickup toys from your doorsteps, anywhere in India.

Rentoys is founded by parents having years of experience of managing kids. Been there, done that. They understand how children's early experiences - the bonds they form with their parents and their first learning experiences - deeply affect their physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. This is why they are on a mission to help parents optimize their investments in the early years of children's lives to ensure children's future success.

All the toys at Rentoys are selected keeping in mind what they call "open-endedness" which they measure by asking questions such as in how many ways the toy can be played with, is there any rule book, and does the toy force the kids to think/create on his/her own.


Related Read - Tons of ways to play with Waldorf Rainbow Stackers - An open-ended toy


Check out their toys collection HERE. They deliver all over India. Do not forget to use the coupon code I shared above in this post to avail the discount!

Confused about their working? Click HERE to know how it works. And your FAQs are answered HERE.

Subscription Box Pricing

It starts with Rs 599 per month where you get premium educational toys worth at least Rs 5000 in a box! There are other plans as well, you can visit the pricing page HERE for all the details. If you are concerned about damage of toys from the library, THIS link might answer your questions. 

You MUST read this wonderful article that explains why Rentoys is into toy renting business!

Do let me know in comments below what all you have ordered from Rentoys, I would love to know!


Disclaimer : This is a sponsored post but the views shared are honest and solely mine. I believe in using the products/service myself before putting up the review or opinion about them here.

---

Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Montessori Color Tablets Box 3 - Extensions, DIY & Alternatives (Guest Post By Devi Sekaran)

Montessori Colour Tablets are sensorial materials found in the Montessori 3-6 years classroom. They assist with visual discrimination and perception of colours. They come in three boxes - 1, 2 & 3. Today I have a guest blogger with me - Devi Sekaran, a mom who is passionate about Montessori & does a lot of Montessori inspired works with her kids. Read on to see her kids' experience & extension works with Montessori color box 3, a standard Montessori material used for color gradation. At the end, I will also share an alternative educational material for color gradation & how you can make your own DIY Montessori color tablets using free printables.

Dr. Maria Montessori believed that every child’s sensorial experiences begin when the child is born. And over the years, she created many sensorial materials that covers the five senses: tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory senses. She believed that children should be given as much sensorial experiences as possible. All the materials in a Montessori classroom are carefully designed to incorporate ‘Control of Error’ and to ‘Isolate the Quality’ in order to develop a child’s sense to understand the environment around him or her.

One of my favourite sensorial materials is the Colour Box 3 which is used to develop a child’s visual sense. In a 3-6 Montessori Classroom, a child is introduced to Colour Box 1, then Colour Box 2 and finally Colour Box 3. In our home, we do not have Colour Box 1 and 2 but we do have Colour Box 3 and it has been an amazing addition to our shelf. This material is great for visual discrimination and other extensions involving language and mathematics.

Both my daughters have been introduced to Colour Box 3 in their schools while we use the Colour Box 3 at home to do other extension works. Check out the pictures below on how we use it in our home.

Here my daughter (4 year old) is using the Colour Box 3 and the DIY continent images. She matched the continent images to the colour tablets and continued with grading.

Here, my daughter (5+ years) used the Colour Box 3 and Colour Resemblance Pegs to do colour sorting and as an extension we did skip counting and x7.

Using the Colour Box 3 and Colour Resemblance Pegs, my daughter (5+ years) created this beautiful spiral pattern.

You can read more about Montessori Colour Box 3 HERE.

You can also DIY these color tablets if this sounds expensive to you to buy. HERE is a great DIY tutorial for color box 3. You can download the free printable of color box 3 from HERE.

Happy Montessori-ing!!!

~ DEVI SEKARAN

(The above images belong to Devi Sekaran and should not use for commercial purposes)

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Thanks a lot Devi for sharing your wonderful experience & extension exercises with the color box 3. Lots of love to your kids!

Devi Sekaran is a stay at home mom of 3 kids trying to make each day fun with playing, baking & learning with Montessori! You can follow her on Instagram, her handle is @minehisandours. She shares some amazing Montessori inspired activities, DIYs & her food adventures regularly! 

If you have something to share with the world in the domain of early learning or parenting & wish to contribute to this blog, please do get in touch with me HERE.

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I love Montessori color box 3 as well & I have a variation of this material from Skola Toys which is called Skola Color Wheels.



You can check out my review of Skola Color Wheels in this video below. It is a great hands on way to practice color gradation. And do not forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more such reviews, Montessori & Waldorf inspired hands-on activities, and much more!

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Tons of Ways To Play With Waldorf Rainbow Stackers - Rainbow Roofs From Skola Toys - Review (VLOG)

Are you looking for an open-ended toy for your child which will grow with the child, keep him engaged for longer, enhance his creativity, imagination, spatial intelligence, dexterity & fine motor skills? Then Rainbow Roofs from Skola Toys is the right answer for you because it can entertain & engage your child right from when he is a toddler to a preschooler to a kindergartner to primary school. Read on to know in how many different & creative ways you can play with these stackers!

About Skola Rainbow Roofs

Stack, nest and arrange rainbow coloured roof shapes in various ways.

Skola Rainbow Roofs

Children explore the magic of creating different forms with this toy - a train, a sofa or a building! They like to share this toy with friends and enjoy trying to balance the uneven shapes.

Nesting the pieces in this toy helps in developing fine motor skills at a very young age. Stacking the individual pieces makes children dexterous and hones balancing skills. Playing with the toy enhances their awareness of colours in a concrete manner and various name games hone children's memory skills. Children also gain knowledge about the rainbow in the form of VIBGYOR.

As children start to develop focus and eye-hand coordination, they can move on to using both hands simultaneously to carry out actions or manipulate objects
Rainbow Roofs are perfect for hours & hours of open-ended & free play! This is a variation of the standard Waldorf/Steiner rainbow stacker which is widely sold by Grimm's. This is the Indian answer to Grimm's rainbow stacker and it is far cheaper than Grimm's, did you see Grimm's price tag? ;)

Having said that, the quality of the wood & the finish of the toy is not at compromising. It is made of high quality wood & the paints are non-toxic.

How To Play With Skola Rainbow Roofs

Watch this video to know how you can play in tons of different ways with the Skola Rainbow Roofs. I am sure you will get lots of ideas to include in your free play sessions. 

Skola has designed learning journeys through play & Rainbow Roofs fall into the journey of fine motor skills. 

You might want to read more about learning journeys through play HERE.


Buy Links

You can buy Skola Rainbow Roofs from Amazon or directly from Skola Toys Official Website.

You might want to read more articles & reviews of other Skola toys that we have HERE. Each one of them is very wisely designed & is a treasure! 

Verdict

We love open-ended toys & this one was in my wishlist for long & I could finally lay hands on it & we are absolutely loving it! We make so many different patterns & designs out of it, some of them I have shared in the video above. There is no limit to the possibilities how you can play with this toy, it is only limited by your & your child's imagination. I would highly recommend this toy! #PlayItRight

You might like to read the step by step guide about STEM toys & our favorites & recommendations HERE.

Other Toys From Skola That We Love

 There are some Montessori language materials as well that Skola has - sand paper letters

 

You might also like a bunch of toys & books recommendations for kids HERE.

I hope this post was useful for you. I would love to see how you play with your rainbow stackers in the comments below or on my social media profiles. Feel free to drop relevant links in the comments where I can happily see your ideas to use rainbow stackers!

Disclaimer : This is a sponsored post but the views shared are honest and solely mine. I believe in using the products myself before putting up the review or opinion about them here. 

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Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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Learning Journeys Designed As Play - Skola Toys #PlayItRight

"Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome."

This quote holds true for everyone in life, whether they are adults or children. How we get to a destination is very important. Similarly, when children set out to learn a certain “something”, the journey to learn that is critical. Skola Learning Journeys are therefore designed to be informative and intuitive for kids. Experience these journeys as they open up new avenues in your child’s learning abilities.

When little children are taught alphabets for instance, how did they go about learning them?

• Was it rote learning? A for apple, B for ball?
• Did they experience anything hands-on?
• Did they touch and feel the alphabets?
• Did they learn that apple starts with a sound that the alphabet 'A' makes or just memorized that A is for apple?
• Did they just memorize a fact that c-a-t is cat or learnt why it is so? And whether this was done in a hands-on & age appropriate way?
• Was the learning child-led or forced upon?

Undoubtedly, each route of learning creates a different type of learner, and certainly a route that is hands-on, inviting, involving and enriching would create the wisest & confident learners because their journey has been most meaningful and enriching, gaining something at each step of the way.

For young children, true happiness comes from doing an activity, not completing it and finding an answer. Their focus is always clearly on the process and not the outcome.

Learning is always joyful & purposeful when it is led by the child himself & he voluntarily engage in some activity. So it is our job to give them a prepared environment with age appropriate materials so that they enjoy their journey of learning in all the areas with greater zeal & enjoy arriving at the answers on their own.

We adults have different journeys running simultaneously in our lives like journey of a parent, a professional, a daughter etc and every journey teaches us something different. Similarly a child is into multiple learning journeys at any point in time. A child may be perhaps - 

• Learning to count objects
• Becoming familiar with the sounds in a word
• Starting to use his finer muscles of hand 
• Becoming aware of the colors in nature

Every child is unique in the way they start and move through these journeys. Learning is never a single occurrence, learning even one single concept involves a series of steps.

Every Skola journey takes children systematically through a series of experiences that are incrementally challenging enabling them to discover and learn something new at each stage. Every stage is facilitated by a toy, playing with which, will allow children to challenge themselves in an interesting way.

An example of a learning journey through counting is:

Visit www.skola.toys to understand more such children’s learning journeys like Fine Motor Skills, Colors, Geometry, Motion, Counting, Arithmetic, Alphabets, Words, Patterns and view toys that facilitate incremental learning.

Let us enable our future generations to play, explore and discover through "Learning Journeys designed as Play "

You can follow Skola Toys on their official website & social media - Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube!

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Do not forget to follow us on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori-inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!

Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

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What Makes A Toy A Montessori Material & Skola Toys Recommendation & Review (VLOG)

I am an ardent Montessori follower & by now you must have known that I follow Montessori (combined with other philosophies) with my son at home. We do Montessori inspired activities at home, we have a Montessori shelf where I keep his activities & he absolutely loves his shelf. We do have some Montessori materials at home & I am always on a look out for Montessori inspired toys.

What exactly is meant by Montessori inspired toys? Or What makes a toy a Montessori material?

• Made up natural materials like wood, glass, ceramic etc
• Simple looking with no flashing lights, buzzers or whistles
• Realistic looking, for example, no cartoon characters printed 
• Have "control of error" - Self-correcting nature of the toys which means that if the child has put anything in a wrong way in a certain toy, he will himself be able to notice that due to the self-correcting nature of the toy. 
• Fosters independent play
• Has a specific purpose for the child, for example, it may work on the child's fine motor skills, dexterity, sensory inputs, language, gross motor skills, life skills, cognitive skills, creativity, science, maths skills etc.

I just want to take this opportunity to share with you a great brand that I recently found, which makes Montessori inspired wooden toys - SKOLA TOYS. 

The team at Skola Toys believe that play leads to exploration, exploration leads to discovery and discovery leads to learning. Toys like these stimulate the child's senses by opening up a fascinating world of colours, shapes, numbers, alphabets, science, geography & more! Skola Toys are designed for children between 0 & 8 years, and are self-correcting that enable children to learn independently without adult intervention. They have specific learning objectives that are achieved through a natural process of playing - that constitutes their unique Skola Learning Grid.

Skola Toys are made of wood that have a natural appeal to a child & result in the child being engaged with the toy for long periods of time. The paints used are child-safe too. 

I have these two Skola Toys that we love - Stacking Gears & Snowflake Threading Toy. You can watch the detailed review of both of them in the videos below.

Do not forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more such videos on toys & books recommendation & review, Montessori inspired activities & parenting.

You can explore more of these awesome Skola Toys on their website HERE. They also have a Facebook Page that you can follow HERE.

You can also get an exclusive discount of 15% on all Skola Toys (for a limited period only). Just visit my facebook group HERE & the pinned post has the discount code. You need to use that code when you shop from their website HERE directly.

I hope you found this post useful. I will be posting more about Montessori materials in the future. Until then, Happy Parenting :)

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