Best Natural Preschool Toys and How They Benefit Development

The best natural toys for preschoolers! Below we have listed an amazing collection of natural preschool toys. Quality eco-friendly preschool toys made of natural materials make great gift ideas for Christmas or a birthday.

In addition to this great list of preschool toys, we also have a list of fantastic open-ended toys for pretend play that we highly recommend for preschoolers. We hope you find these lists helpful when purchasing gifts for your children.

best preschool toys made with natural materials.

Best Natural Toys for Preschoolers and How They Benefit Child Development

If play is the work of early childhood–All preschool toys are educational because children learn through play! The difference is preschool toys made of natural materials provide a rich sensory experience for the developing child that most of the competition can not.

How do natural preschool toys benefit child development?

Natural preschool toys benefit child development because of the sensory experience that they provide. Preschool toys made with natural materials such as wood, wool, organic cotton, and silk give preschoolers the sensory input to develop and grow into fully functioning human beings.

Natural toys for preschoolers can also help children develop their creativity and imagination because natural toys tend to be more open-ended than their plastic counterparts. This is why our family tends to favor Waldorf and Montessori-inspired preschool toys made with natural materials. Below we have listed some of the best natural toys for preschoolers.

We have placed these awesome toys for kids into categories to easily find the type of preschool toy you are looking for. Each category shares the benefits of each kind of toy and how it aids child development.

For more awesome ideas, pop over to have a look at the Rhythms of Play Store!

Related: Eco-Friendly Toys for Toddlers

Preschool Toys: Lacing & Threading Toys for Fine Motor Development

Lacing toys are excellent for developing the fine motor muscles in the hands. However, our preschoolers need tools to develop strong hands and fine motor control with screen time on the rise.

Sewing with burlap and yarn is a great activity to help preschoolers develop their hands and sew are lacing toys–see what I did there? I made a punny! You can also use preserved fall leaves to make DIY lacing cards!

Fine motor skills help prepare the child for writing and handwork such as art and crafts. These lacing toys also develop hand-eye coordination, finger dexterity, and problem-solving skills.

Shapes, Colors, Sorting and Matching Toys and Games for Preschoolers

Shape, color sorting, and matching games help children learn shapes and colors as they classify the objects.

Preschool Bee Hive (this preschool toy is also great for fine motor development)
Homemade Memory Matching Game – A memory matching game you can make and use with almost any paired items. Match up the items to win!
DIY Rainbow Peg Dolls for Pretend Play and Color Matching Games – Our homemade Rainbow Peg Dolls with matching storage boxes that can be used for color sorting, stacking, counting, and more. make some today! (photo below)

DIY rainbow peg dolls for pretend play and color matching games. — Rainbow Peg Dolls DIY Toy for Kids

Eco-Friendly Building and Engineering Toys for Preschoolers

Preschool building and engineering toys help preschoolers develop hand-eye coordination, spatial skills, and STEM Skills. They also help build dexterity and problem-solving skills, develop imagination, and inspire creativity.

The Best Wooden Marble Set for Preschoolers (and their parents) Ever!

Quadrilla Vertigo Marble Railway in Wood – This amazing marble set one of our favorite toys. It comes with a booklet that shows you how to set it up in multiple ways. Once your child begins to figure out how the pieces work they can begin to design and build their own marble runs!

Best Building Blocks for Preschoolers

Wooden building blocks are one of the classic toys of childhood. When I was a child, my brothers and I spent hours building with them and using them to construct anything and everything we could imagine.

Building blocks are a fantastic toy for preschoolers because they inspire creativity and help develop a child’s imagination. They also encourage kids to think creatively, embrace challenges, and be persistent!

Playing with building blocks can benefit preschoolers in so many more ways. They can develop hand dexterity, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness, reasoning abilities, problem-solving skills, and logical thinking. A few of our favorite eco-friendly building blocks are listed below, or you can make DIY building blocks.

Develops problem-solving & reasoning abilities, supports logical thinking, improves dexterity & spatial awareness.

Standard Wooden Building Blocks – This wooden block set contains 60 natural finished, smooth-sanded hardwood blocks to inspire hands-on, imaginative play. It is packaged in a handsome, wooden tray for easy storage. Standard building blocks are ideal for introducing early math concepts, including shapes, parts-to-whole, and sorting.
Brain Box Wooden Building Blocks – Brain Blox building toys inspire kids to think creatively, embrace challenges, and be persistent. This building toy encourages children to engage in constructive, imaginative, open-ended play that is FUN! These wooden blocks help kids learn math, physics, & engineering concepts through hands-on learning. Perfect STEM toy for ALL ages!
42 Piece Tegu Magnetic Wooden Block Set -These are the eco-friendly version of Magna-tiles. Our family has a lot of fun constructing things with these blocks. You can create things that can’t be made with regular blocks because they are magnetized.
Wooden Castle Building Set – Surprise your preschooler with the most exciting and thrilling wooden castle building block set! Build bridges, arches and towers that will transport your preschoolers to fantasy land. help spark your child’s imagination and creativity while promoting the development of essential skills with these unique wooden blocks for preschoolers!

Grimm’s Wooden Toys: Building Blocks, Puzzles, and Pattern Blocks

Our whole family loves Grimm’s puzzles and building blocks because they are so beautiful. When they are sitting on shelves, they look like gorgeous works of art. They are timeless, and adults even like to tinker with them.

These building toys and puzzles help children develop the roots of logical thinking and prepare the brain for future math and geometry skills. Mix any of these sets with other wooden blocks to create incredible building projects.

We would purchase every single one if we could afford them all! Unfortunately, they were a bit expensive but worth it. A few of our favorites are listed below, but you really must see the whole collection of Grimm’s wooden toys for children. Your preschoolers will LOVE them! Today, many companies are making gorgeous wooden blocks similar to those made famous by Grimm Toys. So, we have a few DIY versions that you can try!

Grimm’s DIY Wooden Toys for Preschoolers:

DIY Rainbow Colored Wooden Blocks – Our easy homemade version of Grimm’s classic rainbow cubes!
Square DIY Wooden 3D Geometric Puzzle – Our homemade version of Grimm’s square 3D Puzzle! (photo below)

A DIY Waldorf Square Geometric Puzzle wooden 3d toy for kids — **DIY Grimm’s Waldorf Square 3D Geometric Puzzle**

Grimm’s Toys for Preschoolers:

Small Stepped Pyramid of Wooden Building Blocks – Preschool children love to stack, arrange and build with this set of 100 modular cube forms. In the process of play, they’ll be introduced to mathematical concepts such as counting by multiples, proportion, sequencing, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and even decimals. Learning has never been so much fun!
Grimm’s Color Charts Rally Building Blocks Set – This colorful block set can be used in many creative ways. One of our favorites is setting up domino runs and creating elaborate patterns with them.
Large Set of Colored Nesting Boxes – Nesting boxes can be used in many ways. They make great houses for pretend play when stacked on their sides. They can hold small toys and animals, and help children begin to discriminate size. Grimm’s nesting boxes also come in natural, and there are also nesting bowl sets available. Square boxes are more difficult for children to stack and nest than round bowls.
Grimm’s Large Four Seasons Elements Building Set – These colorful solid wood shapes can be used as puzzle pieces or creative building blocks. This set combines well with other building blocks from Grimm’s collection. This gorgeous wooden puzzle consists of a stacking rainbow, flame, cave & wave that represent each of the 4 Elements: Air, Fire, Earth, & Water.
Romanesque Wooden Blocks Building Set with Tray – The innovative shapes in this wooden building block set can inspire little builders to create grand castles and other medieval structures. These gorgeous wooden blocks for preschoolers are great for imaginative play, storytelling, and acting out fairy tales!
Grimm’s Large Shapes & Colors Building Set – This building set contains 5 stacking wooden trays, each holding colorful building pieces of a different geometric form: triangle, cubes, dominoes, cylinders & stepped blocks. Your preschooler can discover new and unique ways to combine shapes.
Grimm’s Handcrafted Bell Tower – Older children can put together this amazing bell tower–wow! A work of art for any playroom!

Best Wooden Puzzles and Pattern Blocks for Preschoolers

Puzzles are excellent for keeping little ones busy as they develop hand-eye coordination, fine motor, and spatial skills. They also help your little one build logic as they work to find a solution.

When children work on puzzles, they are training their brains to problem solve. In addition, completing puzzles leads to feelings of confidence. Below are some durable (and beautiful) wood options.

Personalized Name Puzzle – Get a wooden puzzle made with your child’s name. One of the first activities of early literacy is learning to recognize and spell our name.
Wooden Alphabet Puzzle Board – This simple wooden alphabet puzzle can help preschoolers develop fine motor skills, shape orientation, and letter recognition.
Alphabet Snail Puzzel – Learn numbers, alphabets, colors & animals with the alphabet snail. This puzzle for preschoolers develops motor skills & color recognition.
Animal Parade A to Z Puzzle – Putting together this puzzle will help children learn the order of the alphabet and the differences between lower and upper case letters.
Learning Box with 4 Educational Puzzles – Four of BeginAgain’s best selling educational puzzles in one box! Animal Parade A-Z, Number Snail–A beautiful puzzle that can help children learn numbers and count, Balance Boat Shapes and Colors and Cat Family.
Pattern Blocks and Boards – Set of wooden shape blocks and colorful patterns to complete that includes 120 shapes and 5 boards. These are great math manipulatives for preschoolers. Great for spatial awareness, color recognition, hand-eye coordination, and problem-solving.
Tangram Handmade Organic 3D Wooden Brain Teaser Puzzle – Fair trade handmade wooden puzzle toy with premium grade wood and holistic and eco-friendly processes.
DIY Tetris Inspired Puzzle Cube – Make a homemade puzzle with our easy Tetris puzzle cube tutorial!

Eco-Friendly Preschool Toys for Pretend Play

Play is the most critical work of early childhood. Children begin to understand the world around them through movement and play. As parents and caregivers, we must provide natural play environments for preschoolers that allow children to learn about the world at their own pace.

Children need toys and play areas to act out the roles and activities they see adults doing in day-to-day life. Role-playing in imaginative play can help preschoolers develop confidence. Feeling confident about yourself and being able to share your thoughts is essential to children’s development.

By role-playing and interacting with others through imaginative pretend play, children can develop communication skills and improve their social interactions. These are only a few of the benefits of pretend play for preschoolers.

We have listed a few of our favorite eco-friendly preschool toys below. For a few more awesome ideas, have a look at 15 open-ended toys for pretend play.

Preschool Toys for Dollhouse Play

Hape Doll Family – This doll family features six unique dolls with easily bendable rope bodies. These dolls encourage role-play, imaginative play, and nurturing skills. By role-playing, and interacting with others through play, children can begin to develop their communication skills and start to understand social interaction in a better way.
Family Pets Doll House – This sweet little family pet set is one of my daughters all time favorite toys. Its small size makes it a wonderful travel toy!
All Seasons Wooden Doll House – A classic 3 story wood dollhouse that encourages imaginative roleplay with friends. This wooden dollhouse features 6 rooms and comes fully furnished with pieces that are easy to move around and arrange.

Preschool Wooden Animal Toys for Pretend Play

Ever Earth Giant Arc Playset with Animals – This gorgeous wooden arc for imaginative play can help children use and develop their imagination and creativity and can assist children to see the world in a new way.

Eco-friendly Play Kitchen for Preschoolers

Wooden Play Kitchen – This cute little wooden play kitchen for preschoolers comes equipped with accessories, cabinet, oven, and microwave oven.

Eco-Friendly Preschool Workbench

Small Foldable Workbench Playset – There is no need to assemble this safe and sturdy wooden workbench made with eco-friendly processes.

More Gift Ideas for Preschoolers

Art Supplies for Preschoolers

Head over to look at the best art supplies for kids and why a young artist should use them!

Preschool Music Ideas

Please pop over to peek at our favorite children’s music that won’t drive you nuts.

Best Tools for Preschoolers

Look at our 15 ways to raise a helper and the best tools ideas for raising children that help with the chores around the house.

Children’s Book Gift Ideas for Preschoolers

Give your preschooler something to read this year. Then, head over to have a peek at all of our favorite Children’s book lists and gift ideas.

Preschool Games and books for Social-Emotional Development

We have an excellent collection of social-emotional development games and Children’s books about feelings and emotions that you might also like.

The games and books for children from toddlers to teens are listed in order of recommended ages to find age-appropriate recommendations for your preschooler easily.

We also have a roundup of unique board games that the whole family is sure to love!

Best natural toys for preschoolers and how they benefit development sq

Best Eco Toys for Preschoolers

We hope you enjoyed this collection of the best natural toys for pre-schoolers. Quality toys made with raw materials make great gifts for Christmas or a birthday! Don’t forget to pop over to have a look at our favorite open-ended toys for kids. You may also like our collection of eco-friendly toddler toys.

We also have a whole slew of outdoor learning ideas and nature activities perfect for preschoolers. Just click the link to see them all!

For more ideas for the whole family, have a look at the Rhythms of Play Store.

Learn more about Rhythms of Play HERE!

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