Fine-Motor Fun and Exploring Shapes with Spielgaben Set 8

Time passes so quickly with toddlers and preschoolers that it can be difficult to remember to rotate materials in your home environment as often as you should. If you observe your toddler or preschooler, you’ll often find a totally different response to a toy or material from just a few months ago. My 2¾-year-old granddaughter, Zoey, had a very new experience with Spielgaben set 8 compared to a year ago.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Spielgaben. All opinions are honest and my own. This post also contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

In case you’re not familiar with Spielgaben toys, they are exceptionally high-quality educational toys designed for ages 3-12. You can see from the photo that the cabinet is very high quality and fits in well in a room with traditional Montessori materials. I love the new, easily removable drawers in version 4.

The Spielgaben complete set comes with over 700 pages of full-color printed learning materials. These printed materials help you as a parent or teacher easily use Spielgaben toys educationally with your child and/or students.

Note: The yarn balls in set 1 are fine for babies and toddlers. The other sets should only be used with ages 3 and older unless your toddler no longer mouths objects or you are constantly supervising your toddler during an activity using the materials.

Spielgaben Materials Used

Here’s the description for Spielgaben Set 8 from the Spielgaben website:

Spielgaben 8

With the introduction of Spielgaben 8, we move from the plane to the line (sticks). These sticks come in 6 different lengths, which increase in size by increments of 2.5cm. Now, instead of being limited to a triangle with a certain angle, the child can build whatever angle he likes. Let the child explore the flat sides of the sticks and explore the concept of length. These sticks are excellent for teaching measurement. The accompanying guide is full of great ideas for introducing the sticks to your child. Your child will even learn how to use them to make a skeleton.

Spielgaben 8B

Spielgaben 8B is a new addition and it is colored vertex balls that will be used with Spielgaben 8 colored rods. Using both sets together, a child has an opportunity to learn how abstract ideas of shape, form and space composed of arbitrary lines and points can be realized in solid 3D form.

Fine-Motor Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers with Spielgaben Set 8

When Zoey was 19 months old, I published a post with ideas for fine-motor activities using Spielgaben materials with toddlers. Here’s the video from that post:

For the video, we used the Spielgaben sticks and dual-side playboard from Version 4 or the Upgrade Kit 4.0 (if you have an earlier version) plus 10 Spielgaben wooden cubes.

The sticks are part of Set 8, and are wonderful for fine-motor skills. In the video, I just used the longest sticks and no vertex balls (for safety because of their small size). At that age, it was challenging for Zoey to stand the sticks in the playboard.

This time, I used the playboard as well as the sticks and vertex balls. I added the separate parts in containers along with the playboard. (Note: In the Spielgaben playguide, it’s recommended to have the sticks standing so that children can more easily see and sort the different sizes of sticks.)

Having young children simply explore set 8 is wonderful for fine-motor skills and other skills. Zoey enjoys working with the sticks and vertex balls and can easily stand up the sticks in the playboard. This year, she is able to add the vertex balls. Placing the vertex balls on the sticks is still somewhat of a challenge, so we’ll wait before doing more elaborate fine-motor work with set 8. I love that Zoey came up with the idea of matching the same-color vertex balls and sticks.

Exploring Shapes with Spielgaben Set 8

This is a Montessori-inspired adaptation of an early activity for set 8 in the Spielgaben playguide. I used one color of sticks and vertex balls to fit the Montessori principle of isolation of quality and added a tray to allow for repetition of the activity. (Having activities on trays or baskets on shelves allows Zoey to choose activities whenever she wishes and to repeat them over and over again).  I also added the square and rectangle from our metal (plastic) insets.

Because of Zoey’s age, it would still be difficult for her to add the vertex balls to the sticks in the exact places needed to make a square and rectangle. So I had those prepared ahead of time. I showed her how to use the sticks to make frames that are square and rectangle. She enjoyed making the frames and exploring the different squares and rectangles.

The Spielgaben playguide has more activities for creating geometric shapes and solids that I can use with Zoey when she’s older. It’s awesome that the materials are so easily adapted for a wide variety of ages!

UPDATE:

All My Spielgaben Posts

Many of these include links to free printables! (Click on an image to go to the related blog post. The gallery is ordered according to publication date with my latest post at the top.)

Version 4 of Spielgaben Educational Toys 

I highly recommend Spielgaben as an amazing educational material for home or school. Even though the toys aren’t inexpensive, they’re definitely worth the price because of the high quality of materials and number of years your children or students can use them.

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