How to Get Started with Spielgaben Educational Toys

A complete set of Spielgaben educational toys is beautiful … but it can feel intimidating for parents who are new to working with educational materials. Because Spielgaben is meant for ages 3-12, you’ll find a huge list of educational activities you can do. But the activities are laid out easily and sequentially so you’re able to use the toys for teaching numerous skills to your children.

 

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 in This Post

For this post, I used the yarn balls from set 1.

Getting Started with Spielgaben

Getting started with Spielgaben is simple if you follow the Playguide that comes with your complete Spielgaben set. You’ll even find some ideas that can be used with babies.

My 3-year-old granddaughter, Zoey, was in love with the Spielgaben yarn balls as a baby and toddler. At about age 3, you can start using the materials in a more structured way. You can just read the directions in the Playguide and follow them with your child.

Of course, don’t be afraid to adapt the activities for your child. If your child can already identify the primary and secondary colors, you could skip the color train activity at the beginning or just use the idea of mixing colors of clay to create new colors. Mixing colors is a great activity for multiple ages.

Find the Hidden Color Game

Another fun activity for children who can already identify their colors is the Find-the-Hidden-Color Game. This is a game I recently played with Zoey.

This activity just called for the yarn balls and a paper cup. (Most of the activities are very easy to prepare.) I used a Multicraft tray, Montessori Services basket to hold the yarn balls, and two plastic cups I had from an old activity. I like to place the activities on trays to encourage repetition, but do what works for you.

First, we played the game with one cup. I laid out the yarn balls, hid one under the cup, and Zoey had to guess which one was hidden.

Then we played the game with two cups. This time, Zoey had to remember which two colors were hidden and where they were originally in the sequence. Even though Zoey already could identify the colors, the game was a good introduction to patterning and a fun memory game.

Making Shapes with Spielgaben Yarn Balls

One of my favorite yarn ball activities is building different designs with the yarn balls and strings. This uses a page in the Playguide and has ten different examples of shapes to make. I like to cut apart activities like this one. I just print out the page, laminate it, and then cut apart the smaller design ideas.

You could have a basket with one simple design, such as this heart design, or you could have some or all of the yarn balls in a basket along with cards for some or all of the designs.

Getting Ideas from the Spielgaben Inspiration and Nature Cards

If you’re going through the Playguide sequentially, you can always add some of the inspiration or nature cards for your child. The workbook also has lots of ideas for whichever set you’re focusing on. Again, I like to cut apart activities often. Instead of drawing lines to match the correct pictures, I’ll typically cut the pictures apart and have a hands-on matching activity. You can see some examples of how I cut apart and use the materials in my first Spielgaben post.

Don’t be afraid to jump in and start using Spielgaben with your child. If you’re looking for Montessori-inspired activities, you’ll find lots to supplement the ideas in the Playguide in my previous Spielgaben posts. I often link to free printables you can use for these activities as well!

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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