Farm Wooden Building Blocks - 50 Pieces

What the 50 pieces are: 7 characters and 36 shapes

Count them out with your child the first time you open the set. Fourteen pieces go in pairs, two per character, and make seven figures: the farmer, a cockerel, a duck, a sheep, a horse, a pig and a cow. The remaining 36 are geometric pieces such as cubes, logs and triangles. Fourteen and thirty-six: that makes the 50.

This split is what sets the Farm Wooden Building Blocks apart. Most block sets hand a child shapes and leave them to find a purpose. Here the purpose is waiting in the pile: six animals and a farmer who all need somewhere to live.

Two games in one set: match the animals, then build around them

The first game is a matching one. Each character is made of two pieces, and the job is to find which two belong together. A cow joined to the wrong half gets a laugh, and then gets put right. For a young child this is a puzzle with only two pieces, repeated seven times, which is exactly the right size of challenge.

The second game has no end. The logs line up into a fence, the cubes become the walls of a stable, a triangle makes a roof. Because the animals are part of the set, your child always has a reason to build something: the horse needs a stall, the pig has escaped again, the farmer wants a wall to keep the ducks in.

Farm toys for toddlers: what changes between 2 and 4

The set is for children aged 2 and up, and it does not get played with in the same way at each age.

• At 2, expect stacking and knocking down. Three cubes in a tower, a pig carried round the house, the names of the animals said over and over. Pairing the characters usually needs you alongside at first.
• At 3, the pairs are found without help and the first enclosures appear: a ring of logs with the sheep inside counts as a field.
• At 4, the buildings get taller and the stories longer. A triangle balanced across two logs, a cockerel on the roof, a farmer doing the morning round.

Parents hunting for animal toys for 2 year olds often end up with a bag of figurines that are admired and then left. With farm wooden building blocks the animals come with something to do, and that is what brings a child back to them the next day.

A piece of advice for the youngest: do not put out all 50 pieces at once. Offer the seven characters and about ten blocks. A small pile invites a two-year-old to start; a big one mostly invites tipping it over. Add the rest as the building grows.

Animal names, noises and first stories

The farm is one of the first worlds small children can name. Hold up a piece and ask who it is, then what it says. A simple game that works well: hide one animal behind a wall of cubes and make its noise; your child guesses, knocks down the wall to check, and then wants to hide one for you.

Meanwhile the hands are busy. Setting a cube on a tower without toppling it takes a steady, careful release. Laying a triangle on top is a lesson in balance. And sorting the pieces at tidy-up time, cubes with cubes, logs with logs, by shape and then by colour, is early geometry that does not feel like work.

Compared with a classic block set or a ready-made farm

A classic set of wooden building blocks gives you more pieces of each shape, which suits children who want tall towers and long walls, but nobody lives in them. A ready-made farm, with its barn and figurines, offers the opposite: the scenery is all there and the child tells the story without building anything. This set sits between the two, which is why it suits a child who is not yet sure whether they are a builder or a storyteller. Like the other Montessori teaching toys we choose, it has no single right answer and no finished state.

The set measures 20 x 20 x 16 cm, so it takes up one corner of a low shelf. Keeping all the pieces in a single basket at your child's height makes it easy for them to fetch the game and to tidy it away. It is covered by our 2-year guarantee.

Questions about the farm building blocks

What is in the 50-piece farm building blocks set?

2 x 7 pieces that form seven farm characters, and 36 geometric pieces such as cubes, logs and triangles.

What age are the farm building blocks for?

They are for children aged 2 and up. Two-year-olds stack and name the animals; from 3 or 4 they build enclosures and make up stories.

Which farm animals are included?

Six animals: a cockerel, a duck, a sheep, a horse, a pig and a cow. The seventh character is the farmer.

Can a toddler build the farm animals alone?

Each character has only two pieces, so many children aged 2+ manage once they have been shown a couple of times. Plan to help with the first few pairs.

Specifications

• 50 wooden pieces: 14 character pieces (2 x 7) and 36 geometric pieces
• Characters: farmer, cockerel, duck, sheep, horse, pig, cow
• Recommended age: 2+
• Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 16 cm
• Reference: REFU1542
• 2-year guarantee