Wooden Fruit Sorter Car — Pull-Along Shape Sorter

A wooden car with fruit-shaped holes in its body and matching wooden fruit to post through them — a strawberry in the strawberry hole, grapes in the grapes hole. The wheels really roll, so once it is loaded your child can pull it around the house.

How you play

1. Tip the fruit out and spread it in front of your child.
2. Pick up one piece and name the fruit.
3. Find the hole in the car shaped like it.
4. Post it through and move on to the next.
5. When the car is full, pull it along and unload it somewhere else.

What it builds

• Shape matching, with fruit names attached to each shape
• Fine motor control from lining a piece up with its hole
• Fruit vocabulary, learned by handling rather than pointing
• Loading and unloading, which is a game in itself at this age

Three ways to play it

• Name a fruit and let your child find both the piece and the hole
• Deliver the fruit to different rooms and unload it there
• Take one piece away and ask which fruit is missing

The details

• Ages: 1–6 years
• Material: wood