Wood was an almost forgotten material when new, popular, artificial materials like plastic in many forms appeared on the market. What made them so wanted is a good commercial, not the quality itself. Thus, a craze for the new material was artificially created. Later on, it was improved and gained in quality and in spite of the fact that it was so popular, it had never had a real advantage over wood.
However, wood, being a natural material of great quality, has fought its way back into wide use. People’s awareness of its characteristics ranked wood among the most wanted materials. Today, almost any useful object is available in the wooden version.
The List of Top Selling Wooden Products
Modern life and modern health issues make us think deeply about our health and our lifestyles. Due to this, people take steps to live healthier lives. One of the changes people make is introducing wooden kitchen utensils. They have become very popular and take the top of this list.
The next on this list is a nice, useful present – a jewellery box. Very handy for keeping either jewellery, photos or any other objects of great importance to a person, these boxes make a perfect gift for any occasion. Ladies love them decoupaged or decorated with strasses. Some even like them in natural colour.
Home decorations like picture frames, coat racks, shelves or wine racks are the following item. These are useful and handy things needed in every house. When they are made of natural material, in this case, wood, they give the impression of home warmth and commodity.
Storage boxes have wide use in any home. They can be used for storing anything from kitchen supplies, through bed sheets and kids’ toys, to tools. The wood stain colour is transparent, it adds colour but still leaves wood texture seen through it. Thus it satisfies both tastes of the ones who love to keep the natural texture and at the same time have colour.
Finally, according to my Google research, wooden toys are ranked number five on the wooden top-selling list. I have even dug deeper to see what the top 3 most wanted toys are.
Wooden Building Blocks
I guess many of you have already known which toy takes the first place on our most wanted toy list. Wood is a very convenient element, widely used by real civil engineers in the building. Thus, it also makes a suitable building component for our little engineers. It is almost indestructible, durable and solid.
Natural wooden blocks are more wanted than coloured ones. The reason for this is that painting can be practised on them by kids. Kids can express their imagination and creativity by giving their blocks colour, design or decoration. Painting is also a calming activity teaching children patience and tranquillity.
Our little constructors learn a lot through play with building blocks. First of all, they learn the dependency of the elements they put into their construction and their balance in order to create a stable building. Of course, don’t expect them to build a structure on their first attempt. The Latin proverb says: “Repetitio est mater studiorum”, meaning that repetition is the mother of learning. They will have a lot of attempts before they succeed.
Besides building, children also love destroying. They love watching their empires fall down and they love hearing that natural wooden sound of the blocks hitting each other. That is how they learn gravity, that everything that falls has to fall down, not anywhere else. Adults are amazed when they see that the kid makes a mistake on purpose to make their tower collapse. After several failures and accomplishments, children become very conscious of the construction laws which means that their fine motor skills, problem-solving skills and cause and effect are well drilled.
The wide use of the building blocks makes them so popular. Many school subjects are subconsciously introduced to children so that when they start school they don’t have any difficulties understanding them. Mathematics – numbers, basic mathematical operations and geometry; laws of physics – balance, action and reaction and gravity; history – historic buildings and castles are made following the stories from the past; geography – Earth, continents, mountains and rivers; art – painting and decorating the blocks; music – one of the first kinds of music was hitting wood. This is a shorter list of all the skills children can acquire by using wooden building blocks.
Natural Wooden Teethers
Natural wooden teethers have taken the second place and the reason is obvious. Too much pollution and chemistry have brought us many health issues. This is a good reason to choose less chemistry for newborns. What they need is a pure, natural, if possible hand-made toy without any chemistry or heavy process of production. Simplicity is the best for this age.
What makes them so popular is that they are made of one piece of wood, so no glueing, attaching, binding or nailing is allowed. Natural wooden texture without the presence of colours tops up the safety of this toy.
The grip of the small hands is not very skilful, thus, the edges are not sharp and the toy itself doesn’t have pointed parts that could lead to hurting.
Besides helping with the teething process, teethers arouse the senses in babies. Babies become aware of the natural touch, the warmth of wood, wooden texture and shape. They also get the notion of solidity, weight and coordination.
Based on their previous experience, they become more skilful each day. When they reach the point to put the teether directly where it needs to be without hitting their heads first, that means that they have become aware of the shape and hardness of the teether. Unconscious learning has taken place.
Wooden Trains
Imitating real life through play is the best teaching technique. Wooden trains are number three on the list but are fighting hard to reach the top.
Trains have always been one of the favourite toys and not only for children but for adults too. People like making models of the railway stations with the environment or even whole towns built around them.
Constructing rails and making train compositions need much more than pure imagination. They come in different sizes and shapes so children have to be sharp to match all the parts together and play.
Once they have finished building up their railway station or even the surrounding environment, they learn self-confidence, build up their self-esteem and become proud of their skills practised through this creation. It is a real pleasure watching them acquire those important human characteristics.
Along with skills, wooden trains also encourage knowledge. Children learn a lot of physics and mathematics through this kind of play. If they build the environment or the surrounding town, their economic skills come into practice. The importance of nature and its preservation can be easily taught by modelling the town around the railway.
Conclusion
Finally, I must admit that it was really difficult to find out all these pieces of information as wood has become very popular these days. People realize the importance of nature and want it around them.
Honestly, I am a little surprised that the wooden toys take 5th place after home decoration items. Still, it proves the durability of the toys which means that they are inherited rather than bought.
Trains were leading toys for some time, but then wooden teethers appeared and took their place as a very important element in babies’ health and development. Nevertheless, trains are still kids’ number one favourite toy.
The return to nature doesn’t mean just taking from it. In order to keep the balance, we have to give back what we have taken. The human task is to keep the balance and preserve the laws of nature. Nature has given us learning props to apply our knowledge and live better in harmony with nature.
