Grimm’s Counter Rotating Stepped Spiral

I’ve been a fan of the Grimm’s toy range for years, since before my eldest son who’s almost 5 was born. I remember looking online at all the ‘baby essentials’ I needed and coming across the Grimm’s 12pc rainbow and my eyes glazing over.

I just love their toys. I love the colours, I love the sensory aspects, I love that the toys all have the natural rough wood grain- they’re such wonderful tactile toys that are amazing for imaginative play and sensory development.

I love that the toys are so beautiful to look at, whilst being so sympathetic and accommodating of children’s imaginations.

I love the Waldorf school of thought, and the practices and toys that fall within it.

Our First Grimm’s

I remember the first first Grimm’s toy I got for my eldest when he was just a few months old. It was instant love, and there blossomed a brand new addiction.

Almost five years and a second child down the line, and our collection of Grimm’s toys has grown impressively. Whenever I have a spare penny I am looking at what I can get next- but that’s ok because I’m feeding their imaginations as well as my own addiction… I tell myself that daily 😉

And so with that in mind it gives me leave to add to the collection, right?

A Growing Collection

One of our most favourite recent additions to our collection is the Grimm’s counter rotating stepped spiral blocks set. It has been on my wishlist (yes- *my* wishlist) since I first saw it a few years ago on the Babipur website.

I so desperately wanted to own it, I imagined all of the lovely things me and the kids could create with it, the games we’d play; and from an aesthetics point of view- how utterly beautiful it would look in our playroom.

That’s the great thing about Grimm’s toys- even if your child doesn’t play with them that much they still make wonderful (if not expensive) ornaments 😉

Luckily for me when we received ours, the children loved it straight away. I loved it like I knew I would, and I still look at it months down the line and think to myself “man I love this thing”.

My eldest has pretty much grown out of most of his Grimm’s toys (sad but true), and the only Grimm’s toys he still plays with on a regular basis is the spiral ball run and the 12pc rainbow; otherwise it’s all about cars and trains. But my youngest (almost 3) *loves* his Grimm’s toys. He plays with them all- his favourites are of course the beautiful rainbow collections and the building blocks. We have a few different sets of Grimm’s blocks , as Nic absolutely loves building blocks and building various structures; but the set he plays with the most is the counter rotating stepped spiral set. It just has so much scope for imagination- you can build so many cool things and you can make believe the most awesome games.

The day ours arrived I couldn’t wait to get it out of it’s packaging- I built it up at first just to get a full look at the whole thing in all its splendour- and then it was time to play!

Let Your Imagination Run Wild!

The first thing I built for Nic (who by now was building things from the stairs in the set) was a kind of ruins set up- I built it up for Nic and straight away his Holztiger figures and Grapat Palos were in there claiming this new place as their own.

After a while I dismantled it and built a fairy tale castle. I was quite impressed with my handy work- and after taking about 100 pictures I let my tornado toddler loose on it.

I was expecting him to say ‘that’s nice mama’ (humouring me as he often does) before completely demolishing it with his digger- as is apparently traditional in our house whenever I build something awesome; but he didn’t- he grabbed his Holztiger dragon and started to play.

He played beautifully for ages- this castle had completely captured his imagination in a way I’d never seen before. All of a sudden his story had narratives, the toys all had their own voices and were going about their day to day lives in this little castle I’d built.

It was lovely to see- to watch something as simple as a building blocks set capture my crazy toddlers imagination in such a way I’d never seen before then.

Everyday we’d get the set out and play with it again. Some days it would be just a series of towers for that dreaded digger to come along and destroy, other days it was a hobbit house, or a cave, a road for cars, or another castle.

What I love about this set is that you don’t really *need* any other sets to create something great- because of the shapes of the blocks and the steps that come with it you can build some really great stuff just as it is.

If you add other sets in with it then my word you will have the most amazing invitation to play set up and your child will love you forever (though I don’t fancy the tidy up time after)

This set is truly beautiful, it’s so lovely and big and chunky! It’s heavy when built up and stands tall. It’s a lovely addition to have to your little one’s collection, and will capture their little imaginations beautifully.

The only thing I will say is set aside an extra 5 minutes at tidy time- it takes a while to put all those blocks back together 😉

It’s a small price to pay for something so great 🙂

I can’t recommend this enough, as a parent of a building block aficionado, I can honestly say that this set is well worth the price. The scope for the amount you can do with it is excellent- and it gets you thinking about what you can build and how . The curved shape of the blocks means you can’t just build a box house, you have to use your imagination to create something different, and that’s what I love about it- it encourages such awesome creativity and imagination 🙂

Huge thanks to Emily for sharing her thoughts about the Grimm’s Counter-Rotating Stepped Spiral with us x