It is hard to deny that wooden toys have a unique appeal to children of all ages. Grandparents remember when the wooden pull car was the favorite indoor and outdoor toy. Sometimes the wooden toy was hand fashioned by a favorite relative. Other times, wooden toys were created by the child. No matter how crude the product might appear to the uninitiated, in the child's eyes the vrooom noises made the crudely carved block into a real car and the wooden blocks into a steam locomotive.

Fond memories of some of the favorite childhood wooden toys make today's modern equivalents just as popular as the originals from 100 years ago.

The classic wooden blocks are one of children's favorite toys. Usually a set of blocks will contain about 30 brightly colored 2-inch blocks. The blocks contain numbers from 0-9, letters from A-Z and imaginative pictures of simple objects easily identified by the child. The slightly raised letter and numerals are safely finished in red, blue, yellow or green. These blocks are suitable for stacking, sorting, building, counting, alphabet, and matching

Pound-A-Peg

Remember the carpenter's bench with the small pegs that could be placed in the holes in the bench? You used the small wooden mallet to pound each of the pegs level with the surface of the bench, then turned the entire unit over and pounded the pegs back through. Today's bench is virtually identical to the ones of half a century ago. Today's toy measures 11.6 inches by 5 inches. The platform is natural wood with red ends and mallet. The pegs are finished in red, blue, yellow and green. The toy is great for developing eye-hand coordination, color recognition, matching and counting.

Stick Horse

A favorite of children for years, the broomstick horse, sometimes with a mane of yarn attached could be the faithful steed when playing Wild West Shows, or a valiant knight fighting a dragon. It is all in the imagination. This is one of the simplest wooden toys--originally simply a stick and a horse head shape on the end. The lucky child who received a cowboy hat and fringed vest to wear could pretend to be any number of western heroes.

Train Set

A set of wooden train cars, carefully shaped and painted to resemble the various types of cars in a real steam train was also a child's favorite wooden toy. There usually is a steam engine with the exaggerated cow catcher on the front and the steam vent, needing only imagination and a whistle--usually supplied by the child--to seem real. The coal car, the flat cars and boxcars and of course the caboose are a set good for hours of play for the child. Contrary to the real thing, the wooden train cars are often printed in bright primary colors.