Grapat Mandala

Buying Grapat Mandala at Kideo.store

Thirty-six wooden shapes in a little bowl. No instructions, no example, no right answer. What a child does with them is entirely up to the child: a circle on the floor, a row sorted by colour, soup in a pan, coins in a shop, or simply a heap to knock over again.

Ordered before 16:00 on a working day? Then your order is shipped the same day.

What is a mandala set?

A mandala is a circular pattern. Grapat makes sets of 36 identical wooden shapes for laying out those patterns, but they work just as well for sorting, counting, stacking or telling a story. Each set holds a single shape, so you can start small and keep adding: every set combines with the others and with the rest of the Grapat range.

Which shape do you choose?

There is no best set. It comes down to what appeals to your child. Our full range, grouped by what you would use it for:

• To start with, the coins, honeycombs and stones: neutral shapes for stacking, sorting and filling bowls.
• Eggs: in rainbow colours or in purple. They roll, they sit neatly in a bowl, and in play they turn into food, treasure or eggs in a nest.
• For imaginative play, trees, mushrooms and fires get stories going: a forest, a campfire, a landscape.
• Flowers and petals: flowers, tulips and petals, lovely alongside wooden animals.
• For stacking and balancing, cones in orange, cones in green and pineapples: shapes that stand upright, and so become towers.
• Seasons, snowflakes, raindrops and pumpkins: nice to add one a year.
• The big set: Natural Wood with 120 pieces, if you would rather have a proper supply in one go.

Four shapes come in more than one finish: mushrooms, flowers and snowflakes also come in rainbow colours, and the eggs come in rainbow or purple. The title always tells you which one you are looking at.

What children do with them

For toddlers it is about filling and tipping over: bowl empty, bowl full, again. Around three, ordering begins: by colour, by size, in rows, in circles. And from four or five the stories arrive: the shapes become money, food, family or stars. Because there is no right or wrong, children of different ages play with the same material at their own level.

Better still on a light table, in a wooden sorting tray or on a tuff tray.

Material and age

The shapes are wooden, handmade and hand-painted. That is why every piece is slightly different: variation in colour and grain comes with it.

Grapat gives an age of 3 and up for these sets. They are small loose parts, so they are meant for children who no longer put things in their mouth. The exact indication is on each product page.

Frequently asked questions about Grapat Mandala