Montessori Materials Wooden Winder for Preschool Early Learning Tool

The product is just as described. The wood feels smooth, and the ribbon's texture (grosgrain) is perfect to prevent it from unfolding after winding it. Beautiful addition to Montessori toddler shelf. I highly recommend.

Here is a fairly well-made hands-on unit consisting of a wooden box with a length of ribbon on a spool. A young child can pull on the wooden dowel affixed to one end of the wide, red ribbon, causing it to unwind from its spool. Once the ribbon has been extended, a large, toothed wheel on the side allows the child to reverse the process by winding the ribbon back into the box. It's a foundational concept, presented well by the simple, focused design of the toy.The box and wheel are formed from laminated sheets of wood, and seem sturdy, though I would have preferred for the wheel to be made differently, or at least for its notched circumference to be sealed or polished or something. Not that it was rough or splintery, but it just looked...unfinished. I'm not sure how else to express it. Where the teeth were cut into the wheel--across the laminated wood--just looked less professional than, say, the smooth, sanded edges and corners of the box itself. I would certainly expect the item to hold up to classroom use, probably for several years if it's always handled properly and not misused. Perhaps the ribbon could be yanked out by main force, detaching it from the rod mounted inside the box, but a rowdy toddler whom I frequently watch wanted to check this out when it arrived. They thought it was interesting to play with for several minutes, and though they don't have particularly gentle hands, the product held up to their experimentation, so it's pretty sturdy.I do think that $36 is a bit steep, especially for an item which doesn't offer a lot of extensions, and doesn't necessarily lend itself to imaginative free play. If you want this for a classroom, it may be a good choice for you, as several years of children could probably benefit from working with this material. In a private home, I wonder if this would be too much to lay out for an item which your child may only work with for a short time over all. Once they get how this works, there's not much else for them to do with it. You pull the ribbon out, then you wind it back up again, and repeat. How long that will remain interesting depends on the child, of course, but you can imagine that its deliberately focused, limited purpose may mean that it is easily outgrown.If you are definitely interested in owning such a product, than I do recommend this one. It's not flimsy, the ribbon seems to be the perfect length, and is of the flat, woven variety which doesn't easily tangle or twist, and the connections between the pieces (wheel to spool, spool to box, ribbon to spool, ribbon to wooden crosspiece on its free end) all seem secure.

Well made, correctly sized, and a very nice addition to our Montessori classroom! Highly recommended.

As expected