Recently, the good people at Think Thank sent us a Wikki Stix Mini Play Pak that consists of eight Wikki Stix in assorted colours and an idea sheet on how to use and play with these sticky things. Wikki Stix are yarn-like sticks for creative play made in the States that’s totally safe, non-toxic and allergy-free. They are made from acrylic hand-knitted yarn and a food-grade, microcrystalline wax, derived from the petroleum refining process (which is also found in lip balm and cheese) and are great for independent play and learning.

When Ben and Becks saw the Play Pak, they’d thought they were in for a gummy treat! When they realised they couldn’t exactly eat them, they took the Stix apart and clowned around with them. They didn’t actually manipulate or mould them into anything immediately. We were learning a lot about animals the past week, so it was no surprise that they first imagined them to be colourful worms, and then proceeded to stick the Stix on each other’s bums and laughed at their “tails”.

I took the chance to teach them colours and shapes. Since the Stix adhered to any type of smooth surface and are self-sticking in nature, I turned an Ikea box/tray over and got them to make the shapes they knew.

I wished we had more Stix in the pack and that they were longer in length to mould and twist. At some point, the kids were snatching each other’s Stix because there weren’t enough to go around.

After playing with shapes, we wanted to see if the Stix could stick on glass surfaces too, and since we had a glass kitchen door, we used some Stix to make the first three letters of the alphabet.

Again, I wished we had more of them to go around so I could complete my lesson on the 26 letters of the alphabet. But who was I kidding? At three and two, as you can see from the last picture, they were more interested in making worms of all sorts – spiny worms, curly worms, all-bunched-up worms. They had more fun with worms and tails than shapes and letters with Wikki Stix!

MORE DETAILS:

• Wikki Stix is now in Singapore! You can check out their facebookpage here.
• You can also contact Adeline at info@thethinkthank.com or visit the Wikki Stix website for more details about the product and where to get it.
• *UPDATE*: Good news! Readers of this blog can enjoy a 10% discount off Wikki Stix come September! Watch this space for the promotional code!