Toddler Fishing & Sorting Toy – Soft Fish, Counting Cups, Fold-Up Mat Bag

One set, four stages

A new game every few months

You have probably bought the toy that lasted two days, stepped on the one that flashes and sings, and packed away something they outgrew before you found the batteries. This set is different, because it changes as they do.

At first it is soft fish to squeeze and chew and bright cups to bang, stack and knock over. Then comes the day they lower the rod and the first fish sticks, and you see the look on their face. After that, they drop each fish into the cup that matches its colour. And then they count them in: one purple fish for cup 1, all five reds for cup 5.

• Squeeze and stack: from about 6 months.
• First catch: around 1 year.
• Sort the colours: around 2 years.
• Count them in: from about 3 years.

Learning through play

You will remember the day it clicks

You will not need flashcards. You will just be on the floor together, saying "red fish, red cup" for the hundredth time. Then one afternoon they pick up a yellow fish, look at the cups and drop it into the yellow one all by themselves, then turn around to check you saw.

Every fish has a matching cup, and every cup has a number that matches how many fish belong in it. So colours, counting and steady little hands all come from a game they would play anyway. It never feels like a lesson, to them or to you.

To be fair, it will not happen in the first week. Plenty of one-year-olds spend the first while chewing the fish and throwing the cups, and the fishing clicks a few months later. That is not the toy failing. That is stage one.

Soft where it matters

Easy first catches, with no magnets

The fish catch with a soft hook-and-loop fastener instead of magnets, so there are no tiny magnets to worry about and nothing hard swinging at the end of the line. The short rod and grabby fastener mean even a one-year-old can land a fish.

The fish are plush and washable, the rod is made of fabric and the float is soft, so nothing hard swings near anyone's face. The only firm pieces are the stacking cups.

Tip: the hook catches best when it is lowered straight down onto a fish, so expect to help with the first few catches.

Cleanup in seconds

Everything goes back in the pond

Most toddler toys mean forty pieces, a basket that never holds them all, and one fish under the sofa three weeks later. Here, the pond mat is the bag.

Put the fish and cups in the middle, fold it in half and carry it by the handles. It hangs on a hook, slides into a nappy bag and comes out at a restaurant table or at Grandma's with every piece still inside.

Good to know: folded up, it is smaller than you might picture, about the size of a hardcover book.

Ready to go anywhere

Quiet play at home, in the car or on a trip

It is small enough for the nappy bag and quiet enough for a restaurant, a waiting room, a flight or the back seat. No batteries, no noise, nothing to assemble.