Beautiful craftsmanship
The Trace Place board is silky smooth and the engraving is crisp. My 3-year-old traces the shapes every morning while I make coffee.
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Trace & PlaceWooden Shape Tracing Puzzle
Handmade in the UK from five hardwoods
Oak
Padauk
Purpleheart
Zebrano
Tigerwood
Free UK delivery
Dispatched within one working day.
25 characters max
Free returns within 90 days, personalised pieces too.
Lost or broken pieces replaced, for life.
Every order comes in our cotton bag, ready to give.
Earns you 42 leaves · Discover Tilia
Heirloom quality.
Backed by our Multiple Lifetime Guarantee.
Solid hardwoods.
No paints, no dyes — just natural character.
Montessori-aligned.
Designed for independent, focused play.
Two Tools in One
Trace & Place combines the best of both worlds: removable letter tiles for puzzle play, and engraved grooves for tracing practice. It's literacy learning that adapts to your child's mood and stage.
Specifications
Age
3+
A guideline — you know your child best.
Safety
UKCA & CE (EN71)
Supercharge your little one’s journey into geometry, design and natural science with Trace and Place, our heirloom-quality double-sided tracing board. Crafted from sustainably sourced oak (2 cm thick, 50 cm long × 12 cm wide) and finished with a plant-based oil that highlights its beautiful grain, each board arrives wrapped in soft, natural wool felt—both protective and perfectly in tune with our eco-conscious ethos.
One side features eight precision-machined exotic-wood shapes (each roughly 5 cm across, oval and polygon alike), each housed in its own pocket alongside a snug oak stylus. Flip it over and discover a fresh constellation of outlines to spark new tracing adventures. As children slot, trace, and rotate each piece, they’re building spatial reasoning, fine-motor control, hand-eye coordination and pre-writing strokes—core STEM skills wrapped up in open-ended fun.
But Trace and Place is more than a puzzle. Every set includes our Wood Explorer booklet—inviting families into the Oak & Sprout “Wood Explorers Hub,” where short videos and free printables deepen curious minds’ knowledge of oak, padauk, purpleheart and more.
Designed for seated play from 12 months onward, its chunky weight and tactile surfaces also appeal to early positional and sensory schemas: balancing, sorting, stacking—and imagining whole worlds. Whether they’re architects of dream castles, budding engineers sketching bridges, or future inventors refining steady strokes, Trace and Place offers a lifetime of discovery and delight.
We poured our hearts into creating a toy that nurtures the next Brunel-mind—because if he’d traced curves and angles here, we’re sure he’d have loved it.
Crafted by Nature, Perfected by Hand
The Story Behind Our Woods
At Oak & Sprout, we believe every toy should have a story. That’s why we choose woods that don’t just look beautiful, but have their own natural character. For example, our vibrant Purpleheart isn’t just a colour— we had to switch to diamond-tipped blades to be able to shape one of the world’s densest woods.
Naturally Colourful, Wonderfully Unique
We never use artificial dyes. Instead, we let woods like Padauk and Purpleheart reveal their own rich hues over time. Each piece is a little bit of nature’s own artwork, making every toy one-of-a-kind.
Built to Inspire and Challenge
Toys like our Shelly Slow puzzle are crafted to be engaging again and again. We design them so that each assembly is a fresh adventure, encouraging little ones to think, explore, and build resilience—all while playing.
Want to know more?
Two learning modes
Puzzle play for letter recognition, tracing for pre-writing skills.
Adapts to your child's stage
Start with matching, progress to tracing as they grow.
Builds muscle memory
Tracing the grooves prepares the hand for forming letters.
Self-correcting design
Each tile fits only in its designated spot.
Heirloom quality
Crafted from solid hardwoods to last for generations.
Delivery
Free UK delivery on orders of £20 or more
We are pleased to offer free delivery by Royal Mail Tracked 48 on every UK order of £20 or more; orders under £20 are charged £1.95.
Orders placed before 4:30pm, Monday to Friday, are dispatched the same day. Should you need your order sooner, next-day delivery is available at checkout for £2.95.
Returns
90 days to return, with free return postage
We are pleased to offer 90 days from delivery to return your order, and we will provide a prepaid Royal Mail Tracked 48 label at no cost to you. Personalised and engraved pieces are included.
You may choose a refund, an exchange or a gift card. Refunds are made to your original payment method once your return is back with us and checked. How returns work
Multiple Lifetime Guarantee
Covered for life, whoever owns it
Should a piece ever break, develop a fault or go missing, we will restore or replace it free of charge, for the life of the toy and for whoever owns it next. Read about our guarantee
Trace & Place
Sale price£42.22
Regular price£64.95
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Trace & Place
Sale price£42.22
Regular price£64.95
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To go with it
The Essential Companion
The Montessori Playmat
In Montessori education, the work mat defines the child’s workspace — a bounded area that fosters focus, independence, and respect for materials. Children carry their chosen activity to it, work, and return everything when finished. This is the Montessori work cycle.
Our playmat brings this principle home. It creates a "prepared environment" - a core Montessori concept - wherever your child chooses to learn. On the kitchen table, the living room floor, or at a grandparent's house.
- Defines a focused workspace for independent learning
- Protects surfaces and keeps pieces contained
- Rolls up for easy storage and travel
The Foundation
Where the Hand Leads, the Mind Follows
The Oak Range is where learning begins — with the simplest, most fundamental interactions. Trace a letter. Count a number. Fit a shape. Find your breath. Every product in this range is built from oak because oak is what we started with. Strong, smooth, and patient. It doesn’t need exotic colour to earn its place.
Before the puzzles get harder and the pieces get smaller, these are the first tools. The ones that build the grip strength for pencils, the spatial awareness for geometry, and the focus for everything that comes after.
The Woods
Five Exotic Hardwoods
Oak
A strong, honey-toned European hardwood with a distinctive open grain. The foundation of the range.
Padauk
A vibrant orange-red African hardwood that mellows to a warm burgundy over time. Bold, dense, and instantly recognisable.
Purpleheart
A vivid, natural purple that deepens with age. One of the most striking woods on earth.
Zebrano
Dramatic dark stripes on a warm golden background — like a fingerprint in wood. Every piece is unique.
Tigerwood
Warm amber with dark streaks that catch the light. A lively, energetic grain.