Oreo Matching Shapes

There’s something about a jar of cookies that small hands find hard to resist, and this set turns that pull into thoughtful play. Each pretend sandwich cookie has three parts: a chocolate-brown “biscuit” top embossed with a classic pattern, a base with a raised shape, and a creamy white filling with a matching shape cut out of it. Children look at the shape on the base, search for the filling that fits it, and press the cookie together. A star goes with a star, a heart with a heart, an oval with an oval.

It starts as a matching game and easily becomes more. Cookies can be sorted, counted, stacked, served at a tea party or “sold” in a pretend bakery. Older children can play a memory game by hiding the fillings and remembering which shape is missing. Because there’s more than one way to play, the set can keep a child interested well beyond the first time they’ve matched every shape.

The pieces are smooth, wipe-clean plastic and pack neatly back into their clear jar with a screw-top lid. It’s easy to store, easy to take along, and satisfying to tip out and start again.

What’s Included

• 12 × cookie tops, chocolate brown, embossed “biscuit” design
• 12 × cookie bases, each with a raised shape (shapes include star, heart, oval and rectangle/diamond)
• 1 × clear storage jar with blue screw-top lid

Cookie diameter: approx. 6 cm | Jar: approx. 12 cm high ×9 cm wide
Recommended age: 2+ years 

What the OT Says

What I love about this set is that it gives a child a clear, achievable goal (find the one that fits) while quietly asking a lot of their visual perceptual skills. To match the fillings, a child has to notice the difference between similar shapes, like an oval and a circle, or a rectangle and a diamond. They also need to recognise a shape when it’s turned at a different angle from the one on the base. These skills, visual discrimination and form constancy, later support letter and number recognition, so building them through play is really valuable.

The fine motor demands are better than they first appear. Picking up a flat disc from the table takes finger isolation and a controlled pincer or tripod grasp. Fitting the filling onto its base often means rotating it in the hand until the points of the star or the dip of the heart line up, which is in-hand manipulation. Pressing the layers together also uses bilateral coordination: one hand stabilises while the other aligns and pushes. Children learn to grade their force, too, pressing firmly enough to fit the pieces without forcing them.

Beyond the motor and visual skills, the set offers a lot of language and early numeracy: naming shapes, talking about “same” and “different”, counting cookies, and sharing them out one each. In pretend play it becomes a natural setting for turn-taking, offering, asking and waiting, so it can support social-emotional learning too. Depending on how you use it, the same set can be a quiet independent matching task or a busy, chatty bakery game.

As an occupational therapist, I look for toys that let children build real skills without play feeling like work, and this one does that. It’s also light, wipe-clean and packs into its own jar, so it’s just as practical in a therapy bag or classroom as on the playroom shelf. I’d recommend it for home, preschool and clinical use alike.