I bought this for my daughter when she was a about four months old. She would pick up the pieces and liked to look at the shapes. She then was able to identify colors, then shapes, then match the shapes, and eventually fit the shapes into the holes. We would stack the shapes and see how high we could get before she knocked them down. We would wear the yellow lid as a hat (which she LOVED!), and see what other toys can fit into the pail. My daughter is now three, and my one-year-old son plays with this all the time. His sister has begun teaching him how to put the shapes in the holes. We rotate our toys frequently (every couple of weeks) so we have a limited number of toys in the play area at any given time, and this is almost always in the play area. They never seem to get tired of it. It is a simple toy, and I think it is the best value that I have seen.