Hape Alphabet Wooden Puzzle

Hape’s Alphabet puzzle has 26 wooden letter pieces fitting into a wooden tray, each over a picture of an item starting with that letter (A on apple, B on bear, etc.). It’s a quietly excellent letter-recognition tool — the picture cues let a child solve the puzzle even before knowing the letters. Once they’ve solved it a few times, they’ve absorbed the alphabet without anyone explicitly teaching it. Hape’s finish is impeccable.