Stabilo Early Writers Pens and Pencils

Stabilo are incredibly well-known for their huge range of writing and drawing equipment, we've all used their products before, and they are consistently good quality, reliable and long-lasting.

Stabilo have a range called Early Writers with pens and pencils for beginners and our two youngest are trying them out. Included are a red Woody 3in1 pencil crayon, a yellow 'Trio Scribbi' felt pen, a Trio Thick pencil crayon,  an EASYgraph pencil and a worksheet.

Boy no.3 is 5 years old, has just started in reception and is right-handed.

Boy no.4 is 3 1/2 years old, has just started nursery and is left-handed.

Woody 3in1 pencil crayons are really great. They're a colored pencil, watercolor and wax crayon all in one, so your child can really stretch their imaginations and ideas as their abilities grow. They have super fat lead that is as thick as 8 standard pencils and so very difficult to accidentally break, and they are available in 18 different colours.

Trio Scribbi felt tips have a triangular shape, which helps children to hold correctly. It has a genius tip that really impresses me no end. When you press too hard, the tip goes inside the pen, but then springs back out. Fantastic for children who are only just learning because they generally press too hard with felt pens because they're used to pencils and ball points.

Trio Thick pencil crayons have the familiar ergonomic triangular design and are available in 18 colours and 2 lengths. The colours are bright and bold and go onto the page well, so the artist can see that what they are doing is working

EASYgraph pencils again have the triangular shape to encourage children to get a good handshape, and they also have staggered grip zones, which will never be in the 'wrong place' as you use the pencil because they occur all the way from one end to the other. Importantly for me and my family, they are available for left and right handed children. There is a distinguishing letter and colour at the end of the pencils - yellow for left-handed and red for right handed.

We were really impressed with all of the range we tried, and the boys really enjoyed having a go at the worksheets.

It was lovely to see that the shaped pencils and pens really did encourage both of them to hold correctly and they didn't become frustrated with the pencils at all, because the 'lead' is really quite soft and very easy to draw and write with.

They both particularly liked drawing the caterpillar, adding circles to form the body and, in the case of my 5 year old, adding some snails...

My 3 year old did an excellent job, and then he drew us a spider....very impressive....

I really like these pencils and pens. I know that it's a great thing to encourage children to hold correctly from day 1 as bad habits are hard to break, and I really think these products will help with that. My boys enjoyed using them and had great fun with the worksheets.

Stabilo have a whole section of their website devoted to Early Writers with loads of resources, advice and information. It's well worth a look and it features free printable activity sheets that you can put together yourself using a range of different elements that suit and interest your own child.

We were sent the samples as shown to review.