Draw a line. Drag a wet brush across it. The line softens, blurs, becomes a wash. The pencil that did that is the same one a two-year-old was scribbling with five minutes ago — extra-thick, hexagonal, with a small pink pig printed down the side.
It's a 3-in-1 — a coloured pencil, a wax crayon, and a watercolour pencil in a single chunky barrel. It's also a Staedtler, made in Nuremberg, and from this week we have it in Peppa Pig livery at Callender Street. Here's why it's worth a look.
A pencil maker that knows what it's doing
Staedtler have been making pencils in Nuremberg since 1835. The Noris range — that yellow-and-black hexagonal pencil you probably remember from school — has been in continuous production since 1901. Noris junior is the toddler-focused offshoot: extra-thick leads, chunky barrels, the lot. It's a serious bit of design work aimed at hands that haven't quite mastered the pincer grip yet.
What Staedtler have done with this licensed range is take that proven Noris junior format and put Peppa, George, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig on the side. Not just a sticker job — the pencils themselves are printed with Peppa designs, the packaging is properly licensed Hasbro artwork, and the products underneath are unchanged. You get the engineering, plus the small-person enthusiasm of a Peppa Pig logo.
What you're getting
The range covers the essentials of toddler art:
- 3-in-1 coloured pencils (6-pack £13.95 / 12-pack £26.95). The headline product — and the one that does the watercolour trick at the top of this page. Both packs include a sharpener sized for the extra-large barrel.
- Wax crayons (6-pack £2.50 / 12-pack £4.95). Chunky, hexagonal so they don't roll off the table, wrapped in Peppa-themed paper so little fingers stay clean. The 6-pack at £2.50 is, frankly, an excellent stocking-filler price.
- Fibre-tip pens (6-pack £3.95 / 12-pack £7.95). Water-based, ultra-washable ink. The cap meets ISO 11540 and BS 7272 — that's the British standard that ensures the cap is ventilated and safe if it ends up in a mouth.
- Finger paints (set of 4 tubes, £10.95). Vibrant, fast-drying, dermatologically tested, compliant with EN71 Part 7.
- Pavement chalks (6-pack £4.95). Jumbo 20mm chalks in rectangular format so they don't roll into the road. Six colours.
- Safety scissors (£2.25). Rounded edges, 10cm long, designed to cut paper but not hair, fabric, or skin. Tested as such.
Everything in the range is rated 2+, dermatologically tested, and packaged in cardboard with at least 80% recycled content. The packaging tells you what you need to know without burying it.
Why this matters for small hands
This is the bit that often gets glossed over. Two-year-olds don't hold pencils the way adults do. They use a palmar grasp — wrapping the whole fist around the barrel — and the extra-large diameter of the Noris junior pencil is sized specifically for that. As fine motor control develops, the hexagonal shape encourages the natural transition into a tripod grip without parents having to nag.
The thick leads matter too. A slim coloured pencil dropped on a wooden floor is a snapped lead and a frustrated child. Noris junior leads are roughly three times the diameter of a standard pencil lead. They survive.
And then there's the cap on the fibre-tips. That British Standard reference (BS 7272) isn't marketing fluff — it's the standard that came in after a number of choking incidents in the 1990s. Caps now have to be either large enough not to be inhaled, or ventilated so air can pass through if they are. Staedtler's caps meet the latter. It's a quiet safety detail you'd never notice unless you went looking.
The gift angle
If you're buying for a toddler — birthday, Christmas, a grandparent looking for something more enduring than a plastic toy — the 6-pack of 3-in-1 pencils at £13.95 is the standout. It looks the part on a shelf, it's substantial enough to feel like a proper present, and it'll genuinely get used. The 12-pack at £26.95 is the same idea scaled up for a child who's already showing interest.
The wax crayon 6-pack at £2.50 is the small-gift category — a stocking filler, a party-bag addition, or the something extra for the sibling who feels left out.
If you're stocking up for nursery age, or running a playgroup, talk to us. We can put together a selection.
At Callender Street this week
The range arrives in store this week and is now live on the website. As ever, if you'd like to see it in person before deciding, drop in — we'll have it out where small visitors can find it. There's a Christmas-themed version of the pencils and crayons coming in June, with gold and silver in the assortment, which we'll bring in for the festive run.
Peppa, on a pencil, made properly. We approve.
