This is the sort of tiny detail that jumps out at me from ancient writings, because it draws a picture of daily life that would otherwise be invisible to us. Gregory of Nyssa describes the hard life of an honest farmer:
“He was one of those farmers who are always bent over the plough, and spend a world of trouble over their little farm; and in the winter, when he was secured from agricultural work, he used to carve out neatly the letters of the alphabet for boys to form syllables with, winning his bread with the money these sold for.” ——Against Eunomius, I.6.
Now I know that little boys in the eastern part of the Roman Empire used to play with toy wooden letters in Gregory of Nyssa’s time (he wrote Against Eunomius in about 380).