Play Time
PlanToys PlanToys Cooking Utensils
$30.00PlanToys Cooking Utensils is the perfect toy for fun pretend to play to encourage your little chef’s imagination and creativity! PlanToys Cooking Utensils Details: Suitable for infants 2 years+ Includes...
Hape Pound and Tap Bench Musical Toy
$36.00Hape’s Pound and Tap Bench is the perfect toy for your growing little musician! This music-maker lets your child practice scales and colors, encouraging musical expression, creativity and problem solving...
Hape Doctor On Call
$25.00Hape’s Doctor On Call is the ideal toy for your little doctor, which in turn can ease your baby’s visits to the real doctor! Suitable for children 3 years+ Made...
PlanToys PlanToys My First Phone
$16.00Get a call with the PlanToys Phone! A magnifier screen and a colorful beaded dial pad make a wonderful toy for interactive play and help to develop children’s dexterity and...
Hape Art Paper Roll
$10.00Perfectly sized for Hape art easels. Perfect for drawing, painting, and other creative expressions.
Hape Beauty Belongings Cosmetic Kit Toy Set
$26.00What look should we try today? The Beauty Belongings Toy Cosmetics Kit includes everything a little beautician and makeup artist needs for endless possibilities, just add imagination. This best-selling set...
Grimm's Authentic Grimm's Wooden Pull Along E...
$68.00If children have learned to walk, they like to pull something behind them. The blue Elephant is a great companion! Materials: lime wood, non-toxic water based color stain. Authentic Grimm's...
Holztiger Holztiger Wooden Animal Orca Whale
$18.00Holztiger’s stork is a great toy animal for entertaining your little one, perfect for endless hours of imaginative play! Made of hardwood Colored with water-based acrylic paint Dimensions:16.5 x 2.8...
Hape Walk A Long Snail Pull Toy
$34.00Hape’s Walk-A-Long is the perfect toy for your little walking explorer, with a pull-string so that he/she can take a friend for play on-the-go! Suitable for children 12m+ Includes snail...
PlanToys PlanToys Clatter
$26.00PlanToys Clatter is a fun musical toy that makes a click-clack sound that changes with play and goes from a soft ripple to a clattering crescendo. PlanToys Clatter Details: Age: 18...
Holztiger Holztiger Wooden Animal Small Running...
$12.00Holztiger’s Small Running Tiger is a great toy animal for entertaining your little one, perfect for endless hours of imaginative play! Made of hardwood Colored with water-based acrylic paint Dimensions:...
PlanToys PlanToys Rabbit Racing Car
$30.00PlanToys Rabbit Racing Car is the perfect toy for your little racer for endless pretend play! Includes turning wheel that gives the same movement as a real race car when...
Holztiger Holztiger Wooden Animal Crocodile
$18.00Holztiger’s Crocodile is a great toy animal for entertaining your little one, perfect for endless hours of imaginative play!_x000D_ Made of hardwood_x000D_ Colored with water-based acrylic paint_x000D_ Dimensions: 26 x...
PlanToys PlanToys Solid Drum
$32.00PlanToys Solid Drum is the perfect toy to inspire your little ones' musical creativity! PlanToys Solid Drum Details: Age: 18 months+ Includes drumsticks with rubber heads Helps develop the infant’s...
Brio Classic Figure Tain 8 Set
$80.00Brio’s Classic Figure Tain 8 Set is the perfect toy for your little conductor! This Set encourages creative play, as well as the use of both logic and imagination. Suitable...
Holztiger Holztiger Wooden Animal Pig
$14.00Holztiger’s Pig is a great toy animal for entertaining your little one, perfect for endless hours of imaginative play! Made of hardwood Colored with water-based acrylic paint Dimensions: 2.6 x...
Hape Shake and Match Sorter Box
$30.00Hape’s Shake and Match Shape Sorter is the perfect toy for your growing infant, helping them to develop multi-tasking skills! Suitable for children 12m+ Includes shape sorter with bead-filled blocks...
PlanToys PlanToys Rain Maker
$24.00Turn this Rain Maker over and hear the sounds of tranquil rainfall. Combine with other PlanToys musical items to create a band!
Jellycat Jellycat Book If I were a Polar Bear
$13.50Jellycat’s exciting If I were a polar bear book is colorful and sturdy enough for your child to grip by themselves, perfect for interactive play. Product Details: Suitable from birth. Features...
Jellycat Jellycat Sacha Snow Tiger
$35.00 – $200.00Sacha Snow Tiger is romping across the ice to meet you! With warm grey and creamy stripes, this scamp is warm against the winter. Our sweet snow tiger is wonderfully...
PlanToys PlanToys Pounding Bench
$50.00PlanToys Pounding Bench is the perfect toy for fun play to encourage your excited little one to burn off energy! When all the pegs are pounded, your child can just...
Hape Happy Buckets Toy Set
$18.00Three colourful buckets featuring water drainage providing fun interactions. Perfect for water play! Fill up the buckets with water, bubbles or carry your bath time friends around in the pails....
Brio Central Fire Station
$106.00At the rescue fire station, you have to be prepared for action. When the alarm goes off, slide down the slide to the fire truck which is ready for take-off,...
Jellycat Jellycat Bashful Flamingo
$28.00For the King of the Beasts, Bashful Flamingo is looking sweetly, well, bashful! He wants a caring companion to ruffle his luxurious caramel mane. Give this squeezy, butter-bellied big cat...
Play is essential for children because it contributes to their intellectual, physical, emotional and social development. When children play, they exercise their creativity, develop their imagination, master their dexterity, improve their cognitive ability and build physical strength. Experts agree that the best kinds of play allow kids to set their own goals, negotiate challenges, develop and share ideas, and make their own rules.
But how can we make sure our kids are getting enough healthy, unstructured play time when they’re growing up in an overscheduled and stressful environment, when parents are overly focused on producing high academic achievers, and safety concerns prevent us from letting our kids roam around freely and unsupervised? Perhaps the best thing we can do for our kids is to make sure they have the right kinds of toys at home to make play time most rewarding.
First and foremost is safety. Safe toys for young children are sturdy, without sharp parts or splinters, free of pinching hazards, and easy to clean. If the toy will be used by an infant, it’s important that parts aren’t small enough to become a choking hazard.
Toys must be made from non-toxic materials and coated with lead-free paints. You should steer clear of antique toys, second-hand toys and homemade toys that have not been tested and approved by a certified testing lab, or may have been produced before the current regulations governing toy manufacturing were in effect.
In addition to being safe, a good toy will match the child’s appropriate stage of development and abilities.
The best baby activity toys for infants between 0-6 months are things they can reach, grasp, suck on, shake, and make noise with. Some age-appropriate toys for little babies are squeeze toys, teething toys, soft dolls, textured balls, and board books.
Infants between 6-12 months are starting to crawl, sit up and pull themselves to a standing position. They are capable putting things in and out of containers and placing objects on top of each other. Some of the best baby activity toys for this age group are dolls, vehicles with wheels, bath toys, large beads, nesting toys, large soft blocks, wooden blocks, and push & pull toys.
As your child continues to grow, look for toys that will encourage them to explore, create, pretend, imagine, and learn from trial and error.