Solid wood binoculars with kaleidoscope lenses. These binoculars can be adjusted like real ones to alter the width of your eyes. Age range: 3 Years And Older Product size: 5.04...
This simple manipulative refines hand-eye coordination, fine motor, and color-matching skills. The nylon interior ring holds the screwdriver in place when not in use. Suitable Age: 2 years+ Wooden matching...
An adventure in color, light and sound! Encourage sensory exploration by combining blocks to form new colors and sounds, or stack the blocks in a different order each time to...
A camera just like the grown-ups! camera with sound, made from beech wood. It has a kaleidoscope and capture button that emits the same sound like a camera. The camera...
A ringing telephone just like the grown-ups! Telephone with sounds made from beech wood. It comes with 7 soft plastic sound keys: home key, email, alarm, ring, camera, settings, and...
Stackable, colorful Cylinder Steps encourage fine motor and identification skills while exploring seriation and color gradients. Five rows of appealing, rubberwood cylinders in increasing size and transitioning colors are easy-to-grasp...
A wooden stacking under the sea rock with 18 wonderfully colored sea creatures including a shrimp, a squid, a crab, 2 eels, a sea urchin, a sea anemone, a starfish,...
A wooden stacking tree trunk with 19 stylishly colored animals and plants including an owl, a bat, a wolf, a squirrel, a woodpecker, an acorn, a mummy pig with her...
Six hardwood stacking squares feature inset-colored plexi for stacking, sorting, building, sequencing and creating imaginative, colorful constructions! Doubles as a stand-alone manipulative or an addition to hardwood block construction. Hardwood...
Developing minds increase their understanding of numbers and one-to-one correspondence sorting the tactile fraction shapes of Starter Triangle Fractions. Colorful rubberwood shapes are in the quarter, third, half and whole...
Your child will love to walk this pretty wooden turtle with its rainbow shell composed of 6 wooden arcs of circles. The rainbows pile up at will to form an...
Your child will learn shapes and colors through 2 levels of play with this adorable wooden dog. The objective is to turn the wheels to align identical shapes or those...
This wooden early-years toy lives up to its name! What could be more fun for little ones aged 12 months and over than picking up the pretty wooden hammer and...
Young musicians will love this wooden xylophone! 2 in 1 toy, it is also a pull-out toy they can take everywhere from their first steps. Thanks to a rubber part,...
Stimulate your toddler’s senses with this Touch Sensory Tray! This set includes 4 solid wood animal shapes with different tactile patches underneath, presented on a shape sorter tray. Encourages color...
This wood activity center is packed full of exciting features! Includes 4 quadrants in the shape of a tree with a variety of activities for baby: 6 tracks with animal-themed...
Tsumiki means "building block" in Japanese. This doll-house-shaped wooden block set has beautifully soft colors. A magnetic cover conceals a magical world of shapes just waiting to be piled up,...
Kiko+ & gg* UFO Wooden Balance Game is an intergalactic game for little outer space fans. Can you help the aliens board their wobbly UFO and get back to their galaxy far far...
This Michigan basswood wagon provides sturdy storage and transportation for 28 ABC blocks. Tote, sort, and store your blocks in this clever little wagon. Includes four full alphabets, colorful numbers,...
This set includes 4 solid wood shapes that let you see through various windows. Presented on a shape sorter tray and the 4 pieces encourage color and shape recognition through...
This is the Triceratops, a 3-horned herbivorous dinosaur that looks a bit like a rhino. Is that His ancestor? We do not know this, but the Triceratops and rhinoceros have...
An early learning toy that is ideal for becoming familiar with fractions, a simple mathematical concept, while having fun. Once the child places 1, 2, 3 or 4 pieces on...
It's the T-Rex! A powerful, two-legged creature. The former inhabitants of the planet remind us of the animals that are currently endangered, thanks to which we become sensitive to them...
A very solid and chunky wooden toy Indigo Jamm Flo The UFO with a spinning saucer. Complete with two colorful removable wooden aliens. This retro wooden toy is made of sustainable rubber...
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.