Grimm’s Monochrome House is the perfect versatile toy for your little one! Your toddler can have endless fun stacking the house, and as they grow your children can use the...
Grimm’s Small Tunnel Monochrome is the perfect versatile toy for your little one! Your toddler can have endless fun stacking the tunnel, and as they grow your children can use...
Grimm’s Pastel Rainbow is the perfect versatile toy for your little one! Your toddler can have endless fun stacking the rainbow, and as they grow your children can use the...
These pebble blocks are perfect for balance and stacking challenges, decorating scenic play, making a stony puppet show landscape, and building cairns. This four-piece set is painted in gorgeous graduated...
This unique Semicircle Platform Building Set opens the door to a world of new possibilities for budding architects! Included are 11 wooden half-round pieces, each of diminishing size. These versatile platforms can be...
These small solid wooden balls are the perfect size for a variety of marble runs. They are a wonderful 3-D matching puzzle and sorting game for even the littlest...
These pebble blocks are perfect for balance and stacking challenges, decorating scenic play, making a stony puppet show landscape, and building cairns. This four-piece set is painted in gorgeous graduated...
The small Mixed Forest is perfect in combination with our building blocks. Perfect to combine with: Grimm's Houses, Geo-Blocks, Small Bobbins, and 7 Friends Authentic Grimm's Mixed Forest Toy Details:...
Grimm’s Monochrome 3 in a Boat is the perfect versatile toy for your little one! Authentic Grimm's 3-in-1 Boat Toy Monochrome Details: Perfect in combination with Grimm’s Rolling Boats...
This set of Rainbow Wooden Peg Dolls includes 12 peg people in a variety of rainbow hues. Authentic Grimm's Rainbow Friends Toy Details: Includes: 12 peg dolls Size: Figures - 2.5...
The elemental cubic form of these blocks inspires children to build simple walls, foundations, fences, stalls as well as houses, towers, and castles. The basic shape is also very useful...
An open-ended and versatile toy, this Wooden Nesting Bridge set can be used as a stacking and nesting toy, or as bridges for toy cars and scenic play. Each set...
Even little master builders realize the fascination of architecture Romanesque with its self-supporting round arcs and the bulky stonework of great churches, castles, or city walls. This can be used...
A five-piece nesting house by Grimm's in rainbow colors. Stagger the pieces to create a deep chamber, or use them separately to create a house and outbuildings. Authentic Grimm's Rainbow...
Grimm’s Set of Bowls is the perfect versatile toy for your little one! Your toddler can have endless fun stacking, sorting, nesting and using the bowls for imaginary play! Authentic...
First threading game with discs and with a wooden needle for small hands. Your child can sew together six colorful circles and make pretty patterns and pieces of art on the...
This tall and colorful stacking toy features 10 brightly colored rings on a blue base with a natural wooden dowel at its center. A classic wooden toy that grows with the child,...
A smaller, beginner set of 30 colored wooden blocks in geometric shapes. The thirty pieces include triangles. cubes and rectangles. The unvarnished finish helps prevent the blocks from slipping while...
Seven colors and five different geometric forms offer a wide range of color, coordination, and building combinations. Children experience and discover geometric properties through play. Ideal for Kindergarten: For example,...
Carved out of a single block of hardwood, these six Water Waves Nesting Blocks nestle together to create a stacking toy as well as a simple nesting puzzle. Children love...
Give your little tinker Hape’s Fix-It Tool Box and help them learn what each tool is to develop their building skills! Includes Nuts, bolts, hammers and more! Suitable for children...
Protein is important for building muscles. Practice preparing foods like beef, chicken, fish and bacon with this realistic kitchen playset. Includes play knife and lemon wedge.
Can't wait to grow up and become a real baker? Then practice makes perfect, and with the Mix & Bake Blender, children can pretend to bake using their own flour...
Will you be paying with cash or card today? The Checkout Register from Hape has the ability to take both! This best-selling, innovatively designed play set features a money drawer,...
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.