Play Time
Plantoys Climbing Gorilla
$36.00Welcome the adorable PlanToys Climbing Gorilla into a child’s play routine. The Climbing Gorilla helps toddlers develop fine and gross motor skills while encouraging them to take their first steps....
Haba Clutching - Magica
$20.00Clutching Magica teether is the perfect toy to entertain your little one as well as to help them work on their grasping skills!Clutching Magica Details: Suitable for children 6m+ Made...
Jellycat Clyde Capybara Bag Charm
$30.00Bring Clyde Capybara with you on every adventure, in handy bag charm form. With soft, two-toned fur and ditty brown suedette claws and snout, Clyde offers a soothing everyday joy...
PlanToys Coast Guard Boat PBS Kids Edition
$20.00Answer the call of duty and bring heroic adventures to life! With the Coast Guard Boat – PBS Edition, kids can protect the shores, rescue those stranded at sea, and...
Haba Coburg Building Blocks
$60.00Calling all master builders! Here is a chance to show what you can do as an architect. Block by block, a magnificent city arises. There are no limits on your...
Indigo Jamm Colin Camper Van
$90.00Camper Van is a retro camper van complete with a wooden mom, dad, two children, and a wooden dog. Made from durable rubberwood and plywood with an attractive paintwork finish,...
Great Pretenders Color An Apron Princess
$24.00Colouring made fun! This Colour-An-Apron features mint satin ribbon ties and velcro closure for easy on and off. A cotton lace trim outlines the scalloped edge hem and each color...
Ooly Color in Book Enchanting Unicorns
$6.95About this product Delightful 31 page Enchanting Unicorns Coloring Book for kids with fun and inspiring designs, complete with perforated pages for easy framing and gifting. Enchanting Unicorns Coloring Book...
BeginAgain Color N Eggs Bilingual Puzzle
$12.00The Color N Eggs Puzzle is a wooden puzzle, language learning toy, and character play set all in one! The chicken characters are great for inspiring storytelling and introducing colors in...
PlanToys Colored Snap Camera
$26.00Colored Snap Camera is a great way to encourage imaginative play. It has 3 different lenses: clear, yellow and blue with a viewfinder to see through. Kids will enjoy rotating...
Chronicle Books Colorful World of Dinosaurs Book
$18.95Did you know that Argentinosaurus was as heavy as a herd of elephants? That Mosasaurus was three times the length of a great white shark? That Microraptor was the size...
Moulin Roty Coloring and Sticker Book Little Scho...
$16.00Follow the little mice and their friends from home to the Opera House as they prepare for the great ballet! A 20-page coloring book with detailed and sophisticated illustrations...
Moulin Roty Coloring Book and Sticker - Once Upon...
$16.00Moulin Roty Description This 20 page coloring book is an illustration of an entire house from Once Upon a Time collection. The artist drawings propose eight different rooms that become...
Hachette Coloring Book Andy Warhol
$12.00Mudpuppy's Andy Warhol Coloring Book features the iconic pop artist's greatest hits ready to be colored in and customized by young artists. Introduce well-known classics like Andy's Campbell's Soup Cans...
Moulin Roty Coloring Book with Stickers The Paris...
$16.00The new edition of the 20-page coloring book from The Parisiennes collection with delicate pencil sketches, illustrated by Lucille Michieli, depicting a variety of scenes that can be brought to...
Cali's Book Colors Interactive Sing Along Book
$29.00Introduce your baby or toddler to the world of colors with this interactive sound book. Featuring six kid-friendly sing-along songs, with extended versions and newly-added lyrics, your little one will...
Great Pretenders Colour-A-Cape Spider Super Hero
$34.00Every hero needs a cape! The Colour-A-Cape Spider Superhero is the perfect addition to your crime-fighter's wardrobe. Save the day or defeat monsters in the backyard with personalized style and...
Magnatiles Combo 62-Piece Magnatiles Set
$52.00Peanut butter and jelly, MAGNA-TILES® and Meaningful Play, microMAGS tiles and Classic tiles – some combos just work! In fact, our kid testers loved how microMAGS and Classic tiles worked together to create unique builds, so we had...
PlanToys Concertina
$36.00Concertina is the perfect toy to inspire your little ones' musical creativity! As it is squeezed in and out, different notes and pitches play. Concertina Details: Age: 18 months+ Learn...
Janod Confetti Music Live Musical Set
$66.00Red, yellow, green, orange !!! Confetti, a complete line of musical toys featuring Pop N’ Rock designs! Confetti awakens all of the senses and introduces the youngest musicians to the...
Connetix Connetix 106pc Pastel Ball Run
$132.00Featuring pastel connector tiles and 8 pastel wooden balls, along with our classic ball run pieces – unique exclusively designed clear fluted tubes, x2 special effect stair soundscape tubes, x2...
Connetix Connetix 120pc Pastel Creative
$164.00Designed to encourage hours of limitless creativity, fun and learning through PLAY, our Pastel Creative Pack features a variety of shapes in 8 pastel colours. It is a great starter option...
Connetix Connetix 202pc Pastel Mega Pack
$274.00Featuring all our standard tile shapes in 8 unique earthy pastel colours PLUS two car bases, this pack is the ultimate option to kickstart or grow your magnetic tile collection....
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.