Best toys for toddlers
I think every parent’s dream is find toys for their children that occupies the child’s time for hours, freeing you up to do some grown-up things, like mindlessly browsing stuff on your phone, to give yourself a mental and physical break. The best toys are ones that are sensory, have lots of replay value, lets your child use his/her imagination, and are good quality.
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Whether you want to dive into the world of Thomas the Tank Engine (and all his friends) or into the BRIO train world, having a good set of wooden train tracks is always fun for the toddler to configure and use his/her imagination in that world. Don’t play into gender stereotypes and only get this if you have a boy — girls will easily love these too. The only thing about BRIO trains and sets is that they get pretty expensive if you are looking to expand the world. Luckily, there are lots of compatible train sets that you can buy too. Buying the various Thomas and friends train engines can quickly turn into an expensive hobby though!
Magna Tiles are the default name brand to look into purchasing for magnet tiles. These will let your child exert their creativity in building a whole range of things — limited only by their imagination — and the number of tile pieces you have. We’ve purchased the cheaper kind and the quality is just as good. A downside is that you probably have to buy at least 2 sets in order to build some of the larger, more complex things.
We swear by these magnetic blocks if they are complemented by having your toddler watch the “Numberblocks” show (it is on Netflix as of this writing). Our son was so engrossed by numbers and math after watching this show, that he began spouting math truths (what is 5+7? 12! 25 is a square number, etc.) and understanding division as a toddler. We could see the gears turning in his head as he’s imagining how the number blocks are formed, so these magnetic blocks let him do it in a physical, sensory space.
Having a good set of wooden blocks for creative building is good to have lying around. Our toddler has used these to build many things such as castles, towers, and houses. It starts getting interesting when it’s used with other building sets materials, such as magnet tiles. We like the ones from PBS and from Melissa & Doug.
LEGO blocks are a given to let your kid spend hours playing and imagining worlds. We love that LEGO DUPLO came out with this Chinese themed set that contains pieces like steamed dimsum, red envelopes, and teacups. Nice representation for Asians!