There are about a billion toys on the market for toddlers. In fact, a billion may be a conservative estimate. Of course your toddler probably wants them all. I know mine does. So which ones should you get? Here is a list of our favorite toddler toys, and why they are the best!
Criteria for a Favorite Toddler Toys
In order for something to make this list, I had a couple of criteria. The toys had to met all of them to make the list.
- The toddler has to love them
- They have to encourage creativity
- They have to keep the child busy and entertained for more than 30 seconds
So here is what made our list!
Play Kitchen with Play Food and Dishes
This is a total win in my book. My son loves to play kitchen and restaurant. He likes to cook imaginary meals for his stuffed animals and for our family members. Its a great creative outlet for him. It also keeps him occupied for long periods of time, which is nice when momma needs to get something done. This tops the list for us of favorite toddler toys.
Building Blocks
Building with blocks is another great way to foster creativity in toddlers. My son loves to build all kinds of things. He builds castles, and rocket ships, and airplanes. Most of which look nothing like what they are supposed to be. However, to him, they are exactly as he imagines. The photo above is of a giant tub of mega bloks. This will keep him busy for extended periods of time. It definitely ranks on our list of favorite toddler toys.
Dollhouses / Play Houses
This is probably my son’s all time favorite on this list of favorite toddler toys. He got this for Christmas and he plays with it non-stop. If you’ve read my previous posts, you may have noticed that my son is obsessed with firefighters. I take him to classes at our local rec center and he likes to play with this one dollhouse. However, he pretends its his fire station. So when I came across this actual fire station play house, I was stoked. He will honestly play with this for hours at a time. He’s always imagining his little firefighter guys going out and rescuing people and saving the day.
Characters, Dolls, and Action Figures
These make the favorite toddler toys list for sure! You can find every variety of doll, super hero, or tv character in stores and online. These help foster my sons imagination so much. He acts out different imagined scenarios and has the figures interact with each other. As a mom, its pretty entertaining to watch. As you can see, we have quite a variety. He will bounce from one set to another and play different ways. These keep him entertained and busy, so they are a mom favorite too!
Dress Up Clothes
In my experience, kids love to pretend to be all sorts of things. If they can dress up and look the part, it just makes it that much more fun! I mentioned above that my son loves firefighters. So of course we have an outfit for him. He will run around the house putting out pretend fires and saving imaginary people for a good portion of the day. We have been renovating our house and my husband and I are always doing work. He wants to be like us, so he also has a construction outfit, complete with fully stocked tool box of plastic tools. He spends a good portion of his day pretending to fix things around the house. Old Halloween costumes can also be used for this.
Cars, Trucks, and Planes
I didn’t take a photo. Simply because there is no way I could ever fit all the cars, trucks, construction vehicles, airplanes, trains, and helicopters we own into one photo. I am not exaggerating when I say we have a massive amount of these favorite toddler toys. My son will sit and play with these for hours. Sometimes he plays with the big ones, and sometimes the matchbox sized, and sometimes the ones in between sizes. My niece loves them too. They will play construction site. Or fire rescue (because we own more firetrucks than I can count). They will race them, and park them, and run them over tracks and ramps.
These are our current favorite toddler toys…
I’d love to hear your favorites in the comments! I always am looking for things to keep my toddler entertained, and busy, learning, and imagining.
For more favorite toys, CLICK HERE!
This is a fabulous list! My boys love all of these items, their favorites being blocks and cars. My eldest loves Legos and my middle boy adores Mega Blocks. They both enjoy marble runs and Lincoln Logs, as well.
Great list of resources for my young grand kids. They love the play kitchens and any type of building blocks. Thanks for sharing.
My little one is just about to turn one and a half and I’m trying to find some fun new things for her that won’t take over our house. Fabulous list!
My 2 yo daughter LOVES her play kitchen. I think she likes it so much because she sees me in the kitchen all the time. She always wants to make me coffee and lunch, too cute! We’re starting dress up in the next few weeks, after I find a few dress up sets. I want some we can both wear, LOL.
It is so cute how the imitate us, isn’t it? My son LOVES to “help” which is great, but when I am cooking or something, I can’t let him and he would get so sad. The play kitchen solved that! I cook in my kitchen and he cooks in his now. And it is wise to invest in dress up stuff for yourself too. We have multiple fire hats and things like that. Usually either grandpa or I get dragged into playing along.
My toddler son had his toy kitchen for a while now… And up to now he is still using it! Definitely a toddler’s favorite! Thanks for the list! Might try to get pretend dress up clothes soon. ?
Great list! My 2 year old loves all of these type of toys at the moment. He also loves play doh and slime – oh the messy fun!
Great post!! My kids LOVE their play kitchen! Their imaginations run totally wild with it! ?
Great ideas! I have a 9 year old, and am doing it all over again with my now 14 month old. I was so good at keeping my 9 year old entertained and always engaging her, I’m struggling more with her sister. Definitely will be buying some Duplos; I’d forgotten all about them!
I love the criteria that the toys must be entertaining for 30 min plus. That can be tough! But I think these go-to toys can definitely meet the standard. My daughter especially loves playing with the kitchen
Yes! They must keep them entertained for a period of time! Momma has things to do and needs the kiddos busy for a block of time. We do screen time in my house, but I like to balance it with things that encourage learning and imagination and creativity.
Wonderful list! My son used to love all of these and was entertained by them immensely. He will still sit there and play with his cars for hours as long as he can make the crashing and destruction noises!
My nephews are at this age and these are all their favorite toys! What a great list!
My one year old LOVES his ball pit but soon enough we will have to find new toys to keep him occupied. Thank you for the ideas.
The favorite thing for my girls is making a doll house and use various characters and play at home… Well they will create a new world for their barbies, almost use every little or even broken toys to make a house for them??