I’ve been getting a lot of emails and messages on my facebook page asked me what toys I suggest for certain ages. I am far from a guru on all things toys and gift giving and I am somewhat picky about the toys my children are given, but since so many people have been asking I thought I would share some of our favourite toys and gift ideas.
This week I’ve asked my kids to help me write a list of the toys they have loved the most over the years. We have included toys that have been loved by all our kids, toys that have lasted, and toys that have stood the test of time.
We have not included books or art supplies and creative activities in this list as I’ll share those separately soon.
Where I can I will share a link to where you can find these toys or to posts on my blog that give you more information – none of them are affiliate links so I do not make money if you buy via the links, but I have been lucky enough to work with some of my these brands and toy stores on my blog in the past.
Here are some of our favourite toys for toddlers to tweens!
2-3 year olds
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Wooden blocks – a simple set of small blocks and added extras such as wooden trees, castle blocks and more.
Grimms Rainbow, Fire and Water Elements Stackers
DUPLO
A play kitchen with food and tea set – we got our lovely wooden stove and sink from a local market and we’ve collected lots of wooden play food over the years and it is still played with every day.
A swing – our plain old boring swing has seen more use over the years than just about any toy we’ve ever owned!
A water/sand table – you don’t have to buy a commercial one, try some of these water table options.
Dress ups – just collect old clothes, hats and bags, or sew some simple items, they don’t need to be fancy!
3 – 5 year olds
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Tap Tap
Schleich and Papo fantasy figurines – elves, fairies, knights, dragons, mythical beasts and more.
Cars and road signs
A simple Hot Wheels loop the loop set (this basic set has been much loved and much better than all the more complicated ones we’ve had)
The Shopping Game – a great first game
6-9 year olds
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LEGO – I am ashamed to admit just how much LEGO we have, but we love it. All the kids love it, even Noah who is four and a half has been using little LEGO for a while now, and he’s really loving the new LEGO Junior sets that I wrote about recently.
Magformers – this magnetic construction set is expensive but awesome!
Uno and Jenga – great family games with simple rules.
Scrabble Junior – a good introduction to word games.
Circuits set – clip circuit sets are a good simple set to begin with, we have the Short Circuits I Book and Project Kit from Jaycar which is more involved but great for kids with a real interested in the way things work.
Stick-lets – add a few sticks or some pvc pipes and your kids will build all kinds of things with these.
10-12 year olds
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Just Dance – we were sent a copy of Just Dance 2015 to try out and my kids all LOVE it. We’ve collected all the Just Dance games over the years because we all love to dance, and I love that it is a game all four kids can play together, and it gets them up and moving, great for a rainy day and the best console game we’ve tried.
Skipbo – a card game like Uno but a little harder.
Microscope set – We have one that plugs into the computer so you can see it on the screen, but this set looks good.
Music – a cd payer or dock for an ipod and a voucher to buy music or audio books.
A day out – not technically a toy, but we’ve found as our kids have gotten older their favourite gifts are often a family day out – a day at the water park, a day at the snow, a special experience at the zoo. We give them fake tickets with a future date on them and then go all out on the day and the kids talk about it for months after, plus there is no extra stuff added to our house!
You’ll notice that there are more options in the younger age categories, that’s because my big kids still love to play dress-ups, they still play with the Schleich figurines and the wooden blocks and they all love the Lego. That means we’ve gotten 8+ years play out of many of these items!
Win a LEGO Junior Set!
This competition is now closed! Congratulations to our winners – Jo, Molly and Olivia!
To give you a helping hand with your Christmas shopping I have three LEGO Juniors sets to give away!
Three lucky readers will win either a LEGO Juniors Princess Castle set (see it in action here), a LEGO Juniors Police set, or a LEGO Juniors Batman set.
To enter just leave a comment on this post and tell me which set you’d like to win and tell me about the worst toy your children have ever had. The most interesting and funny answers will win.
Entries are open to Australian residents only and close midday December 10 2014. See below for for full terms and conditions.
Competition Terms and Conditions.
You must be an Australian resident to enter.
You must provide a valid email address and entries are limited to one per household.
Entries close Wednesday December 10 2014 at midday EST
Entries will be judged on merit and creativity.
Three winners will each receive one LEGO Juniors set – prizes may differ to the ones shown here.
Winners will be contacted by email and announced on this post by Monday Nov 3 2014.
The winner must contact me within 5 days or the prize will be re-drawn.
The winner agrees to have their contact details passed on to the appropriate PR company or brand representative who will send out/organise the prizes directly.
Please note: Prizes are not guaranteed to arrive before Christmas
{Disclosure: we were given a copy of Just Dance 2015 review. I have worked with LEGO Juniors, Finlee and Me and Entropy in the past but I was not asked nor obligated to mention them in this post. This post is not endorsed by any brand or company. All opinions are my own. }
My son was actually given a squashed Matchbox car by an elderly relative. It looked like she had found it on the road after it had been run over by a car! However because the wheels still went round (just), my young, car obsessed son loved it and it is still part of our Matchbox car collection today! My son is now obsessed with all things Lego and would love the Lego Juniors Police Station!
The worst toy ever was the foot high barbie ballerina which your child was meant to emulate with sensors on their wrist and ankle to learn to dance – as soon as my partner saw he it made animatronics whirring noises and moving like a jerky robot and told me it’d be rubbish. Well he wasn’t wrong, but worse than the motorised creepiness was that somehow barbie expected physics defying moves from her young students, leading to much frustration!
The LEGO juniors batman seems like a much more fun and safer bet!
We’d love a castle lego set!
Every time the kids get one of those craft sets like “make a handbag/puppet/makeup” etc I am worried that the person who bought that gift for my kids secretly hates me. Especially if the set contains glitter.
I’d love to win the Lego’s Junior police set for my 4 year old. The worst “toy” my kids ever had was a rabbit corpse.
Here on the farm rabbits are a pest. One day when my husband was out with my then two year old, Toby, he saw a rabbit run into a log. He threw a stone at the log hoping to scare the rabbit out so that Toby would see it. Instead by pure luck he managed to hit the actual rabbit on the head and kill it. It was a shot that you could never do on purpose. Toby was extremely interested in the dead rabbit, and so my husband let him pick it up and carry it around. So for the rest of the day, the dead rabbit was Toby’s toy of choice. I got home to discover him carrying it under his arm and was horrified (I am not really a country girl!). Of course dead rabbits don’t stay fresh for long, so at the end of the day my husband had to bury the rabbit. Unfortunately Toby didn’t really understand that his Toy wasn’t for him to keep forever, and was very upset. All in all it was a little traumatic for me and him.
We now have a family rule “Animal corpses are not toys”. Never thought that I would have to articulate that rule, but you live and learn.
We would love to win the Lego Police set. For my son’s first birthday he was given a Hannah Montana laptop and a barbie by one friend. We have a feeling that our friend’s mum bought the present, and completely misunderstood the age and gender of the child, or maybe they thought it was age appropriate, who knows?!
I would love to win the LEGO Juniors “Batman” set for my Lego crazy son!! He would also love the police set – but Santa has already put that on his list!
The worst toy my son has ever had is a Pretend Electric Guitar (from a famous kid’s entertainment brand). It plays an assortment of ‘riffs’ but sounds awful especially if a child continually presses the same button – which happens regularly. Give me real musical instruments any day!!
I can’t compete with a dead rabbit. I think the worst gift we’ve received has been a “push chime” – a really irritating push toy (looks kind of like a roller) that did nothing but make noise and bash into the skirting boards when being driven by a toddler. It came from the op shop and did a full circle pretty quickly My mum gave it to us with a really gleeful look in her eye and said, “Payback time!” My kid would adore the princess castle.
My dad loves to buy my son loud & annoying musical instruments. So far he has a recorder (surely invented by satan himself?) a harmonica, drums & an electric keyboard.
The keyboard comes with a microphone, which i’m sure all of our inner city neighbours enjoy. Especially since it is mostly used to create feedback that could rival any scandinavian death metal band.
All lego is a hit in this house, but the police set would be awesome.
Last year my daughter got a soft rocking Elmo that you sit in… Not such a bad present.. Except she was 5 and over the weight restrictions! Funnily though the family member that gave it to her had a one year old that loved it! Needless to say it stayed at nannas house and was enjoyed by her daughter all year!!
She would looooooove the juniors castle! Actually I might consider giving it to the above mentioned family member with a now two year old… I’m sure my daughter would get a lot of enjoyment out of it on Christmas Day ????. Just kidding!!
We would like the princes castle set please.
The worst toy my son ever received is a dusty plastic toy plane that doesn’t even have wheels. It doesn’t do anything! Just a big plastic pointless toy. Needless to say, it went straight to the op shop.
I do hope the giver of this “toy” will never see this post ==”
we would love the police set. the worst toy we have had right at this moment is a signing santa – the kids just keep pressing it and pressing it – there is only so much you can take of santa claus is coming to town!!!
My eldest son received an electric toy guitar when he was about 5yrs from his great aunt and uncle who have no children … it is SO noisy and sadly the thing doesn’t seem to ‘die’! Still on original batteries 3yrs on although missing a few strings but it still works!
We would love the police set to add to our collection.
We would love the princess castle set please.
My two year daughter got a toy koala as a gift that records and mimics back everything you say an octave or two higher.
We had lots of laughs using it- until one day she was really living up to the terrible twos and I was the frustrated mum snapping at her when the koala started repeating back in its high pitched voice what I was saying- both of us had a laugh and now before I have a stern word, I check the koala switched off he he
We would love the princess castle set.
Worst toy ever would be a walk along popper, it lasted less than 10 minutes before it was put away, and has been ‘lost’ ever since!!
My girls would love the Princess set please. I remember my eldest receiving one of those karaoke CD players with microphones attached to it a couple years ago, and I was thinking “Oh crap here we go”. Thankfully it runs out of batteries really quickly, and I can’t seem to find the batteries when she wants to use it. By the time I do find them she has forgotten all about it.
We’d love to win the Lego Batman set!
The worst toy we’ve ever had at or house was a plastic battery operated motorbike, with Psy sitting on it- when you switched it on, music from “Gangnam Style”that played. It drove the grown ups nuts!
The batteries ran out, but it was the toy that our 3 year old would not forget! He begged for new batteries!
The worst present my daughter got was a “pet puppy” that yapped and barked, it was so annoying!! It also made snoring sounds, but it actually sounded like it was burping!!
She would love the princess castle set :) xxx
Haha! The police set would be fabulous for Mr 4&3/4!!! Worst toys…. We’ve had a few! Maybe it was the rocking horse/pony which sang and flicked its tail and had flashing red lights on its collar ?? His back got broken once my son came along to ‘giddy up’ and ‘ride ’em’ just like the song went….. Or then there’s the little wooden yoghurt pot from one of those toy breakfast trays, it went EVERYwHErE for. Ages withy daughter… As in silly!! :) the mag formers are coming from Nana – I – I mean the kids!- will love them ;)
We’d love to win the LEGO Juniors Princess Castle set!
We were given a little plastic toy that made the most annoying siren type noise AND once the batteries were in there was NO on/off switch (seriously who came up with that one?!). It would often wake us up during the middle of the night!!! Needless to say that this toy ‘disappeared’ at some stage…
What could be the most inappropriate gift for a five year old girl with a broken leg and plaster from toes to thigh??? Roller skates of course! I kid you not. Sometimes you just have to laugh ????
She would love the Lego princess set. Thanks for a great giveaway.