This is a wonderful first game for your baby/toddler.  Your child can throw/roll the die and work on color identification, which they can then use to match to the correct color card. The parent (or older sibling) can then read the action from the card, and your child can work on their imaginative play by acting out the action (e.g., roar like a lion). It works on turn taking, color identification and matching, pretend play, following instructions (e.g., spin two times). All in all, this is a great first game for your toddler.

Lovevery: The Block Set
To be honest, we love most everything by Lovevery (cleverly named for how much we fall in love with everything). Our kids had the tummy time mat/play gym and we’re big fans of their developmental toy subscription service as well. However, we think this block set is perfect for your toddler (and even preschooler). As the world of technology has rapidly advanced over the last 20 years, it’s easy to think that we need to get our kids really techie, flashy, toys. But the truth is, our kids have to be creative with the more basic toys, like plain blocks (READ: How to Improve Your Child’s Creativity). The more that a toy does FOR your child, the less that your child has to figure out what to do.

Hape: Pound & Tap Bench with Slide Out Xylophone
This is probably a geared toward a baby or young toddler (our son walked at 10 months…so technically a toddler, he was very much still a baby). We love this toy. Obviously, you can work on color identification with this toy. Your child will experience cause and effect (which leads to better understanding of how the world works and allows them to start making predictions), as well as fine motor control (holding the hammer and aiming to get the ball through the hole). Then there is the music piece where the xylophone comes in, which can be extracted from the toy and used separately with a stick that attaches. All in all, big fans of this one!

Strider: 12 Sport Balance Bike, Ages 18 Months to 5 Years
Balance bikes are a great introduction to riding an actual two-wheeler bike. It allows your child to experience the instability of a two-wheeler but allows them to regain balance using their feet on the ground. These bikes also allow your child to build better coordination.

Melissa & Doug: Wooden Peg Puzzle (Set of 6)
Before I started working with children, I’d see these wooden insert puzzles and think, “how boring!” But honestly, I can’t even begin to tell you how many amazing things are targeted through these simple puzzles. Each puzzle works on concept building; they are all part of the same category and have shared features (“look at all of the vehicles that have wheels”).  Each puzzle piece has a visual match on the board, so your child is learning matching skills. Additionally, it requires fine motor AND planning to get the pieces into their place. You can also start introducing the concepts of letters and numbers. For such a simple (and inexpensive) purchase, this has a big bang for the buck. 

KidKraft Deluxe Wooden Easel
We think allowing our children ample time and space to create is so valuable. In our creativity post, we have a variety of different art products that we recommend, so I’ll avoid repeating that here. However, we do love this little easel station that serves multiple purposes. You have the butcher paper for drawing, coloring, and painting, with a chalk board underneath. It evens comes with a white board for dry-erase markers, and a shelf to hold all the goods. 

Asweets: Wonder & Wise
For the not quite toddling yet, this push walker also checks a lot of boxes. It obviously supports your wobbler (what we fondly called out kids when they weren’t quite steady on their toddler feet) as they maneuver through the house learning how those legs work. Then there are all the gadgets on the front that will amuse your child; discs to slide, beads to push, and even a built-in shape sorter! 

Lalaboom: Preschool Educational Beads
This is a very cool set. Each of the balls has a different texture/design so it is a sensory experience for your child to just handle and manipulate the balls. The smaller beads can be popped into the holes on the different ball sets, so it allows for creativity in addition to fine motor development. The balls can be thrown, rolled, and kicked which works on hand/foot eye coordination and visual-spatial planning. 

Learning Resources: Big Feelings Pineapple
It may look like an alternative version of Mr. Potato Head, but it goes a bit deeper than just learning how to put the pieces in the correct spot. Big Feelings Pineapple comes with a variety of different eyes and mouths that convey several different emotions. This is a great way to start working on your child’s socio-emotional development; awareness of different emotions, the names for different feelings they themselves may be experiencing but not know the words for yet. Plus, all the parts clean up and store inside of the pineapple’s head so it’s easy clean up! 

Crisschirs: Sensory Bin Tools
Given that a lot of our work has been with children with autism, we are no strangers to sensory bins, but the reality is that sensory play is good for every kid, with or without autism. We really like this box because it’s not giant (there are a lot of sensory bins that are large and in charge, and mostly need to be used outdoors), and has a variety of different manipulatives that can be used. Also, you can use a whole host of different material in the bin, such as rice (pictured), Pluffle, Kinetic Sand, and beans.

Educational Insights: Playfoam Pluffle
Experience a super-soft, fluffy texture that provides a sense of calm and relaxation. Run your hands through Playfoam Pluffle to see the magical “alive, melting” movement. Mix your favorite colors for an even more mesmerizing experience.

Kinetic Sand: Super Sandbox Set
The original, squeezable play sand kids love! Fluff the sensory toy sand, feel it flow through fingers like slow-moving liquid! Satisfying oozes, moves and melts! 

Fat Brain Toys: InnyBin
A less traditional shape sorter as there are no specific shape fields for the shapes to go into, the Inny Bin allows for exploration and the fine motor tasks of separating the elastic bands to get the shapes in and out.

Skip Hop: Yeti
This is a bit more of a techie shape sorter, but it has three different levels of difficulty so it has been a cool toy that bridges between our toddler and preschooler. It also spins around and spits out the shapes which both kids crack up at every time.

Full disclosure, we haven’t used this item before, but it is on our daughter’s Christmas list. It’s won a ton of awards, is geared toward introducing concepts of numbers, letters, and phonics, in addition to fine-motor skills, attention to detail, social-emotional, imagination, critical thinking, empathy, problem solving, early literacy, colors, emotions, and spatial reasoning (per the product description). We are super excited to get this and start playing around!

LEGO DOTS: Pencil Holder