There are 3 toys per category including Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Elementary School Age.

Birth to 12 months

1. Fisher-Price Stack & Roll Cups

For infants, not only do these cups stack and nest, put them together to make a rolling ball! When children get older, these cups would make great sand and tub toys!

2. Crayola Drop & See

A great infant toy that combines a marble track with a fine motor activity box!

3. Mega Bloks Lil Dump Truck

What infant doesn’t love dump and fill play, with the ability to generate early social skills by pushing the truck back and forth to a parent or sibling? Trucks will always last a lifetime!

12 months through 2 years

4. Cranium Cariboo

Toddler’s will initially enjoy using the key to open all the boxes to work on foundational skills such as turn taking and vocabulary development.  As their thinking skills improve, this game advances with them to teach skills such as color and number recognition into the preschool years.

5. CAT Ride-On by Mega Bloks

This is a 3 in 1 toy that is a stable push toy for children learning to walk and a ride-on toy for older children. Children can drive their blocks to different locations before stacking them up and crashing them over.

6. Crayola Color Me a Song

Children love to scribble and color, but do not always have the attention span to do so for long. This product incorporates coloring along to music where the music will speed up and slow down based on how fast or slow the child is coloring.  It comes with triangular crayons which are great to enhance grasp development.

Preschool Age (3-5 years)                                                          

7. Leap Frog Tag/Tag Jr.

Depending on  your child’s abilities, either the Tag or Tag Jr. is a great way to foster reading, vocabulary development, the ability to answer questions and to develop reading comprehension.  The Tag Jr. Book Pal is appropriate for children up to 4, the Tag Reading System is geared for children 4-8.  I’ve successfully heard many times that parents have used the Tag with younger children, though they require more supervision and assistance. If you are looking for an independent toy for a young child, the Tag Jr. incorporates board books with a more basic level of operation.

8. Zippity by Leap Frog

Jump and move with your favorite Disney characters! I am a huge fan of the moving to learn concept. There are multiple games with multiple levels included in the console, which becomes more difficult as children advance their skills. You can also purchase other games more specific to the child’s interest.

9. Uno Moo by Mattel

This preschool game involves color matching with round barnyard animals that can be played with separately from the game but builds on the skills needed for Uno at an older age.

Elementary School Age (5 & up)

10. Goblet Jr. by Blue Orange

Awesome take on Tic-Tac-Toe that involves strategy as you can gobble up your opponents so the game can continue with a different strategy. Kids and adults love this game!

11. 1,2,3 Stomp by Wild Planet

Number and math game that pops the pieces all over to incorporate speed and movement!

12. Candyland Sweet Celebrations by Hasbro

New version of Candyland with the same concept of turn taking and color recognition but children can constantly change the game board to play differently every time!

For preschool and elementary school aged children, Hasbro has created a 60th anniversary edition of Candyland, called the Candyland Sweet Celebration game. How exciting is it that your child now has the power to create a unique Candyland adventure every time, as the pieces snap together like a puzzle to create the gameboard! What a great addition to such a classic game!

For young toddler boys who love their dumptrucks, Mattel/Matchbox has created Rocky the Robot Dump Truck. Not only does Rocky function as a regular dump truck, but he has been developed with a personality! We had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Michael Shore, who discussed all the behind the scenes work that Mattel does for research to bring products to children that are developmentally sound, especially with regard to Rocky. It’s no wonder their toys are always among my personal favorites!

Lastly, Wild Planet has paired up with Crayola to create Crayola Town. There are different sets to purchase such as a zoo, ranch, house, and airport. The child first colors in the mat and puts together 3D aspects of the play mat. There are a few play mats included in each set, though there is an opportunity to download more online for free. Each set comes with different pieces as well, to turn your child’s crayons into animals, cars, etc. so that after they are finished coloring, they can make their pictures come to life with a pretend play experience!

I know my mind has not yet focused specifically on the holiday season, but hopefully these three suggestions may make the stress of creating your gift buying list a little easier!