Christmas Gifts for Toddlers - A Few Ideas

Good evening!  I have put this information on my website, but I thought that some of you might be interested in the different developmental toys I stock.  To some of you it might look like my stock is a random set of things I wish I had brought for my children when they were smaller, but I do try and buy a range of things that develop key skills.  Enjoy!


Building Blocks

We stock 3 stages of building blocks – the Clemmy soft bricks for initial play, the Sluban construction blocks, and then the Melissa & Doug castle blocks are a good follow on for role play and balancing.  These all develop the hand eye coordination and delicate motor skills baby/toddler needs.


Shape Sorters

These are old favourites anyway, but a good shape sorter can teach not only fine motor skills, but also pattern recognition.  To start with a younger baby might want to just put the blocks in and tip them out again, but as they start to develop they will enjoy trying to get the shapes in the holes.  It doesn’t matter if your toddler can't get the colour names yet, but understanding that certain blocks are the same colour is a really important developmental step between 2 & 3 years




Threading Toys

Threading toys are great for developing hand eye co-ordination – even up to pre-school age these have value because fine motor skills are essential for being able to hold a pen/pencil as children begin to write – often just an attempt to scribble their name at first, but its really important that they develop this before school.



Imagination & Role Play

Toddlers love mimicking grown ups and encouraging them to make believe is really important – it helps with the development of abstract thinking (you aren’t really eating the wooden apple, you are pretending).  Something like the soft sandwich basket or handbag for younger babies is great, moving onto the play kitchen or shop.  For 3 years plus we also have the castle blocks and fold-n-go barn for pretend play.