With Christmas right around the corner, we thought it was the perfect time to share some of our favorite and most-used toys! Toys are a huge part of a child’s play development, and with so many options on the market it can quickly become overwhelming deciding what is best to buy for your child. We’ve compiled a list of our current favorite toys - ten for toddlers age 1-2 and ten for ages 3-5 - in hopes that we can make your holiday shopping a little bit easier. We’ve also included a few ideas for ways you can use these toys to target communication and play skills!

Before jumping into the toy list, we wanted to address a question that you may be thinking - how do we choose good toys? As Speech-Language Pathologists, our knowledge comes in part from our clinical expertise in understanding how play develops during the first few years of a child’s life. However, we also utilize the CDC’s developmental milestones checklist and encourage parents to do the same when making decisions about what toys are most beneficial!

Check out the gift guide below (images will link you to a purchasing option) and happy shopping!

1-2 Year Old Gifts

First up - our top ten current favorite toys for 1-2 year olds! These are toys that encourage functional play, early vocabulary development, joint engagement, requesting, basic concepts (colors/shapes/body parts/animals), and simple fine motor skills (pointing, putting in/taking out, etc.).

Colorful Shape Sorter

Skills to target: in/out, simple directions, learning shapes/colors, turn-taking, and fine motor skills

2. Potato Head Family

Skills to target: identifying body parts, simple directions, pretend play (feeding them, making them go to sleep, etc), identifying clothing items

3. Hammer & Bench Toy

Skills to target: sound effects/simple words (boom, push, wow, in, go), requesting colors/numbers, turn-taking, fine motor skills

4. Fubbles No Spill Bubbles

Skills to target: simple words (pop, bubble, look, wow), requesting more, joint engagement, pointing

5. Melissa & Doug Water WOW! Books

Skills to target: joint engagement, following directions (e.g., color the dolphin), identifying colors and animals, early vocabulary

6. Melissa & Doug Poke-A-Dot Books

Skills to target: pointing, sound effects/animal noises, rhyming words, verbal routines (Old MacDonald had a ___ - pause for child to “fill in the blank”)

7. Blocks

Skills to target: stacking/building, sound effects (boom, crash, wow, up), turn-taking, requesting for more

8. Truck with Cars

Skills to target: sound effects/simple words (go, up, beep, crash, vroom), functional play (pushing a car back and forth), verbal routines (1, 2, 3, go!)

9. Chunky Wooden Puzzles

Skills to target: in/out, identify animals, animal sounds, fine motor skills, requesting for more

10. Gear Stacker

Skills to target: simple words (on, up, down, spin, fast, wow), size concepts (bigger/biggest/smaller/smallest), turn-taking

3-5 Year Old Gifts

And now, our top ten current favorites for 3-5 year olds! These toys are great for pretend play, symbolic play, complex directions, asking/answering WH questions, and pre-literacy skills.

1. Melissa & Doug Reusable Sticker Pad

Skills to target: categories, following 2-3 step directions, positional words (under/above/in/on), pretend play

2. Magnetic Tiles

Skills to target: sharing, symbolic play (e.g., putting tiles together to represent a house/car), identifying colors/shapes

3. Wooden Chopping Food

Skills to target: pretend play, fine motor skills, sorting, introducing new foods (if your child has food aversions)

4. Melissa & Doug Take-Along Dollhouse

Skills to target: pretend play, WH questions, fine motor skills (using a key to lock/unlock)

5. Pop the Pig

Skills to target: following directions, turn-taking, counting, reinforcer while targeting articulation skills (if your child is receiving articulation therapy)

6. Play-Doh Sets

Skills to target: following directions, pretend play, reinforcer while targeting articulation skills (if your child is receiving articulation therapy)

7. Kinetic Sand

Skills to target: pretend play, discussing how tools are used, problem solving, following directions

8. Bear and Friends Books

Skills to target: WH questions, pre-literacy skills, story re-tell, sequencing events, joint engagement, discussing emotions

9. Dot Markers

Skills to target: identifying colors, following directions, creative thinking, reinforcer while targeting articulation skills (if your child is receiving articulation therapy)

10. Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Game

Skills to target: following directions, turn-taking, fie motor skills (using squirrel tweezers to grab the acorns), reinforcer while targeting articulation skills (if your child is receiving articulation therapy)

We hope this guide has been helpful for your holiday gift shopping (or gift shopping at any time of year)! For more toy suggestions, click the button below to access our 2020 gift guides:

SCS Toy Gift Guide 2023