The best play toys for kids of all ages are toys that encourage creative play while building basic skills – including all important STEM skills.
Importantly, toys must be age-appropriate to have any value. Age-appropriate toys are toys are designed for a specific age-group. They are designed for a particular developmental stage and to encourage learning while having fun in the best way for that developmental stage.
Safety is also an important concern. The best toys are also made with non-toxic materials and easy to keep clean and sterile.
Toys that encourage Creative Play
The best play toys for young children are toys that engage and educate while encouraging ‘creative play’. At this age, skills are best learned through creative play because learning is maximized while children are having fun. Toys that encourage creative play include:
• Dolls (and doll houses)- with outfits and themes
• Model toys (e.g. ponies or farm animals) with toy stables, barns, buildings and farmyards that can be built from scratch.
• Lego, Sluban and other building block and building brick toys.
• Magic- Tiles building toys
• Interactive reading toys – from pop-up books to interactive reading and creative Apps.
• Games, puzzles, activity boards and other toys that encourage creative problem-solving
The Best Play Toys are Educational Toys
The above toys that encourage creative play are excellent educational toys for young children.
However, older children can also benefit from more sophisticated educational toys. These include computer Apps. and tech-based toys that build on the skills learned from early learning educational toys.
However, any toy – from a toy horse to a cricket set – counts as an educational toy if it teaches physical, mental, or emotional skills. The best educational toys will teach all three.
The best toys for kids of all ages are educational toys that teach the skills today’s kids need to learn to be able to succeed in school and in later life. STEM skills are more valuable than ever in today’s world. Hence, the best educational toys for kids are toys that teach STEM skills.
STEM Toys – Play Toys that Teach Essential Skills
STEM toys are the among the best educational toys for children of any age. They specifically teach foundational maths and science skills. Introduced young, with STEM toys for babies and toddlers, the capacity these toys encourage can be built on indefinitely.
STEM toys range from puzzles to building blocks and bricks, and other building toys such as Magic Tiles – to electronic toys, coding toys and robotic toy sets to build robots and models.
With thousands of play toys out there all competing for our attention and money, and all claiming to be educational and/or STEM, choosing the best play toys for kids come down to one simple thing: Do they enjoy playing with it? If they do, they are learning. If they don’t, they are bored and they are not learning.
The best play toys for kids are toys that engage, challenge, and interest them. As long as they are playing happily – by themselves, or in a group – you have a good toy.