All of the toys that made our list of top 10 educational toys for toddlers age 2 and up are gender neutral and can be played by both little boys and girls. Furthermore, all of these toys have been enjoyed by our daughter’s little friends during birthday celebrations and play dates. We have also compiled a list of our favorite educational toys for 1-year-old toddlers if your child is younger.
I know from my own experience that it’s always a fuss to find age appropriate toys for a child so hopefully this list of my daughters’ favorite educational toys from when they were 2-year-old can assist you in your decision.
#1 – WOODEN GEAR CATERPILLAR
My daughters adore Very Hungry Caterpillar book so it’s no surprise that they love playing with this colorful gear caterpillar. What we love is that it comes in rainbow colors, it’s fun for little ones to watch gears move as if caterpillar is walking, plus it’s an awesome toy for developing fine motor skills and firming toddler’s grasp. It takes several takes to show them, if you have tiny tot, how to spin the gears but once they get into a swing of things, they will love making their caterpillar “walk”.
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom | Canada
#2 – VTech Musical Rhymes Book
We don’t usually recommend many electronic toys but VTech Musical Rhymes Book is an exception! As you are already aware when spending time with toddlers, they adore nursery rhymes! Singing and dancing makes them happy and keeps them active. They can also accompany singing with their favorite toys as they replay the scenes from nursery rhymes.
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom | Canada
#3 – Rainbow Stacking Block
We love wooden toys for their durability. When they are as lovely and as colorful as this rainbow stacking block set, it’s bound to be a favorite! Color matching, building, counting, size sequencing, fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination – these are only few of the skills toddler gets to work on as they play with this set. And, of course, this set is perfect to use for open-ended play! Leave it somewhere on a shelf where it will be accessable for daily use by your 2 year old!
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom | Canada
#4 – WOODEN CLOCK
It’s the truth that 2-year old hardly can understand the concept of time, but that hasn’t stopped our toddler to enjoy this wooden clock! We have been using it to learn our numbers, line them in order, remove one from the line and find which one is missing, match and learn the name of shapes. And that’s all before even getting to learning about time! This clock helps little ones learning concepts of the morning, afternoon, evening, today, tomorrow, minute, hour, and so much more. Plus, it’s plain fun to move the hand
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom | Canada
#5 -SORTING PIE
We have picked this sorting pie because both of my girls have been picky eaters who rejected most of the fruits and veggies and we thought that playing with these will assist their desire to actually try to eat this type of food. We are slowly getting there! In the mean time, they use this educational toy to learn about shapes, colors, counting and so many other things with this toy. Plus they use pieces for cooking in their play kitchen and we use tweezers for a vast number of other activities for developing fine motor skills.
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom | Canada
#6 – ROLL AND PLAY GAME
This is one of the fun learning toys we go to when my toddler needs a quick distraction and to pass “I’m bored!” moments with the preschooler. Very simple to play with your toddler: throw the dice, pick the card in the matching color and act out or do the task. My toddler enjoys seeing mom doing funny dance and similar goofy things! Roll and play board game is great for learning number of things but also for active bonding time with my little tot.
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom | Canada
#7 – FANTASIA BLOCK TRAIN
Although I have a girl toddler, she’s crazy about trains! We go around the town pretending to be driving a train and choo-choo-ing! No wonder that she loves this colorful train blocks set from Haba! She loves pulling it around and making sounds almost as much as taking off all the blocks and rearranging them in new designs! It’s a sneaky way to have fun practicing their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as they rearrange the train cars.
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom | Canada
#8 – MAGNETIC BUILDING SET
Goobi Junior’s magnetic building set includes oversized ergonomic shaped pieces designed for younger children, ages 1 and up, to explore magnetism safely and learn about its attractive and repulsive properties. This set contains 24 plastic bars with strong magnetic attractions and 16 lightweight hallow steel balls coated with metallic paint. The pieces are light in weight and come in an assortment of vibrant colors – red, blue, green and yellow. Perfect for little hands!
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom
#9 – WOODEN ALPHABET BLOCKS
These awesome alphabet blocks are more than just building blocks. In fact, they have helped build so many different skills with my daughters – we used them as classic building blocks, to learn letters and numbers, to pretend play animal sounds, to recognize beginning letters and sounds, build words, etc. They are great quality although a bit more expensive than other alphabet blocks available on the market. However, we never regretted money invested in these embroidered alphabet blocks by Uncle Goose!
Find the toy here: United States
#10 – LEGO DUPLO CLASSIC DELUXE BRICK BOX
Kids will have endless hours of building with these LEGO DUPLO Classic Deluxe Brick Box. The colors are bright while the blocks allow for problem solving skills, spacial abilities as well as basic math and science are developed with these fun blocks. We are not the only one who recommend this well deserved place in top educational toys for this loved and often used building toy!
Find the toy here: United States | United Kingdom | Canada
TOY ORGANIZATION FOR PARENTS AND CARETAKERS
To help with ever growing colllection of toys in your home as your child grows, you will find few of our playroom guides helpful:
That dice game looks fun! And I could still use that toy organizer to contain some of the toy clutter!
Yes, it’s so fun! Think your 5 year old would still enjoy it! 🙂
My 2 year old son would love all of these. I need to get more for him. He has autism and these toys would be perfect for learning.