Top Toys that Are Classics!
Memories – buzzy bees, balls, hula hoops and marbles. Some toys are simple classics – ones that can be used over and over, in so many ways. Ones that capture the fun of childhood, ones that last forever.
Chances are your baby will be given loads of toys from birth, at birthdays and Xmas from loving friends and family. You will find yourself tempted in the toystore too!
But in that pile of plastic, there are some priceless toys that just cant be beaten! We’ve compiled our list of favourites!
The MummyandTummy Top Twenty Classic Toys List
1) Blocks
You cant beat building blocks for creativity. Simple wooden blocks in various shapes are fantastic for building towers to knock down, roads, houses, tunnels and more!!
As your babe gets older, building blocks like LEGO are fantastic and will guarantee hours and hours of fun!!
2) Ride-Ons
It may take a while for your baby to get used to them, but using a ride-on (without pedals) will teach them many skills and provide hours of fun. Your smaller toddler will enjoy you pushing them around and the pre-schooler will love being outside on their bike!
You can use these to teach bike-safety rules such as wearing a helmet!
Older children will love a bike and you can use this to foster independence (riding to school or the shops?) as well as an active and healthy lifestyle.
3) Cars and Road and other Play sets
You can buy road mats (plastic or carpet) or you can draw your own on large pieces of paper. When your kids get older, they can design their own towns with places for movies, parking spaces, petrol stations and houses!! This is a great one to do with friends – just divvy up the cars and get to play!
Other playsets such as airports, nursery (you can buy bassinets, change tables, carseats and everything for dolls these days!), dolls houses and schools/offices will keep that imagination going for hours!
4) Puzzles
Simple puzzles such as shape sorters and wooden pieces to fit into the hole will teach your baby co-ordination skills and thinking. Talk to your baby about the puzzle and its pieces.
For older children, the Wasgij? Puzzles are highly entertaining and you’ll probably enjoy doing them too!
5) Kitchen Sets
A tea set or individual melamine pieces, along with added extras from your own kitchen, will provide hours of baking fun for even the littlest tot. Your toddler will enjoy ‘drinking’ from cups while your preschooler will enjoy tea parties with her dolls. We all know that babes want to do what we’re doing so what better what to help at tea-time but to cook her own creations!
An alternative if the pot or plastics cupboard but this doesn’t really classify as a toy!
6) Water Toys
A bucket and some spoons are priceless additions to your home! Teach your baby to scoop, pour and splash!
Use water toys in the bath, in the pool, or the sink! And don’t underestimate the fun of the garden hose turned on low!
Floating toys are excellent too, and lots of fun.
Also, consider the fishing toys (You can cut fish shapes out of an ice cream container and put paperclips onto their noses. Then tie a magnet to the end of a length of string and help your child catch the fish with their rod!!)
Water is magical. You can use it to create bubbles or colour it with food colouring. You can use it with cornflour, sand or dirt for different textures, use it to fill bottles with glitter added (Tape the lid closed!).
Remember constant supervision around water!!
7) Dress Ups and Role Play
As simple as some oversized dresses, shirts, some belts and old shoes, and a few hats, or as extravagant as fireman and fairy outfits, role play is excellent for creativity and great fun when several youngsters are together!
Finger puppets are also great fun for storytelling – buy them or make your own sock puppets!
8) Sand
Sand toys like buckets and little spades or scoops, containers and rakes will all make sand play a little more fun!
You can buy little beach sets which include several different sand toys, which are great value.
9) Pull A Long and Push!
The traditional Buzzy Bee is a classic and timeless kiwi pull-along – a must for every house!
Pull-Along’s provide company, and teach many skills. Watch your child learn to move, then pull/drag and then right the toy when it falls over.
Push toys also teach consequence as they move when baby touches them.
10) Musical Instruments
Drum, xylophone, recorder, piano toys (depending on your child age) may drive you crazy but are great fun for your baby!
11) Drawing Toys
From the humble crayon and paper to magnadoodles (and other magic drawing toys) fostering the art of writing and drawing is essential!! Let your childs imagination soar as they illustrate and explore their world!!
Chalk is magical too, outside on the pavement!! You can use it to create ‘roads’ for your babes to drive their toy cars on, or use water and see what neat pictures you can come up!
12) Building Toys
Toys which require hands-on interaction like key-and-lock, turning, screwing/unscrewing etc are all excellent at fostering hand and eye coordination. Toy building sets may include toys like screwdrivers to help your budding handyman be just like Dad!!
13) Stacking Toys
Stacking/nesting blocks and stacking rings teach hand and eye coordination, and help you show your baby bigger to smaller. Show your baby how to stack the cups, and then how to nest them inside each other.
Use the blocks to cover up other objects (now you see it, now you don’t) or to put objects inside the blocks and then pull them out.
14) Dolls
Paper dolls, Barbie dolls, little dolls, realistic dolls, cabbage patch dolls – dolls are excellent for teaching children respect for others, and to care for others. They also foster creative play and can be preiceless when introducing a new baby. Even boys enjoy doll-playing and should not be discouraged from this.
15) Balls
Little balls, bouncing balls, water-filled balls, big balls, oval balls, light balls, heavy balls, rice-filled balls – all excellent at teaching catching, throwing, carrying, rolling and kicking. Teach your tot to throw balls of paper, sock balls, tennis balls etc into a basket.
16) Slime and Bubbles
Make big bubbles, small bubbles, catching bubbles!
We have bubble and slime recipes in our messy play section!!!
If you make or buy this, be wary of toxic materials and sensitive skin allergies.
17) Learning Toys
Specific educational toys like shape sorters, Hammer in the Pegs, musical mats, pop-up toys etc all teach various skills. Many toy companies clearly show on the packaging which skills are likely to be developed during play.
18) Books
You cant beat the gift of reading and books are excellent at fostering a love of learning. You can start reading your baby books from birth, showing her the colorful pictures and as your tot develops, you can ask them to point out the ‘bear’ or ‘cat’.
Books make excellent gifts for children, too.
Your baby will enjoy holding cloth ones and then as they get older, experiment with page turning with heavy card books. Teaching your baby to respect books will help preserve your own and prevent scribbles, ripping and scrunching in your new novel!
Bedtime stories are a great way to wind down at night and have cuddles, and can form an essential part of the evening routine.
19) Exercise
Sneak a little exercise into your babes play if they are starting to get inactive! Skipping ropes are perfect and even with three friends and long rope!! Try skipping to music or trying all those fancy moves you used to do at school! Your child may be impressed!
Hula Hoops are also fun and can be used in heaps of different ways – such as using like a ‘nest’ for birthday party games!
Elastics (either with two chairs or two friends!) are also a traditional and fun toy!
Kicking balls, running races, three legged or sack races, ‘who can get to the tree and back’ the fastest, simple baseball and other games will all be lots of fun and laughs and stop ‘couch potato syndrome’!!
20) Play dough and Clay
Using materials to mold and shape and generally explore the touch senses is fun and creative! Don’t forget to snap a pic of your darling’s creations before crushing them!!
21) Board Games
Monopoly or Pictionary can be a fantastic family tradition and will provide the opportunity for the family to relax and enjoy each other. Traditional boards games will last for generations!
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Oh ok, so there are more than 20 timeless toys – but they don’t all have to cost a fortune!! And many can be past through the kids in the family too. Email us with your opinion on great toys!!
