Greyson’s Favorite Toys

This past Christmas Scott and I went all out crazy for Greyson. It was huge, it was ridiculous, it was completely overwhelming for him. We had reason though.

See he has had a ton of toys, BUT they were for a much younger age and they were all loud, had flashing lights, buzzed and were very  stimulating… to stimulating. He was backing off from playing. So we completely overhauled his stash.

We had a certain criteria:

• Little to no noise (if there was noise it had to be teaching him something)
• Get him moving. Toys that he had to be active to play with
• Create! Toys that would spark his imagination and get him loving arts and crafts.
• Puzzles. Lots and lots of puzzles. he LOVES them, he is great at them, and they are quiet. 🙂

So it has been just over a full month and I thought I would go over his top 5 favorite toys!

They are not in any particular order. On any given day any one of these is his favorite.

Leapfrog Letter Factory Phonics  Greyson loves the leapfrog’s (even though he says they are doggies.) He has been playing with these for a month and already knows at least 75% of the alphabet. He also loves it when we let him watch Leapfrog Phonics Farm on Netflix.

Foam Building Blocks Greyson has become a huge fan of stacking things… anything. He is actually really good. I am always surprised at how tall he gets them before plowing one of his trucks into it. I love the foam because..well…they are foam. Greyson get excited and sometimes throws things. With them being foam I do not have to worry about him of Lola getting hurt when he tosses them, or when he knocks them down.

Thinkfun Roll N’ Play Board Game This is my personal favorite—of all time! And on any given day I would place my bets that when asked Greyson will 9 times out of 10 ask to play this. This one is so good that I feel like it deserves fancy bullet points!

  It is a large very soft – colorful die.
  Greyson rolls / throws the die. He tells us what color is facing up    (Yellow, Purple, Red, Blue, Green, Orange)
  We read the corresponding color card and Greyson has to perform an action. Something like “Tickle your knees”, “Find something Blue”, “Hop 4 times”, “What does a lion say”, etc etc
  It even has a built in pocket that holds all of the cards.

I love it, he loves it. Win-Win. He is learning colors, counting, animal sounds, it gets him active and it entertains him for a long time. It is fun to do WITH him.

Do-A-Dot Greyson has a ball with these. The entire time he is working with them he is like a parrot and repeats”Dot…dot…dot…dot” 😉 I have not been awesome yet and created do-a-dot work pages for him…but I will. I printed off one and he did not even think about trying to stamp the circles. Oh-well. He loves making art with them, and that makes me happy!

Melissa and Doug Beginner Pattern Blocks He really enjoys these, but I am not completely sold. After his second attempt or so he could do all of them without really any effort. I wish I had gotten a more difficult set. If your little one is a puzzle master, I would suggest a more advanced set. Even though he can do them in a flash he still loves it, and always yells / screams TA-DA when he has done a page.

So there it is! His top 5 favorite toys of 2013 (so far).

So what are your little ones loving? I’d love to hear what your favorite toys for toddlers are!