As summer ends, birthday season begins in our house. With Jessica turning four in a couple of weeks’ time and Sophie’s second birthday falling in late October, I’ve been spending a lot of time online recently getting ideas about what toys they might like for their birthdays.
With Jessica, I need to tread the balance of finding a toy that is right for her age but which doesn’t pose too many problems if Sophie tries to play with it too. This is getting trickier as toys come with increasingly smaller accessories. Sometimes it is just a case of having to put the accessories to one side, only bringing them out while Sophie is having a nap or when Jessica is playing alone at the table. Buying presents for Sophie is more straightforward although she has so many toys that have been passed down from Jessica, the challenge then is to find something new!
Imaginative play, puzzles and toy sets that can be added to always work well with both girls. Oldrids & Downtown department store website has a great selection of different toys which has helped give me some ideas. Here are some of the toys I’ve been considering:
1) Playmobil Children’s Pool with Whale Fountain
We have a couple of Playmobil 123 sets – a farm and a zoo – which have been great for encouraging imaginative play. As Jessica is getting older, she’s becoming more interested in the standard range. She recently spent a couple of happy hours lost in her own little world whilst playing with a friend’s extensive collection of Playmobil. I am sure she would love this pool and fountain especially as it would also indulge her love of water play too.
2) Le Toy Van Honeybake Mixer Set
Both my girls enjoy helping me bake and decorate cakes. I am sure they would love “baking” cakes for their dollies in this gorgeous wooden toy mixer set. The Le Toy Van Honeybake range also includes wooden cake and biscuit sets which would be a perfect addition to this.
3) Fuzzy Felt Farm Animals
Fuzzy felt is one of the things I remember fondly from my own childhood – hours of fun creating pictures. Given her love of crafts and drawing, I am sure Jessica would love creating farmyard scenes with the contents of this fuzzy felt kit.
4) VTech Toot Toot Animals Safari Park
This interactive zoo play set would be an ideal present for Sophie and the perfect addition to our VTech train set and garage. She would love identifying all the different animals and discovering the different noises they make when they move over the smartpoint areas on the track.
5) Bigjigs Rail Town and Country Train Set
I’m not sure who would love this train set the most – Jessica, Sophie or Daddy! I could certainly see the three of them having hours of fun together building railway tracks and running the trains on them. The houses, tree and people pieces would be perfect for encouraging imaginative play too.
Are any of these favourites with your little ones?
Disclosure: This is a collaborative post.
Great post Hun, my Rebecca turns 5 in October and I haven’t a clue what to get, really enjoyed this post x
Thanks Gráinne – glad you found it helpful 🙂
I used to love fuzzy felts when I was a kid.
And Playmobil is a favourite of Monkeys, he spends hours playing with his sets.
Lovely list Louise 🙂 x
Thanks Jayne – can’t beat some fuzzy felt and Playmobil 🙂
Perfect timing, Louise — I never have a clue what to get for young children! I know these are aimed at Jessica, but do you have any thoughts as to the age from which the fuzzy felt might be suitable? Would two be too young?
The box we have says 3+ because of the small pieces. I think like most of these things it depends on the child – Sophie is nearly 2 and generally doesn’t put things in her mouth so would be happy for her to play with this with supervision. Hope that helps.
It does — thank you very much, Louise!