Instead of buying new toys for each daycare child, I treat daycare to new toys beginning the week of Thanksgiving until the week of Christmas (sometimes New Year's). The year's new toys were ALL huge winners and excellent additions to our collection of toys. We do a lot of free play at this house, so having a variety of toys and activities is important. Nearly all of the toys I bought were for the littles (preschool and below), as I buy a few new toys for the bigs at the beginning summer vacation. I've learned that if I buy new toys for the bigs during breaks (Christmas and spring breaks particularly), they ask me to save them for summer and feel like they're missing out.
In case you're still looking for some last minute gifts for the younger set, here's 8 our new hit toys of the season:
1.) Monkey Noodles and Gobbles
These are great manipulatives for kids who need to calm down or if we need a calming activity (like right before naps). Neither of these are good for kids who like to bite or chew and Gobbles are best for 4+ year olds. However, under watchful eyes, I have a couple of 2 year olds who enjoy playing with them successfully (and appropriately).
2.) Black and Decker Tool Bench
To be honest, this was a random buy during Black Friday shopping. However, it worked out well because we needed a tool bench to go along with the loads of kids tools daycare has. A few of the older kids seem to enjoy using the tool bench as a "house" for figurines to play on, but the 2 and under crowd actually play with it with the tools. Random money well spent for sure!
3.) Play Doh Variety Pack
I saw this on an Amazon Holiday Toy List and knew it was perfect for our daycare. If anything it would keep me from having to mix new batches of sensory activities. I was a bit surprised at how sticky a few of them were (the Krackle stuck to kid's little sticky hands BAD), but they seem to have gotten better through a couple of weeks of A LOT of play.
I had lost all hope for this one because it's not available from Amazon until January. All of the kids are currently obsessed with Frozen 2, so I knew this would be well loved. Hubs happened to find them at Target, grabbed one, and well, it's been the toy that everyone plays with. They mostly sit around with every Disney Little People figurine we own and play the music on the castle over and over and over again. Their little minds will be blown when this surprise arrives in a few weeks to go along with the castle.
5.) Toy Story Little People Figurines
I couldn't pass these up. We already have a Little People camper, so the kids have enjoyed pretending it's the camper from Toy Story 4.
6.) Melissa and Doug Christmas Cookie Set
We have plenty of Melissa and Doug sets and the kids always love them. The kids enjoyed playing with them and this set was no exception. They spent all week "baking" up Christmas cookies for Santa or playing cookie shop.
7.) Yeti In My Spaghetti and Bellz board games
You can never go wrong with board games. I wanted games that were easy to understand and would require minimal help from me. Both games fit the bill!
7.) Amazon Unlimited Music
While not a toy, we use Unlimited Music more than anything else. The kids enjoy listening to Disney music (the latest is listening to the Frozen 2 soundtrack on repeat), dance music, and kids music. When we're not listening to those, I have on music for background noise. During the summer, the bigs play Amazon Music on the TV so they can sing along with the lyrics (we've definitely had a few "oops, you shouldn't be seeing those lyrics" moments) and dance.