Oh to be a kid again. I think one of the reasons this season of life is so fun for me is because I’ve always been a kid at heart. I love arts and crafts, make believe & pretend, playing with dolls, and building forts. I love letting my imagination run wild and the relaxing feeling I get from stacking blocks. Being able to play with some of my favorite toys again brings me right back so many memories growing up.
For those of you who have followed along here for a while, you may remember that before I was home with my kids, I worked with toddlers. I only did it for two years but learned so much. It really made me feel prepared for these early stages with littles!
One of the most valuable things I took away from that time period was the love for toys that inspire creative play. Play is SO important. Kids need it to learn and grow and just be kids!
I don’t prefer having many toys that require batteries. In fact, toys that only work with batteries are ones we pretty much don’t use at all. I want my kids to have things that require a little creative thinking to play with. And if they are fun to play with without batteries, well then, they ignite the imagination.
Right now we LOVE blocks, trains, and moving all of our toys from one cart to the next. Charlie is totally obsessed with his ‘choo choos’. He loves riding them along the walls, creating train loops with his tracks (and then destroying them), and piling them into his dump truck. He also loves flipping through his favorite books and pointing out new words of objects he’s learned. It’s such a fun stage!
Pretty much ALL of our favorite toys can be found at Walmart. It truly is a one-stop shop for everything! Walmart has a huge selection of new toys where we found all of Thomas the Train friends that we got early for Charlie’s birthday as well as a toy that Eric and I may have even been more excited about: Lincoln Logs! Oh the memories… bring’s me right back to my grandparents’ house and building cabins with my brother. Now I’m having fun building them all over again even though I can expect Charlie to crash them all down. I love that blocks lend themselves to so many creations.
Do you remember K’Nex? Fun story but we had hamsters growing up and created an elevator for them to go up from our first floor to second. Don’t worry, we taped it up for extra protection and no hamster ever was hurt! It’s another toy I love from my childhood that inspired so much creative thinking. I’m looking forward to one day building these with our kids and also, Playmobil and LEGOS! The best of the best, right?
Alongside our choo choos, we still love our stackers , puzzles, dump truck, and playdough ! All of our favorites can be found at Walmart: America’s best toy shop!
What are your favorite toys for your kids? Do any of them bring you back to your childhood?
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*Thank you to Walmart for partnering on this post!
