Even at age one, a kid can get excited playing with toys. A toy gift given to a 1-year old kid can help the child discover the world. According to child development experts, kids learn a lot even when they are one year old. The best gifts for 1-year-olds are toys that will help their learning and development process. The best toys for 1-year-olds should be open-ended toys with which they can play as they wish, instead of toys that come with specific instructions.
Finding gifts for 1-year-olds that help in child development could be challenging. Your average 1-year-old is becoming more active and you want to get toys they love to play with and learn from. Our recommended toys for 1-year-olds have been carefully chosen with child development in mind. Also look at the best gifts for 2-year olds.
This article brings you a list of gifts for 1-year-olds that encourage favorite activities like scattering things and stacking them back together, moving things in and out of a box, lifting things and dropping them, learning about shapes and pushing and pulling.
Wondering what to buy a 1-year-old? If you are searching for the perfect gift ideas or simply shopping for toys for your child, below are things to consider:
- Age-appropriate toys for 1-year-olds that should be usable in more than one way. At age 1, play is mostly centered on fine motor skills development and sensory exploration.
- The most practical toys for 1-year-olds are those with different textures. They invite the child’s small hands to grab hold of, feel, and investigate all the different ways he or she can play with it.
To help you out in the process of choosing the perfect gift for a 1- year-old, we have come up with a list of the most engaging and fun gifts for our youngest recipients.
Teytoy Zoo Series Soft Alphabet Cards – for Learning Letters
Once you have a small kid (or even kids), spending long periods of time in the waiting room is going to require some mental preparation and some planning. However, once you get these educational and distracting Teytoy Zoo Series Soft Alphabet Cards, you are almost going to like going to the doctor! This colorful package inspires a lot of skills in kids, and letter recognition and motor-skills development are just a few amongst them. This toy provides educational fun for the whole family, and carrying it around is easy because of its soft handle.
Infantino Press and Stay Sensory Blocks – Encourages Imagination
These building blocks are ideal toys for 1-year-olds because they come in unique shapes and attractive colors that will sparkle the enthusiasm of the young builders. They are super lightweight and easy to lift and stack together. The sensory blocks have bristle-like surfaces that easily stay together and not scatter. This makes it easy for your kid to align their structure from any angle without feeling frustrated.
Each set of Infantino Press and Stay Sensory Blocks contains 24 blocks that can be arranged into any fun shape they like. Boost your kid’s imagination with these beautiful blocks and watch as their creativity comes alive.
Grimm’s Spiel und Holz Small Rainbow – a Puzzle Stacker to Inspire Creativity
Grimm’s Spiel und Holz crafts wooden puzzles and stacking toys that are fun to play with and beautiful to look at as well. Kids are going to have endless fun putting this toy together, taking it apart, and imagining new uses for the individual pieces. Parents are going to love seeing this classic rainbow, handcrafted stacker in its fully assembled form. This toy can be used as a phone, a phone, a hat, a headband, but the imagination options do not stop there, and they depend on your and your child’s creativity. This toy is so beautiful and lovely, and you probably will not mind seeing the rainbow stacker on your coffee table once playtime ends. Who knows, you might even decide to keep it even after your child has outgrown it.
Lego Duplo My First Puzzle Pets – Animal Building Blocks
Kids love colors, and there is no better way to make help your one-year-old recognize colors than getting them the Lego Duplo My First Puzzle Pets. This educational toy comes in the form of a build-able cat, dog and bird, and also food bricks for each pet. Good learning toys for 1-year-olds help them figure out things. Your 1-year-old child will have a fun time building the cat with the blue puzzle pieces, the bird with yellow ones, and the dog with the red puzzles.
Apart from creating pets with puzzle pieces, kids also have to match each pet with the correct food bricks. Each pack contains 18 pieces of puzzle bricks and is compatible for both little boys and girls.
Melissa & Doug First Play Jungle Wooden Activity Table – a Multiple Skills Developer
This baby toy is one of the most practical toys for 1-year-olds that help develop a variety of skills. As an educational toy, the Melissa & Doug First Play Jungle Wooden Activity Table will help your 1-year-old toddler acquire developmental skills that include hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. It is a jungle-themed play table built with sturdy wood for safety, stability and longevity.
Its bright colors and bold, creative designs will capture the imagination of a 1 year old and keep him or her engaged – a great hands-on play mixed with learning experience. It is made interesting for the child as he or she interacts with the attached pieces designed to roll, turn, spin, flip and slide. Works great also for 2 year olds.
Melissa & Doug Peek-a-Boo Touch and Feel Puzzle – Boost Sensory Development
These little smiley-faced furry puzzles is a good starting point for your kid’s learning process. It comes as a wooden puzzle board with a small child-friendly mirror in the center, and four cute textured animals (a bird, bunny, kitten, and a puppy) stuffed into puzzle boxes on the four corners of the board. Toddlers enjoy pulling out and standing each animal, and fixing them back in place is even simpler, as each puzzle box has a picture of the animals embossed into them. The texture of the animals makes touching them fun, and their bright colors, patterns, and beautiful designs boost imagination and curiosity in kids.
Manhattan Toy Tree Top Adventure Activity Center – Full of Motor Skill Activities
Toddlers love adventure as much as they love pulling themselves to stand up. This colorful toy is built like an adventure island placed on a four-quadrant stool, that kiddies find fun and captivating. They can easily hold on to the wooden seat, to stand and explore the numerous fun activities in the adventure center. The activity center is densely packed with springy flaps, bead runs, gliders, shape recognition pieces, and other fun items toddlers love to use and play. It has all it takes to keep one-year-olds engaged while sparking their imagination, motor skills, and curiosity.
Glow in the Dark Sensory Baby Ball by Edushape
As a child grows from being a baby to being a toddler, some of the most important experiences they have involved the use of fine motor skills. For a toddler, fine and gross motor skill development comes with doing things like gripping things, bouncing, tossing, and rolling. The best gifts for 1-year-olds should include those that help in sensory development. A great toy that can help enhance such learning is the Edushape Glow in the Dark Sensory Ball.
The visually attractive ball comes in different colors that can glow in the night and helps kids build on their visual senses and the ability to recognize colors. In addition to developing hand-eye coordination, your 1-year-old can also improve his or her logic and reasoning skills by bouncing and tracking balls.
Hape Pound & Tap Bench with Slide Out Xylophone – Award Winning Multi-Functional Toy
Music is a therapy for both the young and old. At the age of one and above, toddlers become increasingly interested in sound and would love to bang on anything around them to make their sound. The Hape Pound and Tap Bench with Slide Out Xylophone is your little one’s perfect first musical instrument. Your toddler can Hape Pound & Tap Bench with Slide Out Xylophone by tapping the balls on the keys or sliding out the xylophone and pounding away with the wooden mallet. It comes with bright-colored round balls, non-toxic water paint, and sturdy polished surface. It is a great way to develop your kid’s hand-eye coordination, and for them to explore the little musical genius in them.
Green Toys Wagon – Imaginative Play, Environmentally Friendly
As your one-year-olds are still trying to attain balance while walking, help them develop gross motor skills with this wagon from Green Toys. Kids can also build their sense of imaginative play when they pull this wagon about. They can also choose to load it with their favorite toys for transportation from one end of the playpen to another.
Don’t worry, this Green Toys Wagon does not contain harmful BPA, phthalates, and PVC, but is made from safe, recycled plastic. And as an additional safety feature, there are no metal joints and axles, neither are there harmful paint nor spray coatings.
Joovy TriCyCoo – Comfy, Adjustable Kids’ Tricyle
After riding in a stroller for literally his entire life, your 1-year-old is going to be absolutely ecstatic to saddle up in the tricycle. This Joovy’s version is amazing because it doubles as a stroller alternative, and it is very sturdy. It has a five-point harness that is going to keep a 1-year-old safe and secure, and it has both pedals and foot-rests, for kids of all ages and sizes.
Melissa & Doug Jenna Mine to Love Baby Doll – Ideal Size for Toddlers
Watch your toddler learn to be a perfect caregiver by watching them nurture and care for this cute baby doll by Melissa & Doug. As its been designed like a baby, this doll is soft, and can shut her eyes when rocked to sleep! You’ll be amazed at how exciting parenting can be for your one-year-old and how much their language skills could improve with this doll.
To Melissa & Doug Jenna Mine to Love Baby Doll, Melissa & Doug have designed this doll to be able to suck her thumb and a pacifier. And as a plus, it is only 12-inches in height to help toddlers comfortably master their grip.
Your toddler is undoubtedly going to fall in love with this doll at first sight!
Piki Piki Toddler Bike – Lightweight, Easy to Ride and Steer
This colorful, plastic three-wheeler that’s shaped like a motorcycle is fun enough to be used for years and years, and durable enough to take the years of that abuse. This motorcycle is going to help young kids maintain stability and practice steering. Also, if you take your kid to the park, prepare for some ugly toddler battles over this motorcycle.
HABA Zookeeper Wooden Shape Sorting Box – a Toy with a Twist
Think of a zoo with feeding slots in front of enclosures. That’s the idea behind this delightful toy. The HABA Zookeeper Wooden Shape Sorting Box has feeding slots openings in different shapes big and small. While playing, the child pretends to feed animals by matching shapes to open slots. Helps children with shape and color recognition.
Allow your toddler to explore nature while learning about shapes with the HABA Nature Shape Sorting Box. It comes in two double-sided boards printed with scenes of animals playing in a field. There are six shapes carved out on the boards. Kids are to place the shapes into the correct holes. Each shape is designed with two pictures on each side, and fitting in the images correctly shows what the animals eat.
Animals get half their dinner if the slot slide is down. Pushing it upwards enables the child to feed the animal the full meal. The fitting of the shapes in the slots helps children 12 months and older develop fine motor skills. Alternating the slide up or down to fill slots based on shape size helps children acquire thinking skills as they have fun.
This toy keeps kids engaged, develops their imagination, and brighten their hand-eye coordination. It is lightweight such that your kid can move it all around as they wish.
Fat Brain Toys Oombee Cube Sorter – Tactile Toy for Toddlers
By helping them develop their problem-solving skills, shape-sorting toys are going to offer an early Fat Brain Toys Oombee Cube Sorter. For the youngest of kids, we would recommend this tactile cube. They are going to love it, but the parents are going to love it as well; since all of these different shapes are attached with solid strings, they won’t constantly have to look for that one missing triangle. Also, this is the perfect toy to take along in the stroller, to keep your baby busy in the grocery store. You should also be aware that the majority of 1-year-olds likes to try chewing on their toys, which is okay for this one since it’s Fat Brain Toys Oombee Cube Sorter.
Petit Collage Eco-Friendly ABC Wooden Blocks – Great Gift for a Toddler
Toddlers love to build, and these wooden blocks bring out the young engineer in them! It comes in fifteen solid multicolored wooden blocks with letters and alphabets written on the sides in brilliant colors. They also sometimes have pictures of pets, flowers, and beautiful patterns printed on the sides. Your 1-year-old child will find it fun stacking the bricks together to build different structures, and they will be quickly captivated by the drawings on the sides.
Melissa & Doug Geometric Stacker – Builds Multiple Skills
As far as practical gifts for 1-year-olds go, the Melissa & Doug Geometric Stacker is a great toy for a child. These kinds of block-on-stick stackers come in so many different shapes and sizes, and you will find your perfect one pretty easily. This version from Melissa & Doug looks and feels like a deluxe wooden incarnation of the classic Fisher-Price baby toy, and it will provide so much fun and engagement for kids during their playtime. One-year-olds are going to spend most of their playtime sorting the blocks by shape or color or shape. However, even the older toddlers are going to have fun playing with different-shaped towers because they are more challenging to stack and build with.
Dolce Afghan Hound Interactive Stuffed Animal
Providing a child comfort is possible through gifts for 1-year-olds that a child can cuddle. Toddlers find a special companion in stuffed animals. So, if you’re looking for the best gift for your one-year-old, then you should consider getting this Dolce Afghan Interactive Stuffed Animal. It comes in different multicolored designs, with a soft fluffy texture, and is the perfect cuddle buddy for your little one. It is made of velour fabrics that are quite cozy to touch and has a bead rattle stuffed into its tummy, which your little one can spin when playing with their new friend. The multiple colors are perfect for your child to learn about colors; the texture and many intricate designs also will sparkle their curiosity, imagination, and sensory development.
Jellycat Bashful Stuffed Animal, Small
The sweetest and the cuddliest gift for the littlest kids are going to be an especially soft and cuddly stuffed animal. For a lot of gift-givers, Gund is a popular choice, but so many kids are also going to love London-based Jellycat. Jellycat makes dreamy and cuddly, pellet-filled, and soft stuffed friends for your 1-year-olds. All of the animals come in a wide variety of sizes. However, keep in mind that the 1-year-old is very small, and a small animal is going to be easy to tote around and play with. This toy is going to be a great transition when it is time to take the pacifier away. Jellycat’s stuffed animal is going to become a constant companion in bed, at the park, on our bike commute, at daycare, etc.
A Plush Talking Stuffed Animals Jungle Set
Toddlers are always curious about animals. Heighten your kid’s inquisitiveness by bringing Plush Talking Stuffed Animals Jungle Set home to them with this 6-piece set of plush toys that includes a stuffed bear, elephant, tiger, lion, zebra and monkey. There are lots of animals for them to explore, including sheep, pony, goat, cow, and many others. They can bend these figures, make them stand, sit, and stay in any position they wish. This toy encourages your little ones to explore. The bright colors help them learn about colors, and playing with the different animals helps develop their curiosity and learning process.
The plush set, made for babies and toddlers 3 months and older also comes with a Jungle House Carrier. It will make a great gift not only for a 1-year old, but also ages 2, 3, 4, 5 and up. Its plushness makes it safe, as there are no sharp edges that can hurt a child.
PlanToys Dancing Alligator Pull Along Toy
Give your toddler unlimited entertainment with this fun dancing toy alligator. It is made from eco-friendly rubberwood and finely polished with non-toxic water-based colors. As your little one drags the toy along, it makes a cheerful crackling sound, with its head and tail moving up and unlimited entertainment
Hape Elephant Wooden Push and Pull Toy
This toy is one of the best gifts for your adventurous one-year-old. With this simple, brightly colored elephant toy, your toddler is bound to experience the animal kingdom one pull or push at a time. It is built with sturdy, durable, and lightweight materials for your kid to pull or pull around the house using the attached pull-along chord. It is also small enough for their little hands to pick up.
Wishbone Flip Rock and Roll Ride
Wishbone is a fun kiddies’ rocker ride that could be transformed from rocker to roller within seconds. Using its automatic flipping mechanism, you can choose to convert it into a simple ride-on, a rocker, or a toy stroller for your toddler.
Kid O Go Car Early Learning Push and Pull Toy
One of the best gifts for one-year-olds is to get them a car with which they could cruise around. Kid O Go Car is the perfect ride to satiate the car enthusiast in your little one. It is fun, colorful, and also made in such a simple way that your little one can sit on it, hold on to the handle, and roll it along like a pro. It is built with sturdy, eco-friendly materials, and durable rubber-coated wheels that glide across floors and even furniture without causing wear or tear to the surfaces. Buying your kid this toy car will help develop their motor skills, imagination, and hand-eye coordination. It comes in four beautiful colors: Grass Green, Peony Pink, Cherry Red, and Aqua Blue.
So, there you have it, a comprehensive list of best gifts for one-year-olds. If you’ve been thinking of something beautiful to give your one-year-old, now you have all the answers you need. Click on the link on each gift, and start shopping away!
