Best toys for kids

Do you need to know what constitutes a good toddler learning toy? Is it the lights and sounds that make it appealing or its ability to evolve with your child as he or she grows?

For a long time, I was choosing the wrong kind of toys for my kids. I bought whatever was a learning toy type of brand – like LeapFrog – without thinking about whether my child would actually play with it. And if they never invest any time in it, then it’s a waste of money.

Here are the top toddler learning toys for Christmas 2009:

1.) Arts and crafts for toddlers – When children get to get messy, it makes them absorb all sorts of information and branch out to create their own world. Melissa and Doug toys – specifically the Easel, are great artistic and educational toys for toddlers.

2.) Electronic toys for toddlers – LeapFrog and Fisher Price lead the industry in electronic toys for little kids. They do more than just include flashing lights and cute little sounds. They get your toddler to make decisions on what actions to take next and reward them for when they succeed. LeapFrog Scribble and Write is currently one of the bestsellers in this category.

3.) Interactive toys for toddlers – Interactive toys are those that give your child the chance to participate in the learning process. This year, one of the hottest toddler educational toys are the zhu zhu Pet Hamsters. These toys are better than the real deal because there’s no mess to clean up, no real food to buy – your boy or girl will adore how the hamsters act and look real, moving from room to room to participate in activities and aking realistic noises. The learning part comes into play as your child cares for and nurtures his or her pet.

4.) Life skills learning toys for toddlers – Life skill toys are those that teach kids the basics they’ll need throughout life, such as how to tell time, knowing their shapes, counting numbers and discovering the alphabet and spelling. The bestselling toddler toy in this group is called My Tot Clock: Helping Small Children Sleep Better…So Parents Can Too!

5.) Action figures and dress up toys for toddlers – Don’t underestimate the little action figures your toddler boy may crave. They stimulate imaginative play, just as the costumes and dress up toys do for little girls. One of the best action figure playsets for boys this Christmas 2009 is the Fisher-Price Super Friends Batcave.And for dress-up, it’ll be International Playthings My First Purse in Purple.

One thing is important to remember when choosingtoddler learning toys – you’ll often find that gender doesn’t matter. Boys might want to play with girlie items and girls may love the toolset This little boy child will get for Christmas.