The 7 Best Kid’s Toys and the Only Ones You’ll Ever Need

Way too many toys in your house? Toys that your kids never play with but you spent hundreds on? I feel you. We went through a decluttering journey of kids’ toys recently and through that effort, I discovered the best kid’s toys that are now the only toys my kids will ever need.

If you’re like me, you’re trying your best to declutter and minimize the amount of kids’ toys in your home. If you aren’t yet in the “less is more” mindset, check out this post all about how and why to minimize your kids’ toys to encourage more play. Since we are starting to enter the Christmas season, I figured this would be a great time to share what I think are the essential kid’s toys.

One thing to mention before we get into it, kids really don’t need toys. For more details on this, I can’t recommend Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne enough. Don’t believe that kids truly need less? He provides all the research you need to feel reassured that this is true. Kids for so long got by without toys and just by using their imagination with their surroundings. So while I’m going to share with you my kid’s favorite toys, just remember, they really don’t need any of this. So if you can’t afford toys or you already have enough, you are not depriving your child of anything by not giving them these toys.

Looking for Christmas gift ideas this year that aren’t toys? I’ve got you covered.

So let’s dive right in and talk about the best kid’s toys.

Legos!

Legos are a classic for a reason. They encourage so much independent play, problem solving, imagination, and can be used in so many different ways. You can mix and match sets, you can tailor your sets to your children’s interests. I just adore legos.

But lego collections can get out of hand quickly, so I strongly suggest limiting yourself to two sets. The first set is just the basic pack of legos that gives you a good foundation to create anything and everything. Tailor the second set to your child’s interest. If your child is super into superheroes, go for a Spiderman set. They have Disney sets of all kinds. My girls LOVE this jungle animals set. This is one I highly recommend if your child also loves animals!

Little People

Another classic that I adore! Again, it’s easy to go overboard with Little People, so try to limit yourself to just two sets again. My kids LOVE the farm and the car wash sets. But you really can tailor this again to your kids’ interests. My kids aren’t into princesses, but if you have little girls who are, there are so many princess sets out there. These toys are also great quality and the little people themselves are very durable, so these are toys you can pass down as well.

Foam Magnet Blocks

You may be wondering… we are three items in and you haven’t seen Magna-tiles pop in yet. Well hot take, my kids don’t LOVE Magna-tiles. In fact, every time I get them out to play with, they just ignore them and play with something else instead. It’s brutal. And yet I still see Magna-tiles on EVERY. SINGLE. PARENT’S. Favorite toy list. BUT even though my kid’s don’t love Magna-tiles, they do LOVE these soft magnet blocks! Each set you buy comes with an idea booklet that you can use to start building all sorts of things. At first, I would follow the instructions with my 4-year-old and help her build the various vehicles and animals, but then, she started building her own creations. Now, she’ll sit with these for an hour just building her own fun things without my help at all. Love love love these! And they are fantastic quality as well! You can get a huge bundle of them or start with a smaller set to make sure your child likes them.

Stuffed Animals

Yes… stuffed animals. I’ve gone through several rounds of declutter of our stuffed animals because at one point we had several baskets worth of them that was totally unnecessary. But now we are down to just two small baskets of ones that both my children absolutely adore. And they really do play with them. They’ll bring a huge pile of them into their tent to snuggle with, they’ll pretend they are vets and take care of them, they’ll dress them up with little accessories, etc. And you really don’t need fancy ones. Literally any stuffed animal will do.

My daughter’s favorite stuffed animal is a bear from Goodwill. She got to pick one animal from the thrift store one time and she chose this soft grey bear that looked very basic. But she was so proud that she had “saved” the bear from the store and brought him into a loving home. She brings him everywhere. She named him. So if you can make it an occasion to go to the thrift store to “adopt” a stuffed animal, that makes it all the more special.

Tonies

We considered both the Yoto Player and the Toniebox when we were originally looking into this and went with the Toniebox because of the little figures you can collect and I’m so glad we did. My daughters are completely obsessed with their Toniebox. It’s an absolute treat to collect the little figures and makes fantastic, affordable gifts. It allows my child to go through phases where she’ll be obsessed with one tonie, but then switch to the next for several weeks, and then switch back. It gives them complete independence. And we keep my daughter’s Toniebox in her bedroom next to her bed so that she can use it to soothe herself back to sleep. I can’t recommend the Toniebox enough. It’s a total pain to set up, but it’s worth it. We also bring it everywhere with us when we travel!

If you’re looking for some figure recommendations, my daughter is obsessed with any Paw Patrol one, Stitch, the Lion King one is fantastic, and we love the Moana one.

Character Figurines

I love this one because it’s so easy to adapt to any child and any budget. But character figurines are a staple in our house for every single play. My kids will build lego houses for their characters, make the characters interact with their foam blocks, take their characters outside, etc. And these character figurines can be wooden ones that are more generic or they can be specific movie or TV show characters. I bought Mickey Mouse ones a while ago from the dollar store that are actually good quality and that my 2-year-old is obsessed with. You can probably thrift them as well super easily!

Cars (of any kind!)

Another one like the character figurines that you can adapt to any child and budget. I bought a cheap bag of a variety of cars/trucks/etc. at Goodwill one time and these have also lasted through every declutter I’ve done because they are so versatile. You can bring them outside, you can adapt them to any toy, they can pair with all of the other toys above, and they are great for siblings. My kids have also recently gotten into Paw Patrol and the little vehicles from the show are their new obsession. They are cheap, don’t take up a ton of space, and we bring them out every day to play with. These can also be large cars, small cars, etc. depending on the age of your child.

In conclusion, toys with versatility are the ones that have survived every declutter and the ones my kids always go back to. The less you can adapt the toy to any play, the less my children tend to play with it. In other words, the more the toy is already defined (i.e. think a light-up princess castle with all the bells and whistles), the less imagination your child has to put into it and the less they can transform it into something else. So use this as your new filter as you go out and look for some Christmas gifts for your kids.

I hope this was helpful today and I’d love to hear what you think are the best kid’s toys and if I missed any!