Decluttering kids toys is a hugely popular fad right now but it can be hard to figure out what is worth keeping.
Having kids on a budget: How to choose the best toys for kids.
Too many toys can have very negative effects on their play, make a lot more mess, and they can steal your time.
Watch your children to see what they play with the most.
If your kids are anything like mine, you’ll find that the super cool, awesome, flashy, and highly marketed newest toy on the block looses their attention rather quickly.
So think carefully about your purchases and try to stick to toys that have staying power.
It can help to put toys in a few basic categories to see whether or not they are worth keeping around.
Table of Contents
Something to Build
Some of the most popular are Duplo, Lego, wooden blocks, and Frontier Logs.
You don’t need one of every set. Just choose a couple that may appeal to your children.
Lego is the best for kids past the “in the mouth” phase so my recommendation would be to get Lego and, if you choose, one other set.
And you don’t need to buy all the special Lego sets either.
A random bag of Lego found at the thrift store can bring hours of creative fun. (And girls love to build too, though they may build houses instead of race cars).
This is how to choose the best toys for kids.
Something to Imagine
Puppets, play silks, and dress up clothes can provide endless hours of creative play for children.
Leave the play food and pretend dishes.
Real bowls and spoons are often much more fun.
Puppets can be hard to find but we bought this awesome puppet set for my boys.
They aren’t as good quality as some of the more expensive brands out there but the variety and price made up for that.
Play silks are hugely popular and you would be surprised at how children use them and I’m sure that all little girls have wonderful memories of dressing up in our Mama’s fancy clothes and dancing around the house in her high heels.
Something to Create
Art supplies like Crayons, paint, different kinds of paper, scissors, and glue.
Save the stickers from calendars and those free promotional stickers that come in the mail.
Hit up the dollar store or pretty much any place around the beginning of school to stock your supply closet.
Although the ready made craft kits can be fun (and simple for those of us who are lacking the crafty-gene) kids really appreciate just being given a few sheets of paper, some glue, and a pair of scissors.
Or hand them a small notebook and pen (does anyone else have dozens of those free promotional things laying around?) so they can draw or write as they desire.
Something to Read
No home is complete without living books (a high quality book that engages the mind and captivates the heart).
Kids are typically attracted to books with real pictures instead of cartoonish ones or stories that they can imagine they are a part of.
Some of our favorite non-fiction books are the Usborne Encyclopedias because the small blurbs can open doors to more questions.
I love to direct friends and family to Wish Lists when it comes to birthdays and Christmas but most of my great finds have been through local homeschool moms who have either given or sold (at huge discounts) some of their outgrown books.
Garage sales and thrift stores are other great places to find inexpensive yet high quality used books.
You can also ask your local library if they ever have sales of books they no longer need.
There are some things that will fall outside these categories and that’s fine.
For example, my kids got Rescue Bots: Heatwave for Christmas and they have been played with daily since then.
They are plastic and TV characters and break many of the “perfect toys for kids” rules but they are loved so they stay.
So follow the guidelines but remember that they are not hard and fast rules.
And get rid of some of those toys so you children will finally have the freedom to use their imaginations and have some fun!
If you’re looking for a few more tips on How to Choose the Best Toys for Kids, get some advice from a mom of 7 who has really figured out some secrets for shopping differently as a mom.
These are some great idea, thanks!
I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Thank you for stopping by.
I like how you divided them into categories. That helps me figure out where their current toys fall so I can pick the top few in each group and gift the rest. Thanks!
I’m glad it helps you figure some things out. My mind works well with categories and compartments 🙂
These are great categories and I think you hit the nail on the head. I think this will help me figure out what I can get rid of 🙂
I’ll say in the Imagine toys, my LO will play with anything! Toy or otherwise, lol!
Good luck!
I want to get rid of more toys–so many are in storage and not missed, but they inevitably bring up anything I gave away later. 🙁 And they’re (apparently) too little to choose things to give away. They’ll pick things I know they love and play with all the time! It’s so frustrating. I brought just a few of their favorite toys on our two-month trip, and they hardly play with them. I just don’t get it…
Honestly, get rid of most of the stuff in storage. If you don’t need it now, you probably won’t need it. My oldest is super attached to his stuff and memorizes every toy and the memories associated with it. He is slowly learning that he gets to keep the memories but we don’t have time or space for all of the toys and, at 6, he has an easier time letting go. Sometimes I sneak things out (like McDonald’s toys and broken toys) and, when he asks, I tell him the truth about getting rid of them and he is usually shocked at how long it took him to realize they were gone. Out of sight, out of mind. Also, when you’re travelling, there are so many more interesting things to look at than play with toys. Just being together is often entertainment enough and toys are just a bonus for those extra tough days. I call them “cool downs.” A gaming term for something you use when all else fails and you need a heavy hitter or a last minute saving grace. Lego is my current cool down 😉
Good tips. I think Usborne Books are fabulous.
We are big on imaginative toys, in and outside the house. My girls will be just as happy with a giant box of old buttons and she will with making all sorts of creations our of mud, or drawing a giant maze on our driveway with sidewalk chalk! We also have a HUGE basket of building blocks all inherited from friends who have older kids and, though we have 3 girls and no boys, an equally giant basket of Thomas the Train items and I dare say mom and dad are just as likely to feel inspired to build a track that curves this way and that, than the girls. It leads to a ton of quality family time 🙂