To help provide you with some fun and educational recommendations for holiday gifts, we asked our therapists for their favorite learning toys. Most of these items are widely available, affordable, and work on a variety of skills. These are our Top 20. Enjoy!
| Toy/product name | Skill(s) it works on | Age designed for | |
| 1. | Buckle Bug
| Fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, color recognition, cognitive skills | 12 mos. + |
| 2. | Super Sorting Pie
| Tripod grasp, color recognition, numbers/counting, patterns, visual processing | 3 years+ |
| 3. | Toy Cookie Set
| Social skills, fine motor skills, sequencing, core vocabulary, pretend play, following directions | 3 years+ |
| 4. | Spike the Hedgehog | Fine motor skills, visual processing skills, color recognition | 18 mos.+ |
| 5. | Squigz
| Sensory, fine motor skills, bilateral coordination, visual motor skills, color recognition, balance | 3 years+ |
| 6. | Bubble Storm Bubble Gun | Language (requesting more, directing actions, describing), fine motor skills (popping bubbles), visual motor skills | 2 years+ |
| 7. | Sticker Sheets | Fine motor skills, Language skills (prepositions, nouns, language expansion), following directions
| 2 years+ |
| 8. | “Thirst Quencher”
| Following directions, pretend play, language skills (prepositions, asking questions, language expansion) | 3 years+ |
| 9. | Pop-Up Pirate | Turn taking, social skills, following directions, language skills | 3 years+ |
| 10. | Playhouse/farm/ship | Pretend play, following directions, language skills (prepositions, receptive communication, language expansion) | 2 years+ |
| 11. | Prefilled Easter eggs | Fine motor, following directions, early language skills | 1 year+ |
| 12. | Playdoh set with cookie cutters | Following directions, sensory play, language skills (language expansion, requesting), fine motor skills | 3 years+ |
| 13. | Sorting and Nesting Blocks | Following directions, categories and sorting, language expansion | 2 years+ |
| 14. | “I Spy Find it Dig in Game” | Visual motor skills, visual perceptual skills, turn taking, fine motor skills, attention, direction following, language skills | 5 years+ |
| 15. | Dot markers | Fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, color recognition, gradation of movement | 3 years+ |
| 16. | Push Pop Bubble Fidget Toy | Sensory, fine motor skills | 1 year+ |
| 17. | “Don’t Break the Ice” | Fine motor skills, gradation of movement, turn-taking, social skills, following directions | 3 years+ |
| 18. | “Honeybee Tree “or “KerPlunk” | Fine motor skills, gradation of movement, turn-taking, social skills, following directions | 3 years+ 5 years+ respectively |
| 19. | “Count Your Chickens”
| Following directions, taking turns, cooperative play, counting, social skills | 3 years+ |
| 20. | Wooden Velcro Cutting Food Set
| Bimanual coordination, pretend play, fun food play | 3 years+ |
