ToyQueen’s Top 12 Holiday Toys for 2009
With the holidays fast approaching and in the spirit of gift giving, I’ve created a list of my 12 favorite educational toys. Toys were chosen based on their ability to combine fun, and developmental value over time. Most of these toys have multiple uses and can be used with a variety of different age groups!
There are 3 toys per category including Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Elementary School Age.
Birth to 12 months
1. Fisher-Price Stack & Roll Cups 
For infants, not only do these cups stack and nest, put them together to make a rolling ball! When children get older, these cups would make great sand and tub toys!
A great infant toy that combines a marble track with a fine motor activity box!
What infant doesn’t love dump and fill play, with the ability to generate early social skills by pushing the truck back and forth to a parent or sibling? Trucks will always last a lifetime!
12 months through 2 years
4. Toddler’s will initially enjoy using the key to open all the boxes to work on foundational skills such as turn taking and vocabulary development. As their thinking skills improve, this game advances with them to teach skills such as color and number recognition into the preschool years.
5. This is a 3 in 1 toy that is a stable push toy for children learning to walk and a ride-on toy for older children. Children can drive their blocks to different locations before stacking them up and crashing them over.
6. Children love to scribble and color, but do not always have the attention span to do so for long. This product incorporates coloring along to music where the music will speed up and slow down based on how fast or slow the child is coloring. It comes with triangular crayons which are great to enhance grasp development.
Preschool Age (3-5 years) 
Depending on your child’s abilities, either the Tag or Tag Jr. is a great way to foster reading, vocabulary development, the ability to answer questions and to develop reading comprehension. The Tag Jr. Book Pal is appropriate for children up to 4, the Tag Reading System is geared for children 4-8. I’ve successfully heard many times that parents have used the Tag with younger children, though they require more supervis
ion and assistance. If you are looking for an independent toy for a young child, the Tag Jr. incorporates board books with a more basic level of operation.
Jump and move with your favorite Disney characters! I am a huge fan of the moving to learn concept. There are multiple games with multiple levels included in the console, which becomes more difficult as children advance their skills. You can also purchase other games more specific to the child’s interest.
This preschool game involves color matching with round barnyard animals that can be played with separately from the game but builds on the skills needed for Uno at an older age.
Elementary School Age (5 & up)
Awesome take on Tic-Tac-Toe that involves strategy as you can gobble up your opponents so the game can continue with a different strategy. Kids and adults love this game!
11. 1,2,3 Stomp by Wild Planet 
Number and math game that pops the pieces all over to incorporate speed and movement!
12. Candyland Sweet Celebrations by Hasbro
New version of Candyland with the same concept of turn taking and color recognition but children can constantly change the game board to play differently every time!