As your little youngster continues to develop, he begins to display new behavioral patterns, likenesses, and recognitions. He can define textures he likes both verbally and non-verbally. The same can be said for certain shapes. The curiosity of a 1 year old reaches high levels at this point in their life, making toys and gifts an essential factor in challenging and testing this new-found capability.
The memory of a 1 year old is still yet to be defined. It can hold small recall capabilities, making minimal tests a feat to be conquered. They also begin to develop movements on their own, like walking and crawling, at this age. This age also represents a stage of rapid development in the mentioned categories as well as other capabilities. Stimulating your child at this age is an important aspect for a toy to hold. Below is a list of toys, partnered with in-depth reviews, that highlight options best suited for the 1-year old boy.
Nuby Octopus Hoopla Bathtime Fun Toy
The bath companion makes for a great helper in accomplishing this difficult task. These youngsters have a difficult time sitting still at this age, making bath time a hassle for parents. To keep their mind at ease and their senses on high alert, try this floating octopus toy. The octopus features a vibrant purple coloring. It also displays a facial expression of a smile, helping the child grasp on to the toy on a non-physical level. The toy also comes with three rings, each with a separate color scheme or design pattern. The octopus extends its tentacles, so the child can place the rings on any of the 8 placement areas he wishes.
This toy goes great with those who have trouble sitting still for routine washings and the shampoo treatments. This toy also makes for a great influencer in helping your child develop spatial recognition skills and work on their hand-eye coordination. This is a toy that helps to fine tune early motor skills and keeps the child occupied for an activity that often emits backlash from the child.
VTech Catch-Me-Kitty
VTech has historically been a company that is very involved in childhood development. Their creations extend to all age ranges. The Catch-Me-Kitty is a development that helps a child develop in 4 different facets. This cat runs around your house and uses front and back sensors to ensure it does not run into any troubled areas or objects. These sensors also keep your child safe as they chase after this singing kitty cat. The cat sings nursery rhymes, helping your child develop a likeness to these famed tunes. The kitty also has buttons on its sides to help children develop shape and number recognitions. Since the kitty is constantly running and changing directions, it also acts as a helper to stride development and upright walking for the child.
Hasbro Playskool Lullaby Gloworm Boy
The Lullaby Gloworm marks for a great bedtime companion. This softer material toy lights up each time the child is to squeeze or hug the toy. These lights can feature a lower dim and shine when placed in sleep mode. The toy will also serenade the child with a selection of different lullabies to help them into a deep resting period. The associations the child creates with the toy is the squeezing can lead to pleasant sounds and sights, introducing fine motor skill development. This toy works perfectly around bedtime to calm the child and induce them into a state of resting and relaxation. The calm, soothing nature of the lullabies will have your child sleeping soundly. The slight glow the toy gives off can help the child feel comforted in a darker room or setting.
Manhattan Toy Tree Top Adventure Activity Center
To cover a full spectrum of activities and behaviors, the Manhattan Toy Activity Center meets the description. This table-top styled set up features many different facets of shapes, designs, and patterns. Made from mostly wood and metal, the child can navigate small beads and shapes on the metal wires throughout this set up. This helps the child locate the areas where certain shapes will fit and notice when they are too large, small, or disfigured. The introduction of different obstacles at multiple locations will keep your child busy for hours as they try to improve upon their skills through prolonged usage. This is the perfect toy to infuse stimulations and to keep the child focused and occupied throughout the day. Due to the many different changing patterns, the child can become fixated on a daily basis.
Battat Sort and Stack Learning Toy for Kids
The Battat Sort and Stack represents the ultimate learning toy for youngsters. This pail comes with ten different stacking cups. Each cup features a number and a picture displaying an image of objects that match the number in quantity. The cups also range in size based off of numbers, with one being the smallest cup and ten being the largest cup. This creates a number to size association for children, as the numbers won’t stack unless they are done in order. The same can be said for the cups fitting back into the pail. The pail only allows for a largest to smallest order, helping the child learn the importance of a proper clean up. After the child has safely stacked their cups within the pail, a final challenge is presented. The top covering of the pail has shaped holes. There are four different shapes that the child can place within these holes to complete a full clean up.
Yottoy Big Screen Paddington Bear 8.5 Soft Toy
Character recognition is something that is developed throughout the early years of life. What better way to improve upon this behavior than with everyone’s favorite bear? Paddington is a loveable stuffed animal that comes dressed in his signature blue rain coat and red top hat. The toy is made from plush materials, making it soft to the touch. This makes for the perfect naptime or bedtime companion as the plush material allows for squeezing and extended holding. This character is a positive representation for children and it can help them make associations between real life and television with this character appearing frequently in their visual stream.
BIG Baby Porsche Ride-On Vehicle
The modifications made to common walkers for little ones have changed immensely over the years. The Porsche Ride-On vehicle represents one of the most stunning changes to this marketplace. The child sits atop this luxury, plastic vehicle. Their feet touch the ground and their use these extremities to create push-off and apply breaking techniques. Walking is a movement that requires coordination from multiple areas of the body. This toy helps the child focus on stride development and teaches them the importance of being able to speed up or slow down. The foot breaking is essential to developing shifty movements and operating with change-of-direction occurring at any given moment.
Melissa & Doug First Bead Maze – Wooden Educational Toy
The Melissa & Doug bead maze is a perfect tool for refining motor skills. Each metal pathway is colored with a vibrant, solid option. Blues, reds, greens, and yellows make up the different schemes encompassed by this toy. Each metal path does not interfere or crossover the other paths, which helps the child map the movements and store it to memory. Each of the beads being used in the maze is made from a different shape and follows the same color scheme utilized in the pathways. This is a simple structure that helps benefit the child’s memorization skills. The limited function and pathways without blockage helps the child store this information easily.
VTech Touch & Swipe Baby Phone
If you have a youngster, you know how easily they can become distracted. One of their main attractions comes on the screen of a phone. Vibrant colors, streaming banners, and other such patterns draw the attention of these young individuals. The problem surrounding this behavior is that the child can do some damage on an actual smart phone. Get them a cellular device of their own thanks to VTech. This touch-screen option allows the child to interact with their phone and learn words with sound associations. This creates an option for the child and limits their attraction to your phone.
VTech Turn and Learn Driver
VTech has developed a tool that helps teach children the importance of directional travel. The turn and learn driver is a tool that presents the child with their very own steering column and dashboard. The dashboard creates different nursery rhymes with the pressing of a button. The machine also informs the child when to stop, when to put the car in reverse, and when to use the horn. It will teach the child responsibility and teach them to follow the directions. The directional association is built-up through the different steering patterns and commands the machine emits.
VTech Rhyme and Discover Book
Learning different nursery rhymes and tunes can help move the child in a positive direction when it comes to speech development. They will hear similar sounds and noises, helping them to create associations with these words and phrases. VTech does a good job prompting these associations thanks to the three included character tabs on the side of the book. There are 7 different tunes located within the book. Some tunes come with moveable pieces, continuing the object and sound associations created by the book to help the child improve upon these behaviors.
Bentley 6-in-1 Baby Stroller / Kids Trike
A young child wants to be in constant motion. They feel if they aren’t moving, then they aren’t contributing to the situation. What better way to make them feel important and cater to this behavior than the 6-in-1 baby stroller. This stroller doubles as a trike, allowing the child to freely move their feet while the stroller is in motion. This also helps create an activity for the child to participate in on those longer walks. It can be used as a fitness tool for helping the child develop the strength to begin walking or can be used as a measure to occupy the child during a longer walk.
When it comes to toys that suit children under the age of 1, you have to consider their activity level first. Keeping this level high is important to rapid development. You can help place your child ahead of the curve in certain regards, but this will mostly keep their development occurring at a correct pace. Keeping the child occupied can help both the parents and the child. This occupation must occur within reason, as setting frustration can ultimately hurt the child’s individual development. Find a challenge for them, but make sure it is something that can be accomplished within a reasonable time span. Activities that are too challenging will deter the child away from the toy and may cause them to create a negative association with that toy. It is difficult to break negative associations created by the child, so avoiding these instances is proper practice.
You also want to make sure it is something within reason of the child’s knowledge base. Most children’s brains are still in the development stages, making memory tasks and complex thinking something they will not be able to handle. They are just starting to discover shapes and textures, making activities that introduce new occurrences to these behaviors something they take a liking to.
Looking for Gifts & Toys For Other Ages Of Children?
Do you have more than child to buy for who is at a different age? If that’s the case then you might want to check out our other guides of carefully curated and considered lists of gadgets, games, puzzles and toys that cater for all different ages and development stages of kids.
You’ll find that the guides below have toys that have been specifically designed and developed to match your child’s physical, emotional and cognitive abilities. I hope these guides provide you with all the inspiration you need to get your child gift idea spot on!
1 Year Old Girl / 1 Year Old Boy
2 Year Old Girl / 2 Year Old Boy
3 Year Old Girl / 3 Year Old Boy
4 Year Old Girl / 4 Year Old Boy
5 Year Old Girl / 5 Year Old Boy
6 Year Old Girl / 6 Year Old Boy
7 Year Old Girl / 7 Year Old Boy
8 Year Old Girl / 8 Year Old Boy
9 Year Old Girl / 9 Year Old Boy
1o Year Old Girl / 10 Year Old Boy
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