As I mentioned in the long-winded intro to this year’s Gift Guide, I’m always looking for kid gifts that have longevity, that can be used in different ways, and that have good value. Here are my suggestions of good value toys to help you with your holiday shopping:
1) Superhero Cape: I suppose your family may not be as interested obsessed with superheros and comic books as mine, but one gift that has held up for years and gets played with almost daily are our superhero capes. I purchased these Etsy capes for the twins, so they’d each have their own initial and a different color, while my son has a basic red one. If you’re a sewer, you can do this very frugally and make your own. Our capes have been bibs for haircuts, aprons, skirts, headdresses, tents for stuffed animals, and much more as my kids do imaginative play. A cape with a velcro neck is safest, and I’d recommend a cape for age 2 1/2 and up. I imagine my kids will still wear/play with their capes through the tween years, so the longtime value is there.
2) Art Supplies: Starting with as young as 2, there are so many wonderful art supplies to encourage creativity and artistic expression. Consumable art supplies can get quite expensive when you have more than one child (or one very prolific child). I like to give art supplies as a birthday gift to help replenish during the year. Look for an alternative to the usual crayons–colored pencils, markers that change colors when combined, glittery crayons, and more. Stacks of construction paper and stickers can be made into a myriad of projects for any age child. If your child has started writing, think about a lined journal or other special book for recording special stories. I keep an eye out for BOGO and other sales throughout the year, since the “special” items aren’t usually on sale during the Back-to-School sales in August.
3) Melissa & Doug’s Almost Anything: Many of you are familiar with this company; Melissa & Doug toys are amazingly sturdy. Like the DT toys below, they pass down well or I can purchase them used at a yard/consignment sale and know I’m getting quality. I can also resell them at the end of their life at our house (cha-ching). We probably have 20 Melissa & Doug toys in the house right now, but the favorites are the large-scale Puzzles
4) Tub of Animals: Although my first thought on this toy was, “Oh, no, more things to step on and hurt my feet,” these animals have been so well-played with that it’s been worth it. Whenever you have LOTS of something, it leads to sorting, lining up, matching, and all kinds of educational play. Add that to building a zoo, filling a dump truck, living in a doll house, and there’s imaginative play as well. Whether you choose a bunch of dinosaurs, farm animals or jungle animals, they’ll be played with for years in so many different ways. Be aware that these are a choking hazard for babies and toddlers.
5) Discovery Toys Measure Up! Cups: If you’re not familiar with Discovery Toys, they’re an educational toy direct-sales business. While some may think that the prices are high, I disagree. The value of these toys is incredible–we have had toys handed down from cousins where we’re the third family, and the toys are still bright, shiny, and in excellent condition. They really last forever, and if you have any problems (lose a piece?), you can contact the consultant for help. My absolute favorite is the Measure Up! Cups. This is a series of 12 plastic cups graduated in size, but the play value is astounding. As a baby, my son just chewed them. As a toddler, he stacked and filled them. They’ve been in the bathtub, the baby pool, and the play kitchen. We’ve used Now that he’s in first grade, we’re using them for math. The volume of each cup matches–so if you fill the #2 and #3 with beans they’ll pour into #5 exactly. I love that! I know that down the road, when they’re truly outgrown, I can sell them at a consignment sale or yard sale because they will still be in great shape. That is good value to me. In fact, I love this toy so much that I bought one just to give to YOU!
To enter the giveaway for Discovery Toys Measure Up! Cups, just leave a comment below with your name and email address (remember to space out your email to avoid spam–like ginava3 at yahoo dot com). For a second entry, leave another comment and give me your suggestion for a good value toy that’s at your house right now.
This giveaway ends Sunday, December 6th at 10:00pm EST, when I’ll choose the winner using Random.org. US & Canada addresses only, please, since I’m mailing it myself. Thank you for reading Moneywise Moms, and good luck! *Update: This giveaway is closed. Thanks for entering!
*Disclosure: All of the above is my personal opinion and no one paid me or suggested I say any of it. I paid for the giveaway prize myself because I like it that much. I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you click on a link that takes you to Amazon, I would get a teeny percentage if you buy the item. Thanks for that, btw.
I would love to win!Gladys Gonzalez. Princessmiris08 at yahoo dot com
My twins are at the age where they love stacking and putting one thing into another. This would be perfect!
Jennifer's email is cantrellbabies at gmail dot com
My boys (2 and 4) love star wars and super heroes. Marvel and Star Wars offer great chunky figures for little kids and you get 2 figures for $7.
nicole_melnick at yahoo dot com
Ooh, what a great toy! heatheranne226 (at) yahoo (dot) com.
My "idea" (my daughter is only 21 mos) is using real kitchen items as toys. She has her own bowl, wisk and spatula and loves finding various toys to put in the bowl and stir around. I can see this becoming fun as we get a kitchen, and I think she enjoys that they are full sized, and not scaled to the mini-kitchens.
heatheranne226 (at) yahoo (dot) com
Wow, those cups sound really neat!
Julie justinandjuliewise at gmail dot com
Those look really great! I have an 19 month old I still need to shop for. Thank you!
home at teamsoutherland dot com
My little girl LOVES the cardboard nesting alphabet blocks by Melissa & Doug. We may have given it a little too early. She gnawed on a couple corners. I'd recommend giving it after 15 months. joyjcho at yahoo dot com.
i love the idea of the perfect measure nesting cups. the inner mathematician. joyjcho at yahoo dot com
My boys would love that (they are using my tupperware right now)…stacking is such a fun thing to do.
staciefontinell at gmail dot com
Duplo blocks are huge at my house…and have been for a very long time!
staciefontinell at gmail dot com
Brandy
cantonbrandy@yahoo.com
We love Legos! They always seem to be a favorite with kids that come over and my son plays with them daily! CANTONBRANDY@YAHOO.COM
Thanks for hosting this giveaway. Diana B
dbombach at gmail dot com
Oh man, we need a new set of cups so badly! Our collection seemed to dwindle away from our frequent trips to the pool over the summer.
abbymazanec at gmail dot com
I think books are always a good value gift, especially board books that are sturdy and will last through a couple siblings. I personally like getting them from TJ Maxx because the prices are good and I can walk there with my kids in the stroller so it's a good value for my gas budget too!
Those cups sound wonderful. My son would love them.
julieadp at gmail
The best value toy we have right now came from a yard sale. I don't know the original price, but I paid probably 50 cents for it. My son loves it.
It's a little four-car train where the cars are held together by magnets. It has a multi-piece track that forms a figure eight — or anything else he decides.
julieadp at gmail
Fun! sarara521 at gmail dot com
As for a good value toy, my 2.5 year old daughter loves the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Cookie Shape Surprise. She got it for her first birthday, and at that point she just liked taking the shapes in and out of the top of the jar. Now she is putting them through the correct holes on the shapes setting, and in the future we can switch it to the numbers setting to help her learn her numbers.
I had a few Discovery Toys when I was a kid and loved them! My email is margolaird@yahoo.com.
This sounds great for my one year old! Thanks!
this would be great for our almost one-year-old! She loves knocking things down, so maybe soon she'll start stacking too.
rachel.e.hansen at gmail dot com
Would LOVE these cups..my toddler is waaaay into stacking/sorting
kiravens at yahoo dot com
Favorite toy: we love love love Melissa and Doug puzzles, and our very favorite is their alphabet puzzle. We got it for our son at age 18 months and he knew all his letters by the time he was 2. Great learning tool and it's been played with for hours and hours!!
rachel.e.hansen at gmail dot com
Would love to win this for my son. kiwi 411111 [at] yahoo [dot] com.
We love stacking cups- they look like a great toy! Thanks!
sunshine12345678@hotmail.com
Would love to win for my son
meliann78 at gmail dot com
Great ideas! All great toys, some we even have ourselves. Melissa and Doug is hands down one of my favorite companies.
jessicadbooth @ hotmail dot com
Our value toy at our house is the large sized legos. We purchased two huge bins of them at a garage sale this summer for less then $12. They are more expensive of course if you buy them at a store, but the amount of time that my 2.5 year old son plays with them would make it worth it.
Those cups sound really neat. I think my one year would love them!
boomama at gmail dot come
I have three boys, so the money we have put into trains has paid off and then some.
Wow! Thanks for sharing this great toy!
megan dot holmen at gmail dot com
I think Duplos and Legos are great value toys…there's always something different that can be created!
megan dot holmen at gmail dot com
We have Duplo blocks which I think is a great value toy because they hold up to abuse and encourage imaginative play!
Great giveaway, thanks.
kristinsuefisher at yahoo dot com
Good ideas!
lordes116 at google dot com
Wow, I'M SOLD on these toys!! Nice reviews btw. We'd love a chance to win.
Sheila Capell
sheilacapell at hotmail dot com
THANK YOU!
Our favorite value toys here have got to be the matchbox cars…we've handed them down for years (and my boys are actually still playing with the ones my husband grew up with.)
Sheila Capell
sheilacapell at hotmail dot com
Legos are an everyday favorite. Playmobile is a high quality toy, and Handwriting without Tears is also a great product! Pick me as your winner please!
I would love to win! keyeager at gmail dot com
Great post! I plan to make a cape once the tot is age appropriate. Melissa and Doug anything is wonderful! Going to forward this on to the grandparents!
Thanks!
This is a great post, and I agree. Anything by Melissa and Doug is wonderful!
Wow. I remember playing with those cups when I was a kid and my daughter plays with them now at her grandma's house. We would LOVE to have a set at our house!!
I would definitely say LEGOS are the true value toy around here. We still have the ones from when my husband was a kid!
A perfect toy to keep the little ones busy.
I'm pretty sure I had cups like that when I was little…
My suggestion is any "play" kitchen stuff…pretend food, dishes, etc.
Sounds like a great toy!
This idea is not so much high value, but it is frugal: balsa-wood gliders. They're just so much fun, at least for a few days. Especially the ones that wind up with a rubber band. And then they can be thrown out once they break, which is kind of nice, in its own way – less clutter.
armathie at gmail dot com
Yay- Discovery toys!
brittanyveith at hotmail dot com
We received a Bilibo (sp?) thingy for a gift recently. My girls love that thing. It was voted the top toy in sweden or something and it has endless uses and is easy to store and keep clean.
brittanyveith at hotmail dot com
I WOULD LOVE TO WIN THESE CUPS FOR MY 3 girls!!
danaamandanichole at yahoo dot com
Thanks for the chance to win and I love you blog,
Amanda Sherry
Good value toy: a good quality, sturdy, dishwasher-safe plastic tea set. All three of my children have gotten a LOT of use out of this set, and it's been used and washed a million times.
Would love to have this! My kids love the stacking stuff…and I love DToys!
justtryintomakealivin at gmail dot com
Our house loves our Playskool Busy Ball Popper. You can find pretty great sales on it this time of year and with the coupons that coupons.com had last month, it was very affordable!
justtryintomakealivin at gmail dot com
Thank you for the giveaway!
couponrn at yahoo dot com
I just got the Melissa and Doug cookie play set so that is my good toy suggestion.
couponrn at yahoo dot com
The cups sound great!
effulgentfarrago @ gmail . com
My 2 1/2 year old daughter has a plastic rocking horse that she LOVES. I think it's Little Tykes. It's heavy enough to take some serious rocking, yet light enough for her to pull to the middle of the floor. We received it from my brother as a hand-me-down. His two girls used it (and loved it!) and it's in great shape. I'm certain it'll last for my now 6 month old to use too.
effulgentfarrago @ gmail . com
My kids would have fun with these.
great giveaway! My son loves things like that!
kareycrain at gmail dot com
sara.iteachk@gmail.com My boys would love these
Our best value toy is bowls, spoons, and other items we already have in the kitchen! sara.iteachk@gmail.com
I had those same measuring cups for my children when they were little! They are now 30, 28, and 21. they did hold up very well!! I passed them on to others when my children outgrew them. I would love to have some more to give to my grandchildren.
Ruth
rk reilmann @ bellsouth.net
Johnlyn
jaebroeder at yahoo dot com
Thanks Gina!
Great giveaway! Another great value toy would be legos, sturdy, durable and for all ages.
kdanna1 at yahoo dot com
Looks like a great toy! debojo at gmail dot com
I love sturdy toys. Do you know where they are made? I had never heard of the company. I know a special kid who would love these cups.
suzyivy at cox dot net
we love melissa and doug toys! Did you know TJ Maxx and marshalls and even homegoods have a good selection of those toys during the holidays?
My kids would love these!
My kids love playing with their Little People toys. We don't have the originals (I wish we did!), but they don't know the difference.
My daughter loves to play with our old measuring cups, so I can totally see the play value in these!
smile_ha at hotmail dot com
heather
How awesome! My kids are really into kitchen and pretend play stuff! summrob1 at comcast . net
I would love to win!
Thank you for the great giveaways. I enjoy reading your blog daily. rebecca absher, rebeccae69@hotmail.com
My son would love those.
cookingluck29 @ yahoo . com
Thanks for the great suggestions and the giveaway.
Julia – ojoaoro @ hotmail . com
I'd like to win this for my grandson
zachsgran1 at yahoo dot com
I think one of my nieces would love these. I remember my own kids would play w/ them for really long periods of time at Grandma's.
Thanks!
mrsthistle at comcast dot net
My son would love these.
spiphibus at gmail dot com
My children love paper dolls.
spiphibus at gmail dot com
Stacking cups never go out of style!
duvetqlt at verizon dot net
A great toy to have in your home (mine are grown but about to have my first grand) are foamies that stick to the bathroom wall when wet during bath time
duvetqlt at verizon dot net
what a great giveaway
a10small at hotmail dot com
Thank you for hosting this giveaway!
Dress up clothes are very popular at our house, both the purchased variety as well as recycled stuff.
My 8 month old would love the cups!
kgdasilva2002 at yahoo dot com
One toy that my children love is the DoodlePro or some call it MagnaDoodle. They use it at home, in the car, to draw, keep score etc., and there is never a mess. Love it!
Oh what a great giveaway. Measure Up cups, Yeah!
UnfinishedMom @ Gmail . com
Thanks so much!!
lynnpagel at yahoo dot com
I agree with the above poster about the DoodlePro. It was recommended for our preemie son for his 1st birthday to help him work on his fine motor skills. He's 5 now and still loves to use it. I keep it in the car and he practices writing and drawing while we drive!
lynnpagel at yahoo dot com
My name is Tanya, please enter me
tmc480 at yahoo dot com
Karyn Hughes
karyndontcry (at) yahoo (dot) com
A good value toy? For my 6 month old, she will play for a long time with a simple plastic ring stacker. She takes the rings off, or bangs them together, or chews on them!
Karyn
karyndontcry (at) yahoo (dot)com
I have been thinking about buying these for a while! Maybe this is what it takes for me to finally get a set!
Thanks!
whybanharry at yahoo dot com
My boys (22 months and 3 1/2 years) play with diecast cars, planes, trains, etc. every day! We've gotten our money's worth out of Geotrax, too. Playdoh, simple rhythm instruments, and lots of books have been worthwhile, too.
whybanharry at yahoo dot com
My son would love this.
rjs682 at yahoo dot com
ginger
hopeiwon at gmail.com
My son would love these!
veniceangel@hotmail.com
This giveaway is closed. Thanks for entering!