Whether it’s a birthday, holiday, or just because, it’s not always easy finding the best gifts for kids ages one to five. Questions like, “What size clothing should I get?” or “What if this toy is too complicated?” can make shopping for kids’ toys a headache.
Thankfully, all you need is a little early child development know-how to make shopping for toddlers a snap. By factoring in baby milestones, you can easily find engaging gifts that inspire play and creativity and boost learning.
The kids will be alright—as long as you keep them entertained, stimulated, and happy! It may seem like, well, child’s play to pick out presents for the teeniest in your bunch. But in reality, kids can be some of the toughest customers come holiday time. The best strategy: Forget the trendy toy of the year, which the tots will see right through. Instead, go for gifts that’ll charm them with their uniqueness, keep their hands and minds busy, or speak specifically to them (thank you, personalization!).
Products
Flipbook Kit (T. Rex/Pteranodon version)
Castakite
Research
I was once a child. Isn’t that enough? OK, no.
I was planning a Mexican beach vacation with my mother, my brother, and his five year-old son, “The Chooch.” Like most kids, The Chooch is addicted to screens of all sizes. We wanted to get him away from them. His dad and I chose these two toys for our experiment in behavior modification.
Hypothesis
The Chooch will have a blast with these. More importantly for us, he’ll be distracted from his tablet for a significant amount of time.
Part I: Flipbook Kit
Boy and Flipbook. Initial response: positive. (Note experiment-appropriate lab wear.)
Construction Plate & Utensils – $14.95-$17.50 Buy Now »
Your kid has yet to discover that broccoli is delicious and they won’t touch anything that isn’t an unnatural color with a ten-foot fork. It’s going to be OK. While letting your kiddo live on gummy bears and microwaved mac ‘n cheese alone certainly isn’t an option, sneaking some healthy good stuff in their favorite meals is. These tips make breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes healthier, but they’re still completely kid-friendly. Serve up each meal with our Construction Plate & Utensils and your little one might even ask for seconds.
As the old saying goes, it’s the “most important meal of the day.” But if that meal is packed with sugar, your kiddo will crash before lunch. Start the day right by replacing the refined sugar in baked goods like mini muffins or waffle bites with a fruity alternative.
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We know it’s the little things that count, but sometimes you want to show someone you care big. Putting together a DIY gift basket is a great way to combine an assortment of cool little gifts with a whole lot of love. Creating that gift basket around someone’s hobby, favorite food, or most-loved mythical creature adds another level of personalized charm. We even included gift basket ideas for kids and teens, because we know they can be even harder to shop for than that unicorn lover on your list.
Whether they have a soft spot for soft shells or prefer a crispy crunch, they’ll love these taco-themed goodies.
Tricerataco Holder – $12 | Salsa Grow Kit – $12 | Taco and Hot Pepper Stamp Kit – $12.00 | Trio of Travel-Sized Hot Sauces – $15.00 | Seedsheet Taco Kit – $35.00 | Taco Socks – $10.00
Ever wondered what a Unicorn’s horn is called? Are unicorns real, or is the mighty beast just a myth? How do you catch a unicorn? We rounded up 37 enchanting facts about everyone’s favorite elusive horned horse to make it easy to find everything you’ve ever wanted to know about unicorns in one magical article.
Did you ever dream of growing up to become an astronaut, world-renowned artist, or president? Chances are, the kids on your holiday list are filled with the same big ambitions and want to absorb all of the knowledge they can along the way to adulthood. Keep those young, audacious spirits excited about learning the wonders of the world with these gifts that encourage creativity and make education fun.
1. It’s true that A is for apple and B is for boy, but your kid probably already knows that. Teach them the ABCs from “Absolute Zero” to “Zoological Oddity” with Super Nerdy ABC Blocks. (Or let them show off all of the cool things their first initial stands for with this matching art.)
2. This update to the classic game of memory won’t soon be forgotten. | Fresh Architecture Memory Game
3. Whether you use the cards to tell a brand new bedtime story or listen intently as your kiddo writes an original fairytale, the Storymatic Kids Game is designed to help children of all ages think outside the book. 
4. Sure, banging on pots and pans is fun, but your little percussionist can make beautiful music AND learn the C major scale with these Musical Pat Bells. 
5. It’s not a whatchamacallit, it’s Whatchamadrawit–a super fun way to encourage kids to get creative through guided doodling. 
6. Tryouts for a TV game show might still be a few years away, but it’s never too soon to start filling a young mind with fun facts. | Kwizniac Trivia Game for Kids 
7. Whether the giftee is already a world traveler or dreams of visiting far away lands in the future, they can uncover adventures with the Scratch Map Deluxe. 
8. If your future explorer isn’t quite ready to have the whole world at his or her hands, the United States is a good place to start. | USA Scratch Map 
9. Grandparents: This is your chance to win extra spoil points. A Grand Adventure lets you give grandkids hours of fun with 20 activities for Big G (grandparent) and Little G (grandkid) to do together. 
10. Recalling old memories can be just as fun as creating new ones, especially when those two things are happing at the same time! | Rememory Game 
11. Many kids grow up to learn that cooking can come down to a science. In the meantime, the Kid’s Edible Chemistry Kit teaches the basics on acids and bases, pigments and polymers, and more. 
12. Not every kid (or adult, for that matter) knows what bismuth or boron looks like, but this colorful card collection lets science lovers picture the periodic table in a new way. | Elements Photo Card Deck 
13. Your little guy or gal might still be too young for civics class, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be interested in the building blocks of our nation. | United States of America Block Set 
14. Want to be elected “best gift-giver ever”? Vote yes to the President Block Set. 
15. Tiny tinkerers will get an introduction to kinetics, practice puzzle solving, and hours of imaginative play with the Hanz-Genius Kit.
We read each and every comment that our customers leave on our site, and we are often moved by the stories you tell about giving and receiving gifts from UncommonGoods.
In recent weeks, we’ve shipped out many, many gifts, and it got us thinking about the gifts you never forget. So last week, asked a random handful of our fellow team members, “What was your favorite gift that you received when you were a child?” Here are their answers, in their own words. No job titles, because this is about play, not work!
I was fourteen. We had just moved here to Brooklyn, and we were still really poor. What I used to do, I’d go to an arcade and I’d pay two dollars to play on a PlayStation for 30 minutes. My mom saw how much I liked it, and found a way to save up all the money and buy me a PlayStation for Christmas.
It was a secondhand PlayStation, it had marks on it, but I didn’t care. It was crazy, I was going bananas in my house, and I played it alllllllllll night long. And I beat the game. I beat all three of them that she bought me.
I honestly don’t know where she got the money. But I’m trying my best to pay her back. I just had my first child, so she’s a grandmother now. That’s more than enough, for her, I think!
I loved Legos as a kid. And when I was probably eleven or twelve, that year was my Lego year. Every gift that I got was a Lego set.
I got a police station Lego set, the train set that runs on the track, I got a pirate ship Lego set…it was Lego mania. It was so awesome, because it didn’t matter what set it was. They had the pirate ship stuff, they had a town theme, they had an airport theme…it didn’t matter, as long as it was Lego, and it had an instruction book with it, I was going to do it. Whatever it was.
It was funny, because I would put them together within an hour of opening them, and then that’d be it. Because I was like, “All right, this one’s done. What’s next?” I would Eat. Them. Up. Just love putting them together. And when I finished them, I was like, “I don’t want this any more.”
I gave them to my brother, and he just tore them apart. He didn’t like Legos. It was like this factory of me making Legos and then he would destroy them.
I was the youngest of three. My older brother was born in 1976, my sister was born in 1980, I was born in ’85. So I would get hand-me-downs for Christmas. Which I never really liked that much, but that was the way it went.
As a kid, it was fine, because my sister and I were close to each other in age, so I would get her toys, and they would be really up to date. But by the time I was about seven or eight years old, my sister’s interests had gone to Barbies and princesses and stuff. So I would only get my older brother’s toys from the ’70s. Which made it very funny, because I was playing with like Mr. T. in the late 1980s.
So the only other option was, my dad would buy these knock-off toys. Like, I was very much into whatever was on TV, stuff like Power Rangers. So it was not the Power Rangers, it was the “Power Warriors,” and it was the wrong color and so forth.
One year, I was about six or seven years old, I was walking through a Dominick’s, which was the neighborhood grocery store, with my dad. And there’s a big stack of Nerf Chainblazers. I didn’t give my Dad one second to talk. I over and over just hammered him, “Dad I want this, Dad I want this, Dad I want this, Dad I want this!”
And he said, “No. Absolutely not. There’s no way we’re going to waste this money on you.” So I gave up.
A few days before, he said, “What are you getting for Christmas, Bryan? You know, I stopped by Walmart and got a bunch of Power Warriors toys.” He was taking me for a ride.
On Christmas Day, we go down under the tree, and there’s this big box, right? And it’s far too big for a Chainblazer, so I’m like, [sighs] “They gave me another hand-me-down, or this is an educational toy.”
I open it up, and there’s just wrapping and pillows and stuff.
I open it more, and inside is the Chainblazer.
I was overjoyed. I was screaming, I was jumping, I was super happy that I’d gotten this thing. And of course I immediately opened it up and started shooting at my sister. I played with it for years.
My father was usually the disciplinarian, made sure everybody did their chores, and go to bed, and all of that. So he was very pleased to have done that. And it was nice seeing that side of him that I didn’t usually get to see. He actually did not buy it at Dominick’s, he got a deal at Costco for it.
Elbow was my favorite doll. She was one of those first baby dolls, with her arms up like a true newborn. I’d bitten some of her fingers off. I called her Elbow. I couldn’t think of a girly name. I was probably about a year old when I got her. I didn’t know too many words, so that was what I could think of.
She was my first and my best friend. Before I had a little sister, I had Elbow. She was on such a pedestal that I didn’t actually play with her like I’d play with other dolls. She was like Madame DuBarry of Versailles, she was the king’s favorite. She slept in the bed with me.
Every year for Christmas, Santa would come in and re-dress Elbow in a new pretty dress while I was sleeping. So I’d wake up and I’d have presents to go to downstairs, but first I got to see Elbow in a new dress.
One year when I was six, we were at a flea market, and I was eyeing up this velvet dress with a white apron pinafore on top of it. A couple months later, my Dad and I were in our hall closet taking out decorations to decorate the tree, and I noticed the dress right there. He saw that I had seen it and kind of froze in his tracks.
And I was like, “Don’t worry. We won’t tell Mommy about this.”
Ever since then, it’s the one story they tell where they get choked up every time they tell it. Because it was me being wiser than my age, and really sweet. I knew that the surprise was ruined, but I didn’t want my mom to know the surprise was ruined, and I was just being so thoughtful.
That thoughtfulness died off! [laughs] I was a very empathetic child. Not so much in adulthood. [laughs] Which is probably why they enjoy that memory so much, because it was the last time! [laughs]
It wasn’t the moment that I stopped believing in Santa. I did still believe in Santa, I just thought maybe Santa didn’t have time to come upstairs and change Elbow’s dress, and that was something my parents did for him. Or maybe they were helping Santa out, because maybe Santa doesn’t go to flea markets in South Jersey. Maybe he’s got his own thing. [laughs]
I was seven or eight. I was a big Star Wars fan. I had all the action figures already. And I got the Death Star Action Set from Star Wars for Christmas. That was my faaaaavorite gift, it was so awesome.
To paint a picture of it, it was like a Barbie Dream House for the Star Wars characters. It was three-dimensional, about four feet tall, it had four layers. It even had the little trash compactor with foam “trash” in it. And you put the Star Wars characters in there and you could make the walls came in together in the trash compactor…it was super cool.
I kept it for all these years. And about three years before I had my son I ended up giving it away. But I wish I’d kept it for my son, because now he’s a big Star Wars fan. But you know, what do you do?
We left Russia when I was one, and by the time we got to America, I was three. It was my mom and my grandparents, and everyone worked, but we just didn’t have anything left for gifts. I didn’t know that gifts were part of the package anyway, at that point. I was too young.
When we first moved from Russia to America, our temple was very involved in sponsoring us, and sometimes we would get gifts from people in the temple. So I’m not actually sure who gave it to me, but I got a bucket of beads. They were the sort of triangular kind that you could stack on top of each other, maybe the size of a fingernail.
I never wanted to make a bracelet or a necklace with them, because then I wouldn’t be able to do other things with them. Sometimes I’d string them together and maybe wear it for a little bit, and then I would take them apart again.
But my favorite activities were playing dolls with the beads, where I would take forks and I’d put the beads on their tines, and act out different scenes; and the other was playing “tea,” where I would group the beads into colors, and try to make, like, “Ok, green and red beads, this is a salad, this is cake,” so I’d have like the sprinkles on top of the yellow. There were just so many possibilities! [laughs]
A little red wagon. My grandmother, she got it for me for Christmas. I didn’t know what it was. I saw it in the box, and I was so happy to get it. I liked it because it was red. And I wanted to pull it.
When I was a kid, I was in the South a lot. When I used to go down to Mississippi, the horse and buggy, we used to be in the back of it and ride through the fields. So when I got the wagon, it reminded me of all that, you see?
When I got it, I wanted someone to pull me in it. And I didn’t have nobody to pull me around in it. I wanted my mom to pull me in it. I sat in there crying, because I didn’t have nobody to pull me. My mother, she wouldn’t pull me in it. I’d just sit in it.
I used to go to the top of the hill – remember in the books, Jack and Jill? So I used to take it and go up on top of the hill, and get in it, and push it down. I got hurt, I got scars. I was about five or six, and I’m still scarred. [laughs] But I loved it! I loved that wagon.
It was funny, because when I got older, I bought a wagon, ‘cause I loved the wagon, and I tried to give it to my kids. They was like, “What is this?!” [laughs] They was like, “What I supposed to do?” I said, “Get in it, and I supposed to pull you!”
My son, he was the first kid. So after I pushed him around, we stopped. And he standing next to it. I said, “Do what I did. You gotta pull it and get someone to push you in it.”
So I came back in the house, and the wagon was in the corner. I said, “Brandon, why you not playing with the wagon? He said, “I ain’t got nobody else to help!” [laughs] He said, “I think this wagon is useless!”[laughs]
I think I got it because it brought a lot of memories of when I saw the wagon. He didn’t understand it, because I didn’t tell him. I just was over-infatuated with the wagon. When I brought the wagon home, my wife said, “What’d you buy that for?” I said, “ I bought it for the kids.” But it was really for me.
I’m still infatuated with red wagons. When I see ‘em in the store, especially at Christmas time, I just be standing there looking at ‘them. Maybe it’s the color. The white wheels, the black and white wheels. And then you can pull it, you know? That’s it. Really nice.
My daughter still has it in her house. She said she took it because she saw I liked it. She got a teddy bear sitting in it. My grandmother gave it to her before she passed.
When I was nine years old, I received my first train set. It was a big one, too. A metal train, ’cause I’m kind of up there in age, so they made the real, strong, tough one. I forgot what company made it, but that was the best gift I ever received when I was growing up. Because I was infatuated about trains.
My cousin used to come from Washington. He was a little older than me. He used to take me all over the MTA. Back then the tokens were only twenty cents. That’s how long ago it was. In the ’70s. They were tiny, they looked like the size of a dime and they had a Y in them.
I had it until I was about eleven or twelve. My mother and father gave it to me. I kept it for a long time. And I passed it down to my son.
But they wrecked it up. I wouldn’t spank ‘em for that, though. The train set was old. But it was still functional.
The best Christmas present I ever got was a kitten.
My sister is seven years older than I am. So when she went to college, I was in sixth grade, in Mrs. Pavelka’s class. And we had rats in that class.
We were doing an experiment on whether protein or vegetables were better. So we fed one rat peanut butter and one rat carrots and celery and stuff.
At the end of the one month experiment, you could take the rats home. And on the weekends, they’d get kids to take the rats home and care for them.
So I begged. And I got to take the rat on the weekend. I cared a lot for the rat. I really liked it.
I begged and begged to have the rat at the end of the experiment. And my mom said, “No.” [laughs] She did not want me to take the rat.
But they knew that I was responsible, and could care, and they felt I was really missing my sister, and looking for something.
So that Christmas, we went to the ten o’clock church service. My mom had picked up the kitten that day, and had given it to our neighbors, who had it all afternoon. My mom was surprising us with this kitten that the neighbors were supposed to bring over after their church service, at midnight on Christmas Eve. And they were late. I was tired, and my sister was tired.
And I was like, “No, we want to go to bed.” And she was like, “No, let’s just stay up a little more!” But we went to bed.
Then the neighbors came over. And I came down in my ‘jammies, ’cause they were like, “Come down!” So I came down.
And it was my tiny little Christmas kitten.
I was ecstatic. I didn’t sleep that whole night. I mauled this poor kitten.
I named her Tasha. And she lived forever. She passed away maybe two years ago. She was awesome. The best little cat.