The Best Open Ended Toys for Young Kids
Are you looking for toys that kids will engage with for years to come? While also reducing the toy clutter in your home? If so, then open ended toys are the perfect option to choose.
As a family living in a small space with multiple young kids, the majority of toys we own are open ended toys.
We need toys that will engage with a 7 year old’s play AND a 1 year old’s play.
With 750 square feet for our family of six to live in, we don’t have room for a play room. So we have curated our toy collection to find the balance of maximizing entertainment while minimizing space.
This post will help you understand and identify open ended toys, explain why they are so beneficial, and give you our family’s top picks for open ended toys.
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What are Open Ended Toys?
Open ended toys are toys that children can play with in a variety of ways.
Children naturally play with objects and items around them as they discover the world. And open ended toys are objects specifically designed for children’s play. They facilitate and encourage children’s natural skills at playing imaginatively.
What are the Benefits of Open Ended Toys?
Open ended toys have many developmental benefits, including:
- supporting imagination
- encouraging creativity and problem solving
- offering social and emotional development opportunities
- fostering independent play and self confidence
While open ended toys certainly aren’t the only way to experience these benefits, they do consistently provide them.
So open ended toys are a fantastic option to maximize the benefits your child receives from engaging with toys..
And if you live in a small space, open ended toys are your friend! Your kids can get a lot more use out of a lot fewer toys!
Our 10 Favorite Open Ended Toys:
These are our top 10 favorite open ended toys in our home. With four children spanning between ages one and seven years old, we have tried all of these toys. We love them, and currently continue to prioritize keeping them in our space.
1. Magna Tiles: Open Ended Toys Gold Star Winner
We have two different types of magnetic tiles, and our kids love both. I slightly prefer the more robust ones (without the open space in the middle). The others (a Kmart version) are a little less structurally solid. My preference is based on the fact that the sturdier ones seem to be less prone to breaking.
Magna tiles regularly become doll houses or vehicles for my 5 and 7 year old. They become roads for my 3-year old to drive on. And my 1-year-old loves to find ways to manipulate them as they “stick” to the refrigerator.
Magna tiles are definitely an always-in-use-somewhere in our home. And therefore deserve a prominent spot on the open ended toys list!
2. Magna Tile People: Open Ended Toys 2nd Place
Our four Magna Tile People are also hugely popular in our house. They have magnets in their feet and hands. So they can attach to anything that magnets connect to, which means they “explore” all over our home.
My husband likes to hide them around the house at night after the kids go to bed. When the kids wake up in the morning, they get to hunt all over the house for the magna people!
3. Five-inch Dolls: Versatile Imaginative Play Toys
My girls really enjoy playing with their 5.5-inch tall dolls. They have a handful, and all the dolls have names and personalities.
The girls utilize magna tiles, cardboard boxes, wash clothes, Duplo, and animal figurines to engage in their imaginative play with their dolls.
I love the versatility of the dolls – they’re large enough to not disappear too easily, but also small enough that the girls can grab a couple and take them in the car with them easily or tuck them into a backpack. And they provide endless opportunities for hair styling, outfit designing, and reenacting storylines from books.
The one downside of 5.5-inch dolls as open ended toys for multiple ages is that some of the accessories are choking hazards for our littlest family member. So we have put all doll shoes or tiny parts up on a tall shelf that nobody can get to!
4. Lego Duplo: A Classic Open Ended Toys Option
Duplo is a versatile, fun manipulative option for open ended toys. Larger than the normal lego block scale, duplo is a great option if you want to offer your kids something that allows them to stack and build, but you DON’T want choking hazards!
The set we have came with a couple duplo vehicle bases (with 4 wheels on a platform) and trailers to connect to the vehicle bases, and our kids LOVE building trains of rolling vehicles to drive around the house or to load their dolls on to transport them on big adventures.
5. Animal Figurines: Great Characters for Imaginative Play
I picked up a bucket of farm animal figurines when my oldest was one year old, and it has been a popular play object ever since!
Over the years, the fences have broken and the trees have disappeared, but we still have the animals and that seems to be what is popular with my kids.
Sometimes the animals are stars in their own adventures, and sometimes they are supporting characters in doll or magna tile people adventures. And sometimes they just become drivers or cargo for vehicle-oriented play. But they are regularly pulled out and utilized!
There are some choking hazards in our set, so unfortunately, all our baby chicks have had to join the doll shoes on a high shelf!
6. Felt Balls: An Unexpected Hit on Our Open Ended Toys List
A preschool teacher friend sent us a set of about 100 felt balls when our oldest was young. I liked the pretty colors, and how quiet they were to play with, and Mara enjoyed sorting them in and out of containers, so we kept them.
Little did I know how incredibly well loved those felt balls would become! They have proven to be very versatile open ended toys!
Sometimes they are cargo for dump trucks to transport. They have also become “drinks” or “cookies” for tea parties. And they have their own special role as racing items to roll and chase down hills on our driveway.
I was initially concerned about the balls possibly being a choking hazard (ours are about 1-inch in diameter), and technically, I suppose a very, very persistent child could choke on them or bite through a chunk and choke on a chunk of the felt.
It hasn’t been a problem for us, but if you like the idea of felt balls and you are worried about it, consider getting balls that are slightly larger (1.5 inches diameter are considered safer)
7. Small Vehicles: Mini Cars and Inertia Trucks
Our 3-year-old son is obsessed with little cars (matchbox size), and he loves to tuck them into his pockets, his car seat’s cup holder, and line them up next to his bed at night.
Our daughters were always big fans of a set of inertia trucks that my grandmother bought for our oldest when she turned one. My son also enjoys them, but the matchbox cars are the current favorite with him!
The kids love to roll their little cars and trucks across the room to each other, create hills and valleys with blankets and pillows, or build elaborate bridges and parking lots with cardboard and tape.
They are space efficient, easily transportable, discreet, and have endless potential for creativity. For boys or girls, I highly recommend small cars or inertia vehicles as a strong option for open ended toys!
8. Play Silks and Giant Beach Towel Clamps: An Ever-Evolving Tool for Open Ended Play
Our second daughter fell in love with one of her swaddle blankets as a baby, and has spent the past 4+ years wearing her blanket as a dress, skirt, scarf, head covering, or belt.
When I found a play silk set style of toy, I knew it would most likely be a big hit in our home.
I also purchased a set of giant cloth clamps, and between the two, all of our kids have experienced hours of fun and creativity.
The girls use the play silks for constructing tents or curtains, outfits, or as props for their dress-up play. Our oldest son uses them for building car tracks or defining his car driving spaces. And our second son (who is currently 15 months and fully bi-pedal over the last 2 months) absolutely loves to stuff the play silks into various containers or drag them around the house.
I love that the play silks are lightweight, bright, and have so many versatile uses and ways of being played with. I’ve even used them to decorate for special occasions!
9. Dress Up Clothes and Accessories: Prime Equipment for Imaginative Play
Growing up, my grandmother and aunt made my sister and me Laura Ingalls Wilder style pioneer dresses. That started a long history for me of sourcing or making period dress up dresses.
Much to my delight, my kids seem to have inherited my enjoyment of dressing up, which is a practice I love to encourage. So for the past several birthdays and Christmases, I’ve tried to add something to the kid’s dress-up collection.
We now have an assortment of period dresses, hoop skirts, aprons, butterfly wings, and cardboard crowns. And this year I’ve got my eye on some occupation-oriented, animal-oriented, or imaginary creature options that are a little more “boy-friendly” to prepare for the next few years and my boys reaching an age of being more interested in dress up play.
10. Cardboard Boxes: Classic Budget-Friendly Open Ended Toys!
I’m sure most parents have had the experience of giving their child a gift inside a cardboard box and realizing after the gift is opened that the child shows much more interest in the box than in the gift that was inside it!
For that reason (because it has definitely happened to us!), I’ve included cardboard boxes on this list of open ended toys!
Cardboard boxes are regularly brought into our house for various reasons, and then enjoyed for a period of time.
Sometimes they are cut up and used for car ramps or crowns. Sometimes they are used as building blocks for walls or forts. And sometimes they are used as doll houses or sleds or train cars or art canvases.
Basically, all ages and stages of kids seem to find SOMETHING fun to do with cardboard boxes!
Additional Open Ended Toy Ideas:
There are some other toys that we have had in the past or currently cycle through utilizing in our home. These are toys that don’t get as much play time as the list above, but at different stages, they have certainly had moments in the spotlight.
Wooden Blocks: This was one of our first open ended toy purchases for our oldest. Over the years, the magna tile and duplo have also come into our home, and for the sake of space, I got rid of our wooden blocks in favor of keeping the others. But they are a solid open ended toy option.
Play Tunnels: These are fun to use as tunnels, of course, but they are also fun to use as a hoop to throw things into, or even as an elaborate costume of some kind!
Hula Hoops: Obviously great for hula hooping, but my kids also love to use them to delineate specific spots in doll play or hopping games or “house.”
Koosh Balls: A great option for tossing, juggling, twirling, yo-yo-ing, playing catch, balancing, or even kicking. And much less bouncy than regular balls!
Jump Ropes: Useful as single of double jumping options, and also useful as belts, to drag things around, and to help divide saces.
Sidewalk Chalk: A great option for drawing or coloring on concrete, and also for create bike tracks, car tracks, house blueprints, hopping games, and writing messages.
Open Ended Toys: A Small Space Parenting Win
If you’re looking to reduce toy overwhelm while encouraging imaginative, multi-age play, open ended toys are a game-changer.
They’re versatile, long-lasting, and ideal for families who value both simplicity and creativity.
Whether you’re living in a small space or just want toys that actually get used, this list of our favorite open ended toys is a great place to start.
I’d love to hear from you:
Do you have open ended toys for your kids?
What have been the most popular ones in your home?
What strategies do you use for keeping toy clutter under control in a small space?
And if you’ve found this post helpful or interesting, please share it on Pinterest or with someone you think would benefit from it!