When you buy a child a beautiful wooden toy as a holiday gift, you're giving the gift of play that lasts. Wood Wood Toys is Canada's favourite wooden toy store, and we have wonderful gift ideas for kids of all ages. Our toys are powered by imagination, not batteries. From our family to yours, we wish you a happy and healthy holiday season - and play that lasts all year.
Holiday Gift Guide
Great Gifts for Tiny Kiddos (0-2)
When it comes to the youngest kids, open-ended toys that allow for stacking, sorting, and more than one way of play. Children under two are still developing motor skills and cognitive abilities, and imagination-play activities may begin to hold their attention. Read on for some surefire holiday hits for the youngest kids - and be sure to save the boxes, because they may end up having just as much fun with the packaging!
The rainbow is a fascinating object for the youngest kiddos on Christmas morning. This set of 6 rainbow stacking elements come nested inside each other. Grimm's 6-piece wooden rainbow helps to develop motor skills and sorting routines, and as their imagination develops they can build arches and tunnels, bridges, or homes for characters. All of Grimm's iconic rainbows are painted with safe water based colours and is recommended by "Spiel gut" a German toy guide. Grimm's toys grow with your child, so this year's gift will be enjoyed for many seasons to come.
A tasty toy that delivers a full serving of fun! Even one-year old children can already learn the first food items with these children’s grocery shop toys from Erzi. They can be explored, passed back and forth, and named. Children love to reenact the daily routines they observe, and shopping/cooking play will naturally develop when these toys are provided. Twelve different kinds of food made of wood to play can be placed on small shelves or into baskets or bags and removed again. All parts in this assortment are suitable for the youngest children, they do not contain small parts that can be swallowed or inhaled. All colours are water-based and safe for children who are still mouthing their toys. Bon appetit!
From first grasping activities to tummytime and beyond, a play gym is a handy and flexible addition to any play routine. This elegantly designed arch from HABA is made of high-quality birch plywood fits in perfectly with any interior design scheme and consequently looks good in every living room or children’s room. It has space for easy attachment of many different toys by means of loop, clip, ring or indeed any other fastener. While lying on its back, baby can reach out for the clutching toys or other dangling elements.
Great Gifts for Preschoolers (2-4)
Read on to discover our recommended gifts for the in-between kids on your list.
In A Flash flashcards are the brainchild of Jodie Becker, a first nations Canadian mom living abroad in the Netherlands with her Dutch husband and two bilingual tots Alexander. Flashcards are all about defining and understanding the exciting and ever-expanding world that your child is busy exploring. Flashcards foster emotional intelligence, intrinsic motivation and family bonding, and build a solid foundation for more complicated learning concepts.
Bump up your little one’s vocabulary with our fun and educational My Amazing Body flashcards! These illustrations invite your child to explore the incredible way their body works with our My Amazing Body flashcards.
Brin d'Ours creates charming handmade animals and small world scenery pieces in their French workshop. We are proud to be one of North America's only Brin d'Ours retailers, and we're certain that these beautiful bunnies will delight the animal lovers on your list.
The soft edges and gentle shapes are perfect for styorytelling play, and their simple designs promote a Waldorf approach to pretend play.
Avdar's stunning Museum Block set contains more than 30 different blocks in a beautiful wooden tray suitable for display. The variously-shaped blocks and muted colour scheme are designed to inspire little ones to create sturdy architectural constructions and imaginary scenes. Returning all of the blocks to their storage tray is a challenging puzzle activity that will keep them coming back for more play day after day.
Like all Avdar wooden toys, each piece is cut by hand and finished with a characteristic silky texture that aids building and gripping.
Great Gifts for School-Age Kids (4+)
Children around this age have progressed through those early stages of pretend play, but their young imaginations are still bursting with new ideas and inquiries. This selection of toys is designed to engage and inspire the older kiddos on your list.
Grapat's mandalas are popular with kids of all ages, but you may find that the children on your list around this age are ready to build the most complex and creative designs. For art, manipulatives, counting and so much more, there truly are no boundaries with Grapat's mandalas.
Made from sustainable beach and painted in a range of brilliant rainbow hues, but many other shapes and pallettes are available. Grapat sets to inspire open-ended, imaginative, no-rules play. Make this year an open-ended Christmas with your first Grapat mandala set, or spark more creativity by adding a new set to your growing collection.
Our huge collection of Candylab cars and trucks are always popular with car loving kids - and plenty of their parents, too. Candylab makes "modern vintage" wooden cars that look great on the shelf and roll with authority.
The iconic shape, wood sides, magnetic canoe on top, beefy tires on the Pioneer Aspen are all about camping adventure, camping, and good old times. We think of it like a mini learning tool on how to live an adventerous life. It's also got a magnetic trailer hitch so you can pull even more fun across the living room floor.
This year, give a gift becomes a family heirloom. Grimm's striking Rainbow Lion Building Set is a showstopper. This wonderful building set in a 18" (45cm) wooden frame combines organic shapes in oiled natural wood and colourful geometric shapes. This Majestic Building Set captures the spirit of a majetstic and endangered part of the world's ecosystem. Like any proper open-ended toy, it encourages play without rules: it can be used for building, sorting, or just the simple satisfaction you get from returning every precisely hand cut piece back to the frame.
The lion shapes contain some subtle surprises when disassembled. What will the lucky kiddos on your list create with this striking toy?