Providing open-ended creative play opportunities is something I’m always striving to give my daughter and daycare kids. I’m selective with toys and activities because I want toys that allow the kids creative outlets and open-ended play and this year I’m putting to together this gift guide full of creative play gift ideas for preschoolers as part of the 2014 Gift Guide for Kids Blog Hop, check below to see all the other gift guides.
Creative Play Gift Guide for Preschoolers
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Creative and imaginative play is an essential part of development for children. This type of play gives children an outlet to freely express themselves and their feelings about the wold around them through play. Creative play should be open-ended play where children can manipulate and create the toys and objects how they feel comfortable, they can work through feeling and thoughts about the world around them. This gift guide is full of our favorite toys and products that encourage open-ended creative play for kids!
Building Toys for Creative Play
1.) Magna-Tiles– Magna-Tiles are an amazing building experience for kids. These magnetic blocks are prefect for building 3-D structures and shapes! Plus they are awesome on the light table too!
2.) Wooden Blocks– I love wooden blocks and so do my kids. These were one of the first toys that I bought when I opened my daycare. Blocks allow for hours of creative and imaginative play. My kids use the blocks both alone and will loose parts and other toys. There are endless ways to build and play with blocks at any age!
3.) Block Play Accessories– My kids have a blast with these and they are a great way to extend their block play. These people and signs add a whole new level to block play!
4.) Wooden Car Sets– This car set is so much fun and they go perfect with blocks. The girls spend hours using blocks to make elaborate roadways and garages for our car set.
5.) Gears! Gears! Gears!– We love gears! These are such fun for preschoolers! Gears are exciting to build with and allow kids to be creative and do some critical thinking at the same time!
6.) Lego Duplo Building Blocks– What do I need to say about Legos? A childhood staple! Lego Duplo blocks are made for little hands and inspire imaginations. My daughter had been playing with this set of Legos since she was a year old, now at three years old she still love them and never gets tired of building with them Like blocks Legos are the perfect gift that can span different ages and grow with your kids.
7.) Marble Run– Marble runs are outstanding for fostering creativity! Kids get to create ramps and towers and use those critical thinking skills to set up routes for the marbles.
8.) Rainbow Blocks– We love these, I have 2 sets! My girls use them for more than just building! They love to take them outside or play with them in the window out on a sunny day!
Pretend Play Toys for Creative Play:
1.) Dollhouse– I love listening to the kids play with the dollhouse! The stories that the come up with and the scenarios that they play are so entertaining to hear. Playing with dolls are is a hands-on way for kids to play out social-emotional issues too!
2.) Cash Register– My girls love this cash register! They use it for all kinds of pretend play, from grocery stores and restaurants to the vet’s office and clothes shopping.
3.) Train Set– What kid doesn’t love trains?! Train sets offer hours of endless imaginative play for preschoolers! We have a basic set like this but I’d like to upgrade to a larges set or train table soon!
4.) Farm Play Set– This farm set sits right alongside our dollhouse and gets just as much love and attention from the kids.
5.) Jumbo Animals– We LOVE these jumbo animal sets! We have several sets of these but the zoo, farm and jungle animals are the kids favorites!
6.) KidKraft Vintage Kitchen– Our play kitchen is another one of our most used toys, the kids never get tired of it and there are so many imaginative play opportunities. Check out our review of this vintage kitchen.
7.) Pretend Play Food Accessories– What’s a kitchen without some fun ways to cooks and play? We have (and love) these food sets: Healthy Lunch, Healthy Dinner, & this Munch It set. For dishware we have this new sprouts dish set and this metal pan set. They have all withstood over a year of heavy use from my daughter plus four daycare children.
8.) Hand Puppets– Hand puppets are great for not only creative and imaginative play activities but they also work fine motor skills and story telling
Sensory Play Gift Ideas for Creative Play
1.) Water Beads– Water beads are an excellent sensory experience! The are squishy, slippery, & come in all kinds of fun colors! We do all kinds of activities with water beads!
2.) Clay– Clay is another excellent manipulative for kids to create with. Loads of endless creativity opportunities and it’s great for strengthening fine motor skills!
3.) Playdough/Clay Toys– They playdough/clay tools are fun way to extend the creative play process of using clay or playdough. We also use ours with other dough recipes and sensory play activities.
4.) Water Table– We live for the water table in summer! It’s such a fun toy for the kids and all summer long it gets tons of use. Not only in the summer because in the fall and winter I also use it as a sand table and I set up small world activities in it.
5.) Insta-Snow– Love Insta-snow! The girls think its such an awesome sensory experience! We don’t live in an area that gets snow but this is like having it! Just add a bit of water and BAM! Snow!
6.) Light Table– The MOST used item in our house! We love our light table! We do everything from sensory play to learning activities to everyday imaginative play with loose parts on our light table! We have the older version on this one but 2 years later it’s still going strong!
7.) Glass Gems– These are one of my kid’s most favorite materials for loose parts play. They use them on the light table, with blocks, in sensory play and so much more. I have whole drawer full of different colors and shapes (you can get several colors at Dollar Tree too!)!
8.) Kinetic Sand– Have you tried this yet?! It’s so fun to work with and manipulate!
9.) Playdough– We generally make our own playdough but I realize people don’t always have the time or patience to make their own. Regardless if you make it or buy it playdough is a excellent tool for allowing kids to express themselves creatively.
10.) Sensory Table– We have two sensory tables and I love them. I definitely recommend a heavy duty one (with a lid!) because if your kids are like mine you’ll end up with a kid in the table at some point. I like the sensory table because they are made to hold messy, sticky, or large quantities of small parts (like rice) but they clean up well and have room for multiple kids.
11.) Magnifying Glass & Tweezers– These are awesome tools to add to any sensory play activity and for exploring objects! My kids even use them for pretend play, like being doctors that remove splinters or detectives searching for clues.
Want more gift ideas for kids? Click the image below to see all the fun toy lists as part of this series:
Looking for more crafts and activities? Check out our index for 100+ plus kids activities! Find activities by theme, materials, skills, age and much more!