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If You Need Help Entertaining Your Kids This Fall, These 28 Products Will Surely Keep Them Busy
For those afternoons when you need more “quiet time” and less “Mom, watch this!”
1. A set of rubber-top logs and stumps because it demands imaginary quests on par with Lord of the Rings. Just look at those perfect stumps! Reviewers love how easy these are to maneuver both indoors and outdoors while also being plenty sturdy for all manner of leaping and bounding.
2. A Green Toys pull-behind wagon that is made from recycled plastic (yay, environment!) dishwasher safe (yay, easy cleaning!) and will hold up to all manner of small-person abuses, such as mud hauling, staircase dropping, and “what if I attach this to my tricycle and pull it behind me at breakneck speed over concrete?” Ask me how I know.
3. A Skip Hop basketball pup to liven up bath time for the littles in your house without having to pour hard-earned cash down the drain.
4. A huge set of pastel Connetix magnetic tiles that are basically the best building blocks around. Kids can snap them together flat on a table to make beautiful pixelated creations or click them into three-dimensional towers to build their own kingdom of pastel screen-free fun.
5. A magical plastic-free indoor modern farmhouse playhouse for giving them the PERFECT hideaway to play pretend or just hangout with their blanket-and-stuffed-animals-nest.
6. A pair of John Deere sandbox construction toys that your resident truck enthusiast and your wallet will appreciate because these will — and I’m going to touch your hand gently when I say this — last longer than your kid’s obsession with large moving vehicles.
7. Or a Big Dig rotating excavator for kids who have upgraded from “vroom vrooming” the trucks in the sandbox and now want to be the excavator. It’s also made of steel, so you don’t have to worry about the shovel breaking on at the first sign of rocky soil. Plus, it’s a great way to enjoy being outside in the ~cooler weather~.
8. A flower-building set (with a storage box) to work your kiddos’ motor skills and help their ~flowering~ independence find a fun and colorful outlet for a few hours (without breaking the bank, of course).
9. A set of four colorful parachute figurines for outdoor and indoor physics-learning fun! Which of us hasn’t spent hours making up dramatic soliloquies as our parachutes crash to the ground? This is a childhood rite of passage. (And an affordable one, thank goodness!)
10. A magnetic travel-size doodle board if you’re tired of spending a small fortune on construction paper that gets a single mark on it, and then your kid declares it “all done.” This way, they can make endless creations with no trees harmed in the process!
11. A shockingly cute “Bears Gone Wild” polymer clay kit that your kids are going to LOVE for the fun factor of making something this cool but also for having an adorable piece of room decor when they’re done!
12. A set of bendy, moldable fidget Wikki Stix to give your kid’s imagination room to roam, no matter the locale. (And at a much cheaper price than anything you’ll find in that airport gift shop, let me tell you.)
13. An interactive globe with a talking pen that features the voice of none other than CROCODILE HUNTER PROGENY BINDI IRWIN. Learn about the planet and wildlife conservation? Crikey, that’s a good idea.
14. A Little Tikes Space Rocket for when you and your kiddo just need some space (inside), but their imagination is ~out of this world~.
15. A Maui magical fishhook toy that comes straight from Moana 2 and directly into the heart of the wayfinding-obsessed kiddo in your life. We love a good old-fashioned pretend toy, and this one just so happens to have some Disney pixie dust, light, and sound to really make it engaging.
16. A Strider balance bike because this is my new favorite kid thing we own — inside OR out! It is light (only about 6 pounds) and can maneuver in even the smallest places. My 3-going-on-4-year-old LOVES his “motorcycle” and we’ve gotten hours of fun out of this thing with so many more to come.
17. A Nex Playground Active Play System that’s ~supposedly~ designed for the small human crowd, but adults also LOVE this thing. If you remember the Xbox Kinect times, THIS IS THE SUPERIOR, CHEAPER, MORE COMPACT VERSION. With games like Fruit Ninja, a How To Train Your Dragon flight simulator, and dancing galore, this handy size-of-your-hand device plugs directly into your TV or projector with an HDMI cable and is ready to go.
18. A Moo Moo Achoo bubble game: part card game, part BUBBLES. Collect all the clover cards before Moo Moo sneezes to win this lil’ game. This looks so ridiculously fun, I can’t help but throw it in my cart for my bubble-obsessed fam.
19. A ChompSaw kid-safe cardboard cutting tool that’s part toy and ALL hands-on imagination. Designed for the 5-and-up crowd, this has no sharp blades or spinning parts, so kids can safely shape all your cardboard boxes into costumes, story props, and elaborately constructed hideouts *without* losing a digit.
20. Some LeapFrog magic binoculars that have so. many. features: a digital screen, camera and photo gallery, mini games, a BBC field guide, and — my kid’s favorite — NIGHT VISION. Just be aware that every inch of your house is now fair game for a safari with these things.
21. A Carrera race track that’ll have even you questioning your grasp on physics in the most fun way. My son has been OBSESSED with this and is learning a lot about physics through play, especially by moving the ramps along the track.
22. A realistic and charming Be Loved baby doll with open/shut eyes, squishy baby cheeks, and hours of caretaking pretend play for your little.
23. A Bluey play tent so perfect I’ve bought it twice. My son was OBSESSED with the Heeler house version, so one desperate day, I had the car version sent to my house, and ~voilà~ — a whole 45 minutes of him happily playing with his toys in Bluey’s car.
24. A portable Kanoodle 3D brain-teaser game with 200 puzzles and instructions to carry kids from 7–107 through hours of brain-teasing fun. And best of all, it folds up into a neat lil’ carrying case for easy storage and portability.
25. Some inflatable bump ‘n’ bounce body bumpers that reviewers promise will bust *your* boredom, too. If I had a nickel for every review that used the word “hilarious,” I’d have enough nickels to buy an army of these. Adults and kids alike have a blast turning themselves into human bumper cars.
26. A magically designed Power Pony riding toy that the littles in your life will love because who doesn’t want a pony that requires zero upkeep? Plus, it’s a win for the adults, too, since it means more time outside and less time moaning about being bored ~inside~.
27. A Disney Eye Found It! hidden-picture card game perfect for keeping in your purse to whip out at restaurants, plane rides, doctor’s offices, and anywhere else you need some Disney-themed fall magic *without* screens or loud noises involved.
28. And finally, a LeapFrog ice-cream-maker play set that can help recover and hone your kid’s listening ears in the most fun way possible: with pretend sweet-treat prep! Kids can either follow spoken customer orders or you can get in on the phone by requesting your own fave. Best of all, no sticky mess for you to clean up afterwards.
Reviews for this post have been edited for length and/or clarity.