We are almost there friends! We have almost made it to the end of this strange and hard year.  As seasoned pediatric therapists and moms ourselves, carefully preparing our annual gift guide is one of our favorite things to do.

Play matters.

And it could be argued that it matters now more than ever for our children and for ourselves.

We’ve organized this year’s guide a little differently – by category vs. age – as we all develop at our own unique pace, and play is healthy and important for us at any age. While we ALWAYS consider a few factors when choosing (quality, cost, developmental appropriateness), we particularly try to choose FOREVER TOYS (more about what this means HERE ).Of special note, in this special time, when more children are learning at home and more families are spending more time indoors, we have chosen to include a category for toys that encourage and support academic learning through multi-sensory play and a category for family fun. 

We hope you will enjoy. We hope you will share. We hope that if you are purchasing gifts or providing suggestions for gifts for children you love, that you will remember that ultimately our presence are more important than our presents, that less is often more,  that toys are the tools of play and that play really does build brains (and joy!).

Listen along to get our commentary on this year’s list here:

ULTIMATE BABY LIST

1-2-3 Just Play With Me

GROSS MOTOR GIFTS

The Nugget

FINE MOTOR/VISUAL MOTOR GIFTS

LANGUAGE GIFTS

LEARNING FROM HOME GIFTS

TEEN GIFTS

FAMILY FUN GIFTS

Want more ideas? Check out our past lists from 2017  2018  and 2019

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