Bright colors are important for little ones at this age since they are easy to discern and more fun to play with. Since their hand-eye coordination is developing, make sure that their smaller toys and puzzles are easy to manipulate.
Tip: Find products that are larger than your child’s mouth to encourage sorting, balancing, counting, comparing, and discovering cause and effect. Choose toys with simple designs and fewer pieces. A toy with more pieces may seem like it has more features, but it actually takes longer to assemble. In addition, there are fewer opportunities for your child to practice their motor skills.
Let’s look at some of the best STEM toys for 1 year olds.
Stacking toys
Blocks can be used as building blocks or as vehicles. When you stack blocks together, it helps your baby learn how objects fit together. Blocks are also useful for practicing spatial awareness.
A block tower toy with different colored blocks allows children to build towers by stacking them on top of each other. The challenge comes from figuring out how to stack the blocks correctly. It may take some trial and error before they figure it out. Once they do, they’ll have fun building higher and higher stacks.
Fisher-Price Baby’s First Blocks and Rock-a-Stack
- Set includes 2 toys
- 5 colorful rings and a bat-at rocker base make the iconic Rock-a-Stack toy loads of fun.
- Baby's First Blocks offers classic sorting and put-and-take fun with 10 colorful blocks and a take-along storage bucket
This set includes two STEM learning toys in one. This activity is perfect for developing problem-solving, sorting, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills as your toddler dumps out the bucket, then fills it back up with pieces and matches them with holes. While having fun mouthing, flinging, stacking rings, you can teach them about colors and counting.
Puzzles
Puzzles are fun for both adults and kids. For younger children, puzzles can teach them how to follow directions and solve problems.
Melissa & Doug Deluxe Jumbo Knob Wooden Puzzle
- Colorful geometric artwork
- Extra-thick wooden puzzle features jumbo wooden knobs for easy grasping
- Bright colors and sweet illustrations of familiar objects
The large knobs of this sweet wooden puzzle are easy to grasp for toddlers aged 12 months and up, so they can develop their hand-eye coordination as well as shape sorting. Color-coordinated shapes under each puzzle piece help little ones develop visual perception (and give them a brain boost).
Sorting Toys
Sorting toys are perfect for helping young children practice their fine motor skills while developing logical thinking. These toys have many different compartments so your child can sort items. These toys are perfect for toddlers because they have small parts, making them easy for little hands.
Learning Resources Babysaurs Sorting Set, Dino Toy
- A fun way for children to learn about counting and colors...while they play hide-and-seek
- Each egg opens to reveal fun dinosaur-shaped counters that match the color and number of the egg they live within.
- The set's 55 dinosaur counters come in shapes of famous dinosaurs. You'll find one T. Rex, two apatosauruses, three triceratops, and so on!
Playing with the Babysaurs Sorting Set from Learning Resources will help your little one learn about sorting and matching. Inside this set’s five pop-apart eggs, you’ll find a friendly triceratops, a pterodactyl, a t-rex, an apatosaurus, and more!
Toddlers can match the shapes on the bottoms of the dinos with the shapes inside the eggs, sort their new friends by cool and warm colors, and more!
Tinker Toys
These items are ideal for babies because they’re easy to hold and manipulate. You’ll find that your baby will be fascinated by the different textures and colors.
Boon PIPES 5-piece Building Bath Toy
- Can be used individually or create a chain to pour water through
- Pipes suction to wall
- Includes 5 pipes with unique shapes and functions
This set of colorful pipes will make a splash at bath time. They can be suctioned to the wall of the bathtub individually or connected together.
Engineering their own toy and discovering how water trickles through pipes will be a great experience for kids. It may be helpful to add some matching gears as well, so they can master the flow.
Hammering & Pounding Toy by Rolimate
- 🔶【4 in 1 Unique Learning Toy】Rolimate hammering & pounding toy has a 8 notes xylophone, and it could emit various tones, so the xylophone will stimulate the development of toddler’s hearing. The shape sorter with different colors design can teach the baby to recognize various shapes and color; The pounding colorful balls can exercise children's tactile development; The patterns and numbers on wooden blocks can inspire 1 2 3 year old boys and girls imagination and creativity
- 🔷【Learning While Playing】Preschool learning toys can make children smarter and it plays an important role in the development of children's imagination and creativity. We design montessori toys to improve the knowledge and skills of 1 2 3 year old boys and girls and to develop their interest in learning. Children learn knowledge through early developmental educational toys and improve their life skills. Rolimate hammered toys are the best choice for children's Christmas gifts!
- 🔶【Safe & Durable Toy】Rolimate toddler toy is made of natural wood and stained with non-toxic water-based paint and have been fully tested to pass the highest standards of the US. All of our learning toys are non-toxic, BPA Free, lead Free(ASTM F963/EN71 APPROVED), phthalate Free. It's a sensory toy for autistic children boy girl toddler. The surfaces of our wooden toy are well-polished, and the round edges and sturdy materials will ensure the safety of the toy for 1 2 3 year old boys and girls
This multipurpose toy is great for 1-year-olds. A wooden ball can be placed in three slots on the top of the toy. Kids will have fun hitting the balls and pushing them through holes with the included wooden hammer.
While kids adore making noise, this toy serves more than one purpose. The falling balls hit the xylophone and roll down, creating a musical melody. Additionally, you can remove this xylophone and play it separately. There are two xylophone sticks included for your child to enjoy.
Various shaped holes are incorporated into the side of this toy, allowing children to sort their blocks. Each block is shaped differently and features colorful patterns on one side and numbers on the other.