I can make lists of toys I’m considering for the kids this year, and I likely WILL make such lists. But I also like to see lists of toys someone else has actually opened and played with, so that’s the theme of today’s grouping. This is mostly toys I’ve RECENTLY been surprised by and pleased with, but I’m also putting in a couple that our family has found enduringly fun to play with, and also one that I recommend you buy not for an actual child but for a grown up who likes miniatures/dollhouses (or MAYBE for a VERY CAREFUL child of the quiet and meticulous sort).

Melissa & Doug Magnetic Hide and Seek Board (photo from Amazon.com). A couple of times a year, my mom and aunt go shopping to stock their gift shelves and the toy rooms they’re responsible for freshening. This is one of the toys that most impressed everyone when we opened it up to try it out. They’d already realized that each door opened to reveal something inside (cookie inside the cookie jar, car inside the garage, etc.), but we hadn’t realized the item inside would be a removable piece. And in typical Melissa & Doug “impress ‘em by going one better than they even knew they wanted” form, the pieces are magnetic so they don’t scatter everywhere if you tip the puzzle.

Caring Corners Nanny Oakes Interactive Nursery (photo from Amazon.com). This is another of their finds, and I think what most impressed me about it was how little I thought I’d like it, compared with how much I did like it. I don’t think I would have given it a second glance in the store: the big face on the tree doesn’t appeal to me, nor does the color scheme, nor do the babies seem particularly cute to me. BUT, when we opened it up and started playing with it, I couldn’t BELIEVE how much fun stuff there was to do, and how many little compartments and special features were hidden from the at-first-glance overview.

The idea is that it’s a daycare where a tree (Nanny Oakes) takes care of the children. Nanny’s voice is an electronic feature that can be turned on or off; if on, it suggests ideas for playing (”Who wants a snack?” etc.), and also plays sound effects (lullaby music when the cradles are rocked, etc.). A little table has a rotating layer under the tabletop, so that you can see either snacks or crafts laid out. A clump of branches opens up to reveal a tub for bathing the babies. There’s a little elevator that goes up and down in the trunk, and there’s room for a family of squirrels to live in there too. There’s a swing that holds SIX babies. Only two babies come with the set, but there are smaller supplemental sets that have more babies. My mom and aunt also found that many of the little animals from their Calico Critters collections (here’s a <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011MTFUM/ref=nosim/?tag=88K18-20″>sample set</a> to look at, of the bunny family) fit perfectly, which made it more appealing to me: I prefer the idea of a tree taking care of little woodland creatures, rather than actual babies. I get a little nervous thinking about babies being left in care of a tree, even if the tree IS sentient.

Melissa & Doug Magnetic Fishing Game (photo from Amazon.com). We first encountered this toy when our eldest child was a toddler receiving special services for motor and articulation delays. The therapist brought this one with her, and he loved it so much we bought it for him for Christmas. It’s looking pretty beat-up at this point, and we lost one of the pieces for good, but it’s STILL a toy I’m willing to play with and that’s after playing with it with 5 children.

I cannot explain the sheer wonder I feel when I look at the Li’l Woodzeez General Store (photo from Target.com), and one reason for this is that THE PHOTO SHOWS THE WRONG SIDE. This is like looking at the FRONT of a dollhouse: no, no, you need to see the ROOMS and the TINY THINGS INSIDE. They have this in-store at our local Target, so I recommend going to your Target to see if you can take a look at it there. (There are also some better photos at Amazon, but not only are they charging $50 instead of $20 which makes me object on principle to linking there, but also I don’t think even the improved photos really capture the charm.)

There are, like, ONE MILLION wee little pieces to arrange in the store, including tiny canvas shopping bags, jars of candies, loaves of bread, boxes of produce, plates, bolts of fabric—all the little supplies the little animals would need to shop for. Oh, heavens, of course I’m not recommending buying this for actual CHILDREN! Ha ha! It would be a disaster within SECONDS! No, I think you should buy this for yourself and put it up where children can’t reach it but you can still gaze at it, and maybe leave the packaging on so things don’t fall off the shelves accidentally. It is so, so, so charming. There’s also a bakery, and my mom and I go back and forth about which is better.

K’Nex Buddies (photo from Amazon.com). I first encountered these when Rob and William were about 5 and 3 and I needed one more thing for each of them under the tree. Target had some K’Nex buddies sets on a great clearance, so I bought one set for each of them. They’ve been a HUGE success, and we now have several more sets—which makes it even more fun to build creatures. This is the kind of toy that gets forgotten for awhile but then taken out again and all five kids are sitting on the floor playing with it.

I chose the monster set to link to because I thought it looked fun, but I suggest buying two different sets, whatever’s the least expensive while still looking like it has fun pieces. The real fun is the mixing-and-matching anyway, and one set is skimpy for that. If you have more than one child, this is a good opportunity for Sneaky Gift Doubling: one set for each of two children means a larger set for both of them. (Or Zoo Buddies is twice the price, for for more than twice as many pieces.)

Manhattan Toy Put and Peek Birdhouse (photo from Amazon.com). I bought this for my niece a year or two ago when she was a sitting-up baby, and it was so fun to play with. The birds are so charming, and have charming little feeties, and it’s fun to show a baby at the “put things in, take things out” stage of development how to…put the birds in. And take them out.