Christmas Gift Ideas for Toddlers (2010 Edition)

Shopping for toddlers isn’t as easy as it sounds. While there are thousands of options, finding toys that both entertain and help with your child’s development isn’t as easy as it sounds. Here are some ideas that hopefully will make your Christmas shopping a little easier.

VTech ABC Text and Go | Hopefully this will keep your toddler distracted long enough that they stop using your Blackberry. VTech’s ABC Text and Go has a big kid feel with a fully functional QWERTY keyboard, directional buttons for menu scrolling and game play, and four game mode buttons. Fully customizable with their own profile and a song, children learn letters, vocabulary, matching, typing, music and more while increasing their dexterity. $12.99 from Amazon

If you are a Leap Frog fan, check out the Leap Frog Messenger. Text and Learn is designed to let little learners play in a grown-up way! Children can exchange text messages with their puppy pal Scout, check Scout’s planner to see what his week entails and more in the pretend browser mode. Other learning modes offer practice with letter matching, shape identification and QWERTY keyboard navigation through silly animations and sound effects. Children also explore letter names and sounds. Parents can connect to the online LeapFrog Learning Path for customized learning insights and ideas to expand the learning. $17.99 from Amazon

Lincoln Logs | Build a frontier homestead, complete with a horse-drawn wagon! Shady Pine Homestead includes real wood logs plus colorful figures and accessories. Each set includes step-by-step building instructions and is packed in a handy storage container for a quick and easy clean-up. $32 from Amazon. If you are so inclined, you can also add this 300 piece set for $36.

Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear | This talking super poseable Toy Story Buzz Lightyear action figure says over 30 phrases. He has pop-out wings, laser light and stands 12″ tall which is what Buzz is in all of the Toy Story movies. $29 from Amazon

Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway – Water Tower Figure 8 Set | Oliver loves Thomas and Friends and goes nuts whenever he sees Thomas on television or in the stores. With this set, you can introduce a young engineer to Thomas and Friends, or add to a Thomas fan’s collection with this 25-piece wooden train set. The unique water tower gives Thomas and his friends a place to relax and re-fill their water supply. Set includes a stone bridge, water tower and cargo car along with Thomas, Sir Topham Hatt and more. $35 from Amazon

Mr. Potato Head | In this kit, preschoolers are introduced to Mr. Potato Head, the tater extraordinaire. With just 13 pieces, the options may seem limited–but only to adults. And once kids figure out the basics of putting Mr. Potato Head together, they’ll want to move on to making extraterrestrial spuds: feet where ears should be, and so on. $10 from Amazon