To help parents pick out toys that will enhance a child’s visual development, we’re sharing our annual list of 125 optometrist-approved children’s toys!  We also label toys with age-appropriate designations.

Before we dive into that list, let’s take a moment to consider the most important gifts you can give your child.

The MOST Important Gifts: Your Time and Undivided Attention

In our busy lives it can be easy to forget the fundamentals of what children both want and need. Here are a few reminders for how to give your time and attention -- the best gifts of all -- to your child.

Read Together

Reading to your child is not only fun but can also have a significant positive impact on their developing reading skills and school performance. Have fun choosing which books you’ll read together, and for younger kids, shoot for reading at least one book a day together.

Play Together

Playing with your kids makes them feel loved and important. It’s also a great opportunity to encourage their imagination and enhance both their academic and social skills. Take the time to play whatever they would like -- and do your part to make it extra fun.

Enjoy the Outdoors Together

Make time to show your child all the wonderful alternatives to screen time by getting outside. A simple game of catch in the yard, for example, provides exercise and can also help develop depth perception as well as eye-hand and eye-body coordination.

Bonus Tip: Fun Money

Consider giving your child coupons or play money that can be exchanged for you to stop what you’re doing and spend time with them. Your child will love it!

Engaging Functional Vision Skills

Of course, kids need to play on their own as well. And the good news is that our vision-friendly gift list below includes toys to promote a child’s visual development, particularly their functional vision skills.

Functional vision is how our entire visual system -- the eyes, the brain, the visual pathways -- works together to help us interact with our environment. 

Matching Toys to Developmental Age

When choosing a toy or activity, be sure to align the gift with your child’s developmental age, rather than their actual age. To help narrow down your choices, we include the developmental age appropriate for each toy.

Note that if your child has a functional vision problem, you should always consult your developmental optometrist to choose toys that will enhance their treatment. 

Okay, on to the list!

Building Toys

Develop eye-hand coordination and visualization/imagination.

Mega Bloks (1+)
Melissa & Doug Building Blocks (Ages 2-5)
Lakeshore Play Stix (3+)
Tetra Tower Balance Stacking Blocks Game (3+
Magna-Tiles (3+)
Lincoln Logs (3+)
Tinker Toys (3+)
K’NEX (3+)
Legos/Duplos (4+)
Clixo (4+)
ThinkFun Gravity Maze (8+)
ThinkFun Roller Coaster Challenge (8+)

Photo Courtesy of ThinkFun, Inc.

With Roller Coaster Challenge your child can create an amusement park in your living room! This is both a challenging game and a toy that lets kids use their hands to build a roller coaster. The American Specialty Toy Retailer Association (ASTRA) named Roller Coast Challenge a Best Toys for Kids in the Logic Skills category.

VEX Robotics (PreK to 12+)

A great overview of VEX Robotics and all it has to offer.

VEX Robotics is a continuum of highly versatile robot construction items that allow students to engage in educational robotics while also applying skills important in science, technology, engineering, and math (aka STEM). 

Fine Motor Skill Toys

Develop visual-motor integration and fine motor skills.

Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Count & Rumble Piggybank (6mos.+)
Coogam Wooden Geoboard (1+ with an adult)
Finger Paints (1+)
Learning Resources Spike the Fine Motor Hedgehog (2+)
Esjay Toddler Busy Board Montessori Toys (3+)
Pegboard and Pegs (3+)
Dot-to-Dot Activity Books (3+)
Play-Doh/Modeling Clay (3+)
Chalkboard Easel (3+)
Large Bead Stringing (3+)
Lacing Cards (3+)
Lakeshore I Can Build It! (4+)
Noodle Knockout! (4+)
Lite-Brite (4+)
Silly Putty (4+)
Rainbow Loom (5+)
Tetra Tower Stack Game (6+)
Paint or Color by Numbers

Space Perception Toys

Develop depth perception and eye-hand coordination.

Within arm’s length:

Don’t Break the Ice (3+)
Egg and Spoon Race (4+)
Let’s Go Fishing (4+)
Hasbro KerPlunk (5+)
Operation (6+)
Reflex Drop Sticks Challenge (6+)
Door Pong (7+)
Jenga (8+)
Jumpin' Monkeys (5+)

Jumpin’ Monkeys involves players catapulting monkeys into a tree. Whoever gets all their monkeys on the tree first wins! 

Pindaloo (9+)

Meet Pindaloo! The perfect skill-based toy to stimulate hand-eye coordination. It’s based on a simple but challenging toss-and-catch loop principle. And once your child masters the basics, they can invent endless throwing and catching tricks for continued fun.

Beyond arm's length:

Little Tikes Toy Sports T-Ball Set (1.5+) 
Playskool Elefun (3+)
Dart Games (Velcro) (3+)
Nerf Basketball (4+)
B. Toys Rocket Disc Launcher with Pedal Flying Disc (4+)
Fat Brain Toys Box & Balls (5+)
Frisbee (5+)
Ring Toss (5+)
Oball (ball that is easier to catch) (6+)
Bowling Zombies Toys (8+)
Pitchback
Cuponk (9+)
Cornhole Bean Bag (5+)

A classic! You can’t go wrong with a set of bean bags and boards. This is a fun activity for children and adults!

Visual Thinking Toys and Games

Develop visual perceptual skills including: visual memory, visual discrimination, pattern recognition and sequencing. These skills are important for academics including mathematics, reading and spelling.

Wooden form board puzzles (2+)
Varbertos Face Changing Game (3+)
Jigsaw puzzles (3+)
Gears!Gears!Gears! (3+)

Photo and description courtesy of Learning Resources.

Assembling things and taking them apart is a great way for a child to engage their visual thinking. Gears! Gears! Gears!® comes with building ideas while also allowing creative play.

Ravensburger Disney Lotti Karotti (4+)
Go Fish Card Game (4+) 
Parquetry Blocks (4+)
Tangoes Jr. (4+)
Whack Attack Galaxy Battle (5+)
Tumble Trax (5+)
STEM Explorers Brainometry (5+)
Rope Untying Game (5+)
Smart Games Color Code (5+)
Attribute Blocks (5+)
Make N Break Jr.(5+)
Checkers (5+)
Blokus (5+)
Rush Hour Jr. (5+)
Perfection Game (5+)
Mathlink Cubes (5+)
Smart Games IQ Puzzler Pro (6+)
Guess Who (6+)
Mancala (6+)
Set Card Game (6+)
Math Dice, Math Dice Jr. (6+)
Qwirkle (6+)
Connect Four Game (6+)
Battleship Game (7+)
UNO (7+)

UNO is the classic number- and color-matching game of cards. It’s fun and easy to learn but also requires attention and strategy.

Spot It! (7+)

Check out this video for a quick way to understand how Spot It! is played.

Spot It! is a matching game of cards that requires players to pay close attention to the multiple images on each card. Can you spot something you can match with a card of your own? Easy to learn and fun to play! 

Smart Games Horse Academy (7+)
ThinkFun Cat Crimes (8+)
Bop It (8+)
Blink Card Game (8+)
Racko (8+)
Q-bitz Pattern Matching (8+)
Rubik’s Cube (8+)
Color Cube Sudoku (8+)
Thinkfun Laser Chess (8+)

"Laser Chess is a two-player strategy game that combines the spatial thinking skills of chess with the high-tech fun of laser beams.” Need we say more?! Winner of multiple awards, including a National Parenting Product Award.

Kanoodle (8+)

Photo courtesy of Educational Insights.

Challenge your child with this award-winning, brain-twisting game. Kanoodle is perfect for hours of solo puzzle play and comes in varying levels of difficulty (for players as young as 4). It helps develop problem-solving, strategic thinking, and spatial reasoning skills. 

Rory's Story Cubes (8+)
Amaze (8+)
Bejeweled Board Game (8+)
Labyrinth Game (8+)
Connect Four Shots (8+)
Perplexus (8+)
Sort It Out (12+)

Memory Games

Help develop visualization and visual memory.

Ravensburger Junior Memory (3+)
The Learning Journey: Match It! (3+)
Matching Game-Memory Games (3+)
Think Fun Zingo (4+)
Briarpatch I Spy Memory Game (4+)
Wooden Memory Chess Matching Game (3+)
Memory Game (5+)
Melissa & Doug Flip to Win (5+)
i Match Memory Game (6+)
Loopz (7+)
Match Madness (7+)
Simon Classic Game (8+)

Balance and Coordination Toys and Games

Develop gross motor skills, laterality and bilateral coordination.

Pikler Triangle (1.5+)
Sit and Spin (1.5+)
Hoppity Hop (3+)
B. Toys Balance Beams (3+)
Battat Education Step & Feel Solar System (3+)
Pogo Jumper for Kids (3+)
Hoola hoop (4+)
Jump Rope (5+)
Razor GogoPogo Stick (5+)
Twister Game (6+)
Balance Board 
Bicycle

Merry Christmas from The Vision Therapy Center!