What are the best toys for toddlers in the garden?

[Fiona2011231]

Could you pls advise?

My son is three years and a half. I'm planning to buy a 'big toy' for him to play in the garden. Our budget is about £300.

In your experience, what is the best toy for a toddler in the garden?

As a start, I think of buying a battery-powerd car like this:

www.toysrus.co.uk/Toys-R-Us/Bikes-and-Rideons/Battery-Powered/6V-Mini-Cooper-S-Red-Car(0078821)

Thank you for your advice.

That does look great, and I'm sure he'd love it. I presume you have a large back garden / patio for riding around on as he'd need it with a battery-powered car? I wouldn't recommend using it outside the garden as my ds1 was nearly run over at the beach by a tiny tot on a powered quad bike - they shouldn't be riding them where they could hit other people. You have a sizable budget so have you considered something like a ride on digger or tractor instead? You might find that your ds would play with that more as he could spend time towing things around in the trailer or dig up a sandpit with the digger arm. It is worth bearing in mind that once you start buying 'high gadget' toys like motorised ride-ons that you are setting a high standard for yourself when it comes to future birthdays, and also his expectations.

How about a climbing frame with a slide? My DCs love theirs. Little Tikes do some good ones.

Trampoline, every time, worth it's weight in gold

Nothing that expensive. One of the best toys is a sand/water table. Takes very little water to fill it, compared to paddling pool and is a lot more useful than a paddling pool as it can be used on cooler days too. Hours of fun (and education) filling containers, watering cans, bottles etc and floating boats, making paper boats to sail in it etc. Use bath toys and water spray guns in it too. Great on hot Summer days to help everyone cool off (and child can water the garden with the water afterwards) and if your child has waterproof trousers/coat or rainsuit they can still use it on colder days.

Buy him something flexible.

A battery powered ride-on toy is exciting for a little while but all you can do is ride on it.

A climbing frame with a den or tent on it plus some planks, lengths of hose, small squares of decking and a camouflage net can be anything he wants them to be.

A castle, a prison, a pirate ship, a desert island, a house, a hobbit hole, a hospital, a teepee, an aeroplane,......

A patch of garden he can make mud pies with will give him opportunities to develop his imagination and his motor skills.

Perhaps a tree house with a rope ladder if you have a place to put it. Things to climb are a definite must!

Sand pit

Swing, slide and climbing frame

Paddling pool

The motorised car will get boring very quickly.

Sand pit table gets my vote - my 9 yr old still plays with hers -when she thinks no one is looking--

Plasma car Fab from 3-333 and loads of fun at BBQ's

Trampoline with nets?

Playhouse?

sandpit?

Sandpit/ water table.

Plasma car

Chalking area

Digging area

Best toddler toys for the garden? My 3yr old DS is most occupied by collecting snails and looking for families of woodlice to terrorise, he also likes picking flowers, saying hello to the bees and digging holes. The garden is for his imagination, being stuck in the house is when you need the crutch of toys. £300 for a toy is ridickerous IMHO (spot the thinly veiled envy )
...I'd love a climbing frame / den.

Oh was coming to say snails and a bucket! I guess your budget is different from mine .
I think still, you would be better off with this:
e-infopages.com/2011/how-to-make-a-long-bean-tepee/

We bought this for our DD's third birthday (with contributions from family members). It wasn't that much though! We got ours from climbingframesuk and they had a good selection and lots that are smaller/cheaper.

Lacey Fort

Other things we have are a big wooden sandpit and a water tray with water run.

Not a battery-powered car, I've heard they don't work well on grass (assuming you have a lawn).

I would get a Wendy house or a climbing frame/slide combo. Our DCs love our Wendy house, and it was less than £200, so you would have money left for something else.

A wooden playhouse? You can get ones with a slide. And still have change left over for a water and sand table.

So many helpful replies. I have to print this out, to read carefully. Thanks a lot.

Could you say more about the playhouse for boys? I watch some clips on YouTube and it seems easy enough to assemble. But do boys like it?

Thank you.

My DS is 3 next week and he's getting a playhouse and one of the child size picnic benches! Already has a sand table, a rocker, and a slide and swings out the back, so in the summer we are hoping to spend a lot of our day outside!

With £300 I'd get a few things, sand pit and tools, trampoline, ball pit, paddling pool etc. I'm giving my S a little area where we can plant and grow veg.

Battery powered cars are noisy and rain stops play.

I'd get a little tykes car, a trampoline and a simple slide. End of slide can be put in a paddling pool in the summer, which is The Most Fun Ever.

We've just bought a small plastic house from tesco, they have them for £50 at the moment. All my boys have had one and all loved it. Ds3 has lots of his little plastic cars in his and a table

I'd say a climbing frame, ds2 would say a trampoline! Also a sand pit. We have a little battery powered quad, think it was £30 from tesco but tbh he doesn't bother with it much. He prefers his plastic little tykes cosy coupe

I'd avoid the battery powered car. Waste of money in my book.

In our garden we have a little tykes bubble car, sand and water table, scooters, balls, pop up tent and coming soon a trampoline.

Sand box and play house.

I have 4 ds aged 10, 9, 2 and one and a garden that looks like a v tatty park. We have a climbing frame with slide, trampoline, play house, sand and water table, see saw and swingset.

The younger two both go on the trampoline and love the water table.

The toddler also loves the climbing frame and swings (he leans over the swing rather than sit on it).

The older two still use the trampoline, climbing frame and swings.

We did have an electric car, it was rubbish. They were on it such a short amount of time before it ran out of charge.

Also I would recommend not getting a joint sand/water table, but two separate ones as I discovered (the first time it was used!) that they have great fun but you end up with sandy water and watery sand!

I have a 6 yr old and a 2.5 yr old.

Their favourite garden toys are a wooden playhouse and trampoline.

They also love the following though:

Sand table
Chalk and blackboard (or paving slabs)
Wheelbarrow
Garden tools
Ride on digger
Basketball hoop
Football goals
Pretend lawnkower
Paddling pool when it's warm
Ikea circus tent
Garage and cars (they draw roads / race tracks with the chalk)
Tennis rackets and ball
Those Velcro hands and ball
Watering can

Didn't realise they had so much until I wrote all that down!

If I were you I'd buy a selection of smaller things - like someone else said , things which serve more than one purpose are best. Asda have a £99 10ft trampoline with enclosure at the moment which we are considering for dd's Third birthday.