What toys hold your 3/4 year olds interest the longest?

[Fortunatepiggy]

I have a ds 3.5 who can play happily with his toy train set for a while but all other toys( and he has lots) don't seem to appeal. Wonder whether I just have the wrong toys!! Would like to get him some new stuff for Xmas so please recommend away..

My nearly 4 y old likes those busy books. She's has a paw patrol one and a dory one. She also likes her play kitchen and her vtech kiddizoom camera.

My almost 4 year old is Octonauts mad, he got the Octopod for Christmas last year and we've added to it with a few of the GUPs for good behaviour over the year. He still plays with it for hours and the new bits keep it fresh.

For his birthday next month we have got the Paw Patrol Look out tower thing and a load of the figures off eBay. I might not give him it all at once but reserve some figures to dole out at a later date.

Books that have kept his attention are Playtown by Roger Priddy - we've had it about 2/3 years and he still loves it as there is so much to look at. Anything like that with masses of detail, Where's Wally and the Puzzle series which I think is published by Usborne, we have Puzzle Castle and Ocean.

Also by Priddy Books is a builders tool kit, it's a jigsaw book where all the pieces fit in but he likes to play with them on their own too.

Bought Haba wooden building blocks and schleich animals and figures when they were 2, they both still play with now at 6 years. Have been favourite toys age 2/3/4/5/6. Well worth the money

Separate the toys into 2 lots and so swap them over every couple of weeks

They will seem like new toys cos they will forget about them then be excited to see them again

Big hits for my almost three year old include Duplo/lego, playmobil 123 and train set. She also likes play dough and anything with glue/paint. She is starting to get into fancy dress and role play with the kitchen/shop scenarios. And shes always driving off in her cosy coupe! The other things that really absorb her aren't really toys but she will play most intently with, include shells, buttons, paper bags, stones, empty bottles, basically anything where there is lots of it.

The swing set is my 3 year olds favourite. He also loves anything paw patrol.

Lego. Always Lego.

Plastic animals and dinosaurs and anything Ice age related.

Large foam building blocks from Early Learning.
He's 9 and still plays with them now! As does our 2 year old DD

A car mat, airport mat, and loads of planes and cars.

Magformers - and I can see them being popular with her for ages to come as the amount you can do with them grows with the child's ability (as with Lego etc)

Our 2 and 4 year old boys love playmobil, anything superhero, Pirates (loads of Jake and the Neverland pirates stuff) and the toy kitchen. We have a wooden train set with table, and I got the London set with the Tower, Canary Wharf, Harrods, etc so I can entertain myself by setting up London! They do have a lot of accessories for the train table though, so I can change it around every so often and it's like a whole new toy

Oh and I forgot about Lego.

Duplo
Octonauts - octopod and gups
Trains
Toy Hoover
Play food/kitchen
Scooter

Lego, pirate ships, imaginative play stuff. I bought her some clangers at Xmas and she plays with them in a caravan she has.

My ds mostly plays with cars/car garage/car mat/cars on the train track. Also play mobil/duplo/ bloody shopkins, Drs kit, diggers,playdoh or jigsaws. We got a few of the orchard games recently that have gone down well as something different to do.

Playmobil. Our vast collection is only just nearing its end and DS is ten. The playmobil castle with the dragons it the best £100 on toys I ever spent- it was in our dining room for two years and was played with daily. It's been in the loft a while but it's also incredibly durable and I'm about to sell it nearly complete on eBay