Small word type toys for 2.5 year old

[Anotherbloodyusername2]

Looking for a Christmas present for DD who will be 2yrs 4months. She has Duplo but I think she's much more interested in the storytelling aspect than the building. She mainly like to act out "going to school" and "rescuing things" (big Octonauts fan). Any suggestions for toys? Thanks 🙂

A dolls house and the things to go in it. Endless play opportunities ranging from setting up the house and making the people "live" in it, setting up fires in the rooms for the fire engine to come and put out, staging a dinosaur takeover where the people move out and the dinosaurs move in ......

Buy it now while she is small and she'll love it for years!

Google happy land ELC

I noticed this week that Aldi have loads of different wooden toys for all sorts of make believe scenarios. DS is sadly devoid of imagination so I couldn't buy them for him but they looked really nice.

Happy Land- can often pick it up 2nd hand too.

Other options to look at might be the Schleich and Papo figures, they do lots of gorgeous animals and fantasy figures. They are expensive but I love them and they’re a good ‘present idea’ for other people. At this age we got the animals to go with the story Handa’s Surprise and also some polar animals.

Playmobil 1-2-3 is also great for this age. Safe for 1-3 year olds.

My childrens favourite was a bucket of farm things.
There were lots of animals and a few farmers, some fences and a shed.
They liked fireman sam so generally did a lot of rescuing from fires or from being stuck up cliffs (the sofa).

Look online at the wooden dolls houses from Aldi, they are fab!

ELC Happyland
Fisher Price Little People
Playmobil 1-2-3
or you get can sets based on TV programmes (eg Octonauts, Fireman Sam, Peppa Pig)
It's worth keeping an eye on Facebook etc as there are usually bargains to be had a people with older children have a pre-Christmas clear out

My 2.5 year old likes schleich animals. I’m getting him the tree house and maybe a car for Christmas. They do lots of various play sets

My dc loved happylands and playmobil 123.
You can get beautiful painted peg dolls, combine with a playbase etc. I like Littlethingstoys but there are others on etsy etc.

Playmobil 1,2,3
Sylvanian Families
Play figures for her favourite TV show - eg Bluey

Leapfrog laptop. Got this for my daughter and it helped her learn numbers and the alphabet. It's been amazing

The Happy Land sets were very popular at that age here as was the Twirly Woo boat and characters (I'm sure there will be Octonaughts play sets out there if she's a fan), and the Peppa Pig house. If she is a particularly careful DC in her playing, Sylvanian Families (all the tiny pieces removed with the intention of adding them back in once older) plus a doll's house to put them in would be a great investment that will have many years of use ahead of it. Sylvanian furniture/figures are a compatible scale for most wooden doll's houses IME. We got most of DDs' gifts second hand at that age as you can pick up so much in mint/excellent condition. Wooden doll's houses with some basic starter furniture included can be found for £40 on Facebook marketplace.