STEM toys for toddlers prepare kids today for their future. It paves the way for innovation, discovery, and creativity. STEM toys encourage young kids to develop crucial STEM skills at each developmental stage. An engineering toy or science toy can teach a child the basic concepts and practical skills they need now and as they grow older.
We’ve researched the best STEM toys to help parents choose the perfect toy for their little ones. Our list includes age-appropriate toys for one to three-year-old boys and girls. Children are unique, and therefore our list of favorite STEM toys has a variety: math toys, games for kids, opportunities for hands-on activities, constructing easy to complex structures, and more engaging toys for countless hours of learning fun.
Top STEM Toys For Younger Kids Compared
Best STEM Learning Toys For Toddlers Reviewed
Best STEM Subscription Boxes For Very Early Age: KiwiCo Panda Crate
The KiwiCo Panda Crate is the first stem subscription box for young ones. The age-appropriate STEM toys are perfect for newborns to two-year-olds. Crates ship every other month to provide the ideal toys as your child grows and goes through the early childhood developmental stages.
Crates are theme-based, for example, Bond with me, Discover with me, and Listen to me. Each crate includes the Wonder Magazine, activity cards, age-appropriate toys, and DIY cards. The research-based advice in Wonder Magazine provides valuable information and answers to new parents. The activity guards give tips on how to use the STEM learning toys in the crate to promote brain development and early learning. The DIY cards offer at-home activities for parents to bond with their children and appreciate how their child explores their world in each phase.
Recommended Age Group: Birth to 2 years
Best STEM Toys For Toddlers 1-Year Old: Skyfield Wooden Animal Toddler Puzzles
The cute Skyfield Wooden Animal Toddler Puzzles are the perfect challenge for a one-year-old toddler. Kids love the vibrant colors and smiley animal faces.
The four animal puzzles are high-quality wood with smooth edges to avoid splinters or scratching your toddler’s skin. The materials are rigorously tested to ensure the pieces are safe for young children.
Initially, your kid will need assistance to fit the different shapes into a picture. Building puzzles teach your child to focus, strengthens your child’s hand-eye coordination, and develops problem-solving skills. The different shapes and bright colors encourage sensory play at an early age and are comfortable sizes for little hands to hold. Kids learn about spatial awareness by placing the puzzle pieces on the board.
The Skyfield Puzzle features a little bag for storing the puzzles. Wrapped in a Skyfiled customized gift box, the STEM toy is a great gift for toddlers.
Recommended Age: 1 to 3 years
Best STEM Boxes For Cause And Effect: Lovevery The Pioneer Play Kit
The Lovevery Pioneer Play Kit is the second subscription box your one-year-old toddler will receive. The toddler play kits ship every three months and are crammed with awesome age-appropriate toys for children.
The STEM subscription box helps your kid discover the real world. With fun STEM toys, children at a young age learn about cause and effect, gravity and motion, developing fine motor skills, and using both hands.
The kit includes
- Kids work on fine motor skills, building finger strength and dexterity with their first nature puzzle, the Community Garden Puzzle.
- The Fuzzy Bug Shrub toy needs both hands to stick, hide, and pull the Velcro critters.
- The side-by-side Race & Chase Ramp is a wonderful way to learn about motion and direction.
- A drawstring bag made from organic cotton keeps the beads of the Threadable Bead Kit tidy. Threading beads challenge toddlers to develop fine motor skills using both hands.
- The Wooden Stacking Peg Board features pegs in bright colors for stacking towers in small spaces.
- Max and Nana Go To The Park board book is a fun story that teaches toddlers about emotions and how to express and manage their feelings.
- The Play Guide features activity ideas, development information, and expert tips for parents.
Recommended Age Group: 16-18 months
Best STEM Toys For Toddlers 2-Years Old: Skoolzy Peg Board
The Skoolzy Peg Board Toddler Stacking Toys is a great Montessori toy for early child development and as occupational therapy materials. It is the perfect educational toy for a two-year-old toddler who loves stacking towers.
Kids playing with the 36 pegs and building the highest stacking towers develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills and learn to concentrate necessary for brain development. There are more than enough pegs for kids to share with siblings and friends. Sharing and teamwork are powerful life skills to master.
A 44-page activity guide inspires the basics math skill level like counting, sorting, and matching, and for older kids, more advanced concepts of patterning, adding, and subtraction. With 12 different shapes and colors, the pegboard and pegs are great math toys for learning early geometry and color and shape recognition.
Recommended Age: 2 to 4 years
Best STEM Subscription Boxes For Budding Scientists: Lovevery The Problem Solver Play Kit
The Lovevery Problem Solver Play Kit is ideal for helping your three-year-old experiment with real-life cause and effect. The subscription box features the best STEM toys for improving problem-solving skills.
The kit includes
- A Liquid Color Lab for a budding scientist who loves to play with water, droppers, and experiments with mixing colors – great for free play or following the color recognition guide.
- Kids create wonderful watercolor masterpieces with bright colors on the washable bamboo towels and the Color Lab.
- The Size It Up Measuring Tape toy makes fun noises when your child measures anything and everything.
- Another excellent STEM toy for basic math skills is the Number Sense Nature Counters set with 55 counters in ten animal and nature characters. Placing the characters teaches your kid essential addition and subtraction.
- The Wooden Wobble Puzzle is an excellent geometry STEM toy for spatial reasoning and discovering how different shapes and sizes fit.
- Your child learns communication skills and teamwork with the fun Turtle Hatch Game.
- Uncle Rob’s Pizza Party book helps kids understand people are different and unique.
- The Play Guide is an excellent guide for expert tips and how children benefit from playing with the toys.
Recommended Age: 43 to 45 months
Best STEM Boxes For Preschoolers: KiwiCo Koala Crate
The KiwiCo Koala Crate is a subscription box with STEM learning toys with hands-on activities for preschoolers. The monthly crates feature projects to keep curious minds occupied for the entire month.
Inside the crate, parents will find the Imagine! Magazine, materials for two to three STEM projects, online DIY activities, and a parent guide. Kids interested in crafts and creative play will enjoy the projects. The magazine is filled with stories and games that encourage creative hands-on learning. The online tutorials have more tips and tricks for children.
Recommended Ages: 2 to 4 years
Best STEM Toys For Toddlers 3-Year Old: Melissa & Doug Magnetic Human Body Anatomy Play Set
Known for quality toys, the Melissa & Doug Magnetic Human Body Anatomy Play Set is the perfect gift for boys or girls to develop their STEM skills. The playset features 24 magnetic pieces for visualizing body anatomy and dressing the wooden dolls.
Kids who enjoy board games and puzzles will appreciate this STEM toy’s imaginative play and educational value. The puzzle set helps boys and girls visualize the body’s systems and organs. With anatomically correct magnets, kids create the body from skeleton to internal organs, circulatory system, skin, and clothes. While learning basic anatomy, toddlers strengthen creative expression, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and imaginative play.
Kids require creative thinking, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills to match the magnets representing the body’s top, middle, and bottom parts. A wooden stand displays the body, and all the puzzle pieces are stored in a wooden storage tray.
Recommended Age: 3 to 6 years
Best STEM Construction Toys For Dinosaur Fans: Kids Toys STEM Dinosaur Toy
The Kids Toys STEM Dinosaur Toy is an educational STEM toy for little engineers and dinosaur fans. With the power drill, kids can take the dinosaurs part and rebuild them again; a wonderful gift to develop STEM skills.
With the power drill, two drill bits, three screwdrivers, and assembly instructions, kids can create a green Triceratops, a blue Tyrannosaurus Rex, and a red Velociraptor or mix it up and construct unique dinosaurs. Assembled the dinosaurs swing their heads, open and close mouths, move limbs, wag their tails, and position bodies in different poses.
The fun construction set has a positive impact on creativity skills, stimulates the imagination and critical thinking, and improves fine motor skills, dexterity, and arm movement.
Recommended Age: 3 to 8 years
Best STEM Toys For Math Skills: CozyBomb Monkey Balance Counting Cool Math Games
The CozyBomb Monkey Balance Counting Cool Math Games is a fun teaching tool to teach a kid to count. Playing with math toys at an early age familiarizes a kid with basic math skills; math symbols in school won’t be as daunting.
Learning with games is fun and instead of a game board, the game has a cute monkey balancing scale and lots of numbers and monkey figures. Children strengthen fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and problem-solving skills with fun multi-level gameplay.
At level one, your kid is learning digital recognition by pairing the number of monkeys with the number. Learning to count at level two helps to balance the scale and level three is all about basic math problem-solving by subtraction, addition, and multiplication. The cute toy teaches your kid basic math skills and weight perception, the perfect gift for toddlers and preschoolers.
Recommended Ages: 3 to 8 years
Best STEM Toys For Toddler Creativity: Fat Brain Toys Squigz Set
The Fat Brain Toys Squigz Starter Set is a wonderful STEM construction toy to spark creativity in toddlers to teens. The fun little suckers teach kids the basics of engineering, inspire creativity, and develop critical thinking skills and cognitive skills. The construction toy meets your child at their age and abilities.
Eight unique shapes teach toddlers different shapes, and sticking and popping the suckers apart improves fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, visual thinking, and tactile sensory play. Apply pressure to two Squigz, air rushes out, and the shapes stick together. The pop sound, when pulled apart, will delight any toddler.
It is the perfect toy that grows with your child and their imaginations and creativity, from tea parties with stuffed animals to building spaceships and robots. The cute Squigz sticks to any smooth surface and is playable anywhere, even at bath time; they make excellent bath toys, sticking against the bathtub. Made from BPA-free silicone, the suckers are child-friendly and dishwasher safe. The set features a primary collection of 24 pieces and a larger 50 pieces set.
Recommended Age: 3 years and up
Best STEM Subscription Boxes For Life Skills: Lovevery The Free Spirit Play Kit
The Lovevery Free Spirit Play Kit is an excellent subscription box for toddlers turning three years old. The kit includes fun toys supporting their growing skillset. These fabulous toys expose your child to numeracy, problem-solving, balancing, and real-life skills inside the box.
- Enjoy imaginative play and outdoor adventures with the Wooden Camper and Wooden Friends.
- The Wooden Counting Box inspires counting skills and delightful auditory stimulation hearing the pegs fall into the box.
- Strengthen fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination when building nature scenes with the Land And Sky Two-part Puzzle Game Board.
- The Reach For The Sars Matching Cards is three games in one: sorting, counting, and matching colors and shapes.
- The Solid Wooden Stacking Boulders offer endless stacking options and are more challenging than a traditional wooden block set.
- The Now That I’m Three board book features rhymes your independent toddler will enjoy.
- The Play Guide helps parents with activity ideas for their three-year-old toddler.
Recommended Age Group: 34 to 36 months
Best STEM Toys For Open-Ended Play: Magna-Tiles 100-Piece Clear Colors Set
Unlike other toys, the Magna-Tiles Clear Colors Set is not a wooden block set but a magnetic block set that creates 3D structures. The entire family can help find solutions to build the most wonderful things.
The STEM toy fuses science, math, and engineering into one delightful experience. With 100 translucent colorful shapes, children learn about problem-solving, critical thinking, pattern recognition, and magnetic principles while using their creativity and imagination to construct amazing 3D models.
Magna Tiles were developed by a Japanese mathematics teacher for children to enjoy a more practical geometry experience in the classroom or at home. The magnetic tiles are child safe, exceeding safety precautions established by leading safety organizations, ASTM, CPSIA, CPSC, and EN71. Ultrasonic welding, criss-cross lattice, and smooth edges create durable tiles ensuring a safe playing experience. The ABS plastic is 100% non-toxic, BPA-free, and phthalate-free.
Recommended Age: 3 years and up
Best STEM Toys For Toddler Girls: FunzBo Flower Garden Building Toys
Girls love flowers. The FunzBo Flower Garden Building Toys is the perfect gift for little girls. They build and look after their own little garden, and the flowers make beautiful bouquets.
The manipulative toy flower playset inspires creativity and imagination. Toddlers discover the pieces that make up a flower, from leaves to stems and petals. The vibrant colors and interchangeable pieces are delightful sensory stimulations that promote shape and color recognition.
A watering pot toy helps toddlers water their flowers into blossoming bouquets. Made from non-toxic, high-quality materials, the cute toy is child-friendly. The sturdy pieces are easy to clean and designed to withstand toddler creativity and rough handling.
The FunzBo Flower Garden Building Toy set includes 46 pieces and the water can. With lots of colors and types of flowers, your little girl can create a lovely flower garden. She’ll develop hand-eye coordination, motor skills, planning, and problem-solving skills. It’s one of the best STEM toys for girls with hours of endless creative play.
Recommended Age: 3 to 8 years
STEM toys are fun, educational toys teaching kids scientific concepts from building blocks to challenging puzzles and basic engineering building sets. The age-appropriate toys address every child’s development stage, from sensory play for babies to older kids a coding robot. Which of these STEM-based learning toys and subscription boxes would be an excellent gift for your toddler?
