Skip to main content

NewFolks may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

The best educational baby toys for kids at 10-12 months

Babies look at everything as a toy. Since playing is actually learning for babies, educational baby toys are a great way to both entertain and educate your baby at the same time. But what toys are appropriate for babies that are 10 – 12 months old? For babies in this age range, motor skills and coordination must be developed. You can also begin to introduce numbers, shapes, colors, and start to encourage creativity. There is a massive selection to choose from when it comes to baby toys, so if you are feeling overwhelmed or having trouble choosing the right toys, we are here to help.

VTech Stack and Sing Rings

baby playing with vtech-stack-and-sing-rings
Image used with permission by copyright holder

This toy is an improvement on the classic stackable rings. The set comes with 5 rings that are different colors and textures, which allows for color recognition learning and tactile ability improvement. Motor skills and hand-eye coordination are sharpened as your baby uses their hands to stack the rings onto the tower. The new feature of this toy is a light-up monkey at the top of the pole that also plays songs. These features make the toy interactive for babies and keep them entertained while improving visual and auditory learning senses. The songs also introduce babies to numbers, shapes, and colors.

Recommended Videos

Fat Brain Toys Dimpl Baby Toys

baby playing with fat-brain-toy
Image used with permission by copyright holder

This toy comes with five brightly colored silicone pop toys that feel exciting to babies. The different colors are visually appealing and improve your baby’s color recognition abilities. The toy itself is simple – babies experiment with how each part pops by touching them and putting them in different positions. The process of rearranging the colored poppers teaches cause and effect. The hands-on experience develops hand-eye coordination and motor skills.

VTech Sit-to-Stand Learning Walker

Image used with permission by copyright holder

This walker toy comes in different colors so you can get the color scheme your little one loves. The activity panel can be removed and put back into place wherever you would like, which makes this toy versatile. The toy can be laid flat on the ground for babies that aren’t ready to walk and then adjusted into a walker by adding wheels when your baby is ready to get moving. This toy is sure to entertain your baby for many months, if not years, as it grows with your child. The toy comes with piano keys that babies can press and then listen to music, which develops motor skills and hand-eye coordination. There is also a shape sorter toy on the walker that allows your baby to learn about shapes and develops problem-solving skills.

Playskool Play Favorites Busy Poppin’ Pals

Image used with permission by copyright holder

This pop-up toy set is interactive and engaging and will entertain your baby for hours. Your baby will enjoy turning and twisting the different levers and watching the toy bugs pop up. This hands-on playing develops motor skills and hand-eye coordination and illustrates cause and effect. The toy also teaches about shapes and colors through recognition and introduces animal learning.

Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Sis’ Remote

baby playing with fisher-price-laugh-learn-sis-remote
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Babies love remote controls. This Fisher-Price toy looks like a remote control, features over 35 songs, and a screen that lights up. The interactive features help to improve your baby’s auditory and visual senses while pressing the buttons introduces them to letters, numbers, and colors. Pressing the buttons is excellent for motor skills and hand-eye coordination, and the responses from the buttons teach about cause and effect.

VTech Busy Learners Activity Cube

baby playing with vtech-busy-learners-activity-cube
Image used with permission by copyright holder

This Activity Cube by Vtech is a busy baby’s dream come true. It has five sides filled with activities and 14 interactive features. The toy has buttons that light up and teach cause and effect. The buttons also introduce shapes and animals to your baby. There are 25 different songs and different animal noises that play through this toy and stimulate auditory learning. The features of this toy are mostly hands-on, including sliding and spinning blocks, which improve motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Fisher-Price Baby’s First Blocks

baby playing with fisher-price-babys-first-blocks
Image used with permission by copyright holder

This block set is a classic fit-the-block-in-the-hole game for your baby. The ten blocks are bright colors and different shapes that help to teach your child about shapes and colors. The blocks can be used to build, which improves motor skills and hand-eye coordination, or can be placed into the holes on the block carrying case to teach problem-solving skills and color and shape recognition.

Fat Brain Toys MiniSpinny

baby playing with fat-brain-toys-minispinny
Image used with permission by copyright holder

This interactive toy from Fat Brain has pieces that are bright in color and spin onto a spindle which entertains babies for hours. This toy teaches color recognition, hand-eye coordination, counting, and motor skills. The toy is visually appealing, and parents like how easy it is to keep their baby engaged with the toy.

Kelly Kaliszewski
Kelly's work has appeared in blogs and on websites. When she's not writing, she is playing with her two dogs, cooking, or…
4 of the best ways to get your sleeping baby to the crib
At least there's more than one way to do this delicate task
Mother holding a sleeping baby near a crib.

Sleep is crucial for babies and their parents, but what is a tired, overwhelmed new mom or dad to do if their baby won't fall asleep in their crib? After all, there are only so many drives around the block you can do, and having them sleep in your arms is sweet until you start thinking of the endless things you'd like to do when your baby is sleeping. You cherish these bonding moments with your little one; however, you do need to get started on your to-do list. But now comes the transfer from your arms to the crib -- when your baby always wakes up. That’s the cumbersome part and every new parent faces this difficulty: Transfer sleeping baby to crib without them waking.

While there are no foolproof solutions, we’ve come up with a few suggestions that may help you successfully transfer your sleeping baby to the crib.
How to transfer a sleeping baby to the crib

Read more
Here’s our temperature guide for dressing babies in both cold and warm weather
How to dress your baby for any weather type
A parent dressing their baby

As the seasons change, knowing how what weather to dress for can get complicated. As summer turns to fall it can be cool in the morning yet positively sweltering by midday, only to turn cool again in the evening. The weather is often unpredictable, making it hard to know just how many layers you may need for the day. Knowing how to dress a baby when you're not sure if the weather will change is a challenge, too, especially since they can't tell you if they are too hot or cold. Dressing your babe correctly for the weather is one time a parenting handbook would be helpful.

Many parents find themselves wondering just how many or how few layers their child needs to wear during those first few months. If you wear a light jacket, will your baby do fine with the same? Will they need more layers in the fall and winter months to cover their delicate skin? How do you balance protecting your baby from the sun in the summer, while making sure they don't overheat? To help you pick the perfect outfit for your infant, here’s a temperature guide for dressing babies in both warm and cold weather. 
Baby clothes temperature guide: Fall

Read more
Are all babies born with blue eyes? We have the answers
You might be surprised what we found out
Four babies sitting together at daycare.

What color eyes the baby will have is always an exciting wonder for the parents. Will they get mom's blues or dad's greens? Genetics can sometimes be funny, like the theory all people with blue eyes descend from one person. While that's a genetic journey for a different day, another theory is all babies are born with blue eyes, which change color as they get older. Are all babies born with blue eyes? Every single one? Here's the answer to this color-coded question.
The baby eye color question

So, are all babies born with blue eyes? We hate to break it to you. No, they are not. It might seem like it, but not every child comes out with blue eyes that change to green or brown. The transparent truth is most babies are born with brown eyes. Stanford did a study in 2016 showing only one in five babies had blue eyes at birth, with two-thirds having brown eyes. Sorry, Team Blue Eyes, the battle has been lost.

Read more