The Best Building Toys for Kids

Building toys are the classic open-ended toy for kids of all ages.

Whether they are creating with DUPLO or LEGO, piling up wooden blocks or pushing sticking brocks together, the skills being practiced with these creative STEM toys are incredible!

Read on for reasons why building toys are the best gifts for kids and our recommendations and top picks.



Whether you are buying for babies, toddlers, preschoolers or older kids, builidng toys will give them hours of fun over the years ahead as they grow with the child.

STEM skills and those invisible learning developments like problem solving are inherent in building toy play.

And everyone knows kids love building things, so these gift ideas are definitely going to be hit!




This roundup of the best building toys for kids includes a variety of creative STEM building toys that kids of all ages will love.

Even the youngest of children are fascinated by building towers and putting pieces together, then knocking them down again!

Over the years those early towers will become elaborate castles, forts and towers, ideal for small world play, figures, dinosaurs and animals.



Building toys and construction encourages a raft of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) learning and other soft skills, including:
  • encouraging and enhancing fine motor skills
  • encouraging problem solving and planning
  • engaging critical thinking skills
  • encouraging creativity
  • expanding understanding of physical structures and mechanics

Building toys are the classic STEM toy and have been encouraging learning for decades.

So, let's have a look at these classic toys with options that are suitable from just a few months old up to the teen years.




The Best Building Toys for Kids

Here's our pick of the best building toys for kids of all ages, from babies to teens.

These gifts are ideal for the holiday season, Christmas or birthdays, or just to add to your playroom or toy box. Happy shopping!

Just click on the pink writing to read more or to purchase.

Best Building Toys for Babies

Babies are just beginning to understand how things can be stacked on top of one another and to explore the principles of cause and effect.

They will love these traditional soft building blocks from Melissa and Doug which have bright colours, shapes, numbers and animal pictures.

Pile them up or examine the 6 surfaces of each cube to learn about shapes, numbers and animal names.




These silicone building blocks have a variety of different textures with shapes, pictures, numbers and pieces that lock together to help babies learn and recognise shapes and numbers.

Their beautiful soft pastel shades and food-grade silicone material make them delightfully tactile and ideal for teething babies to gnaw on.



For older babies these soft building blocks will grow with them into toddlerhood as they learn about small, medium and large and how the blocks can be joined together.

They're the ideal block before baby is ready for Mega Bloks or Duplo and helps them learn how to strat interlocking blocks to create their own designs.



Best Building Toys for Toddlers

Toddlers love to build towers - the taller the better - and then knock them down!

Stacking cups are the perfect toy for this age and will be a toy that lasts for years as they can also be used for water play, beach play and more.

Stacking cups help older toddlers learn about sorting and comparative size, to develop fine motor skills, and the role that size plays in building stable towers.




Toddlers will happily build stacking cup towers and knock them down over and again, but then will sudddenly become more interested in the design and creation of more dramatic buildings.

This is the ideal age to introduce chunky building toys like Mega Bloks and Duplo.

Mega Bloks are super easy for little hands to push together and pull apart.

If you have a large collection they can be used to make surprisingly large towers or castles.

This 150 piece Mega Bloks set with storage bag is a great starter pack.




Duplo is the next step on in building blocks.

They are slightly trickier to click together so require a bit more dexterity.

Duplo comes in themed sets like regular LEGO with themes like safari animals, space, fire station etc but you can also buy a box of Duplo bricks to get creative with.

This LEGO DUPLO Town Caring for Animals Farm set is one of the most popular and a great introduction to figures and smaller world play, as well as building, for toddlers.




Wooden building blocks are a classic childhood toy that lives on from generation to generation.

You can pick them up in charity or thrift stores, but if you wish to buy new this gorgeous brightly  coloured building block set from Melissa and Doug would make the perfect gift.

The set includes cylinders, differently shaped triangles and other unusual pieces to make building more fun and help kids learn.




Best Building Toys for Preschoolers

Gears make a fun toy for older kids but this one is even suitable for toddlers.

The fun twisting motion and ability to put the gears together in all sorts of different ways makes Learning Resources Gears! Gears! Gears! a toy that will last for years.

The cause and effect fun of turning one part and making something else move is fascinating to older toddlers and preschoolers whilst older children will enjoy learning more about mechanics.




Stickle Bricks are a classic toy that is perfect for older toddlers and preschoolers as the pieces stick together with their plastic pins enabling kids to make different structures to other blocks and bricks.

Seeing how adhesion holds built structures together is a nother aspect of building and great for STEM exploration and learning.



The same goes for Lincoln Logs which are perfect for this age group who are starting to have more patience and greater dexterity to fit things together.

Younger kids would just lose patience with this kind of toy!

Lincoln Logs are a classic of toy cupboards everywhere and can be used to make all kinds of cabins and other buildings for littl characters to live in.



Preschoolers with good fine motor skills will love Brain Flakes.

These interlocking plastic discs can be used to make amazing structures with all sorts of shapes and angles.

The repetitive geometric patterns can be used to make flat pictures like animal faces or complex fragile structures like trees, towers and carriages.




Best Building Toys for Older Kids

Older kids will carry on playing with all of the toys above too, but if you want to buy them a new building toy set as a gift there are plenty of options for older kids too.

This fort building kit contains rods and connectors to make forts and other structures indoors and out.

Cover them with a sheet to make a fun den but kids can easily make and remake the forts themselves.




Magnetic tiles are amazing toys for kids of all ages and so much fun!

Get a starter set of tiles to make all sorts of castles, towers and other buildings and then add themed sets for even more fun.

The brand leader is MAGNA-TILES which are amazing, but if you prefer something more affordable this PicassoTiles 60 Piece Set is great value.




Kids LOVE marble runs because of the endless possibilities they offer and then the fun of dropping a marble and watching it fall and flow through their creation.

This NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Glowing Marble Run is such a fun set with glow in the dark marbles and tons of ways to connect the many pieces.




This straw construction set is like a smaller version of the den set above.

You simply connect the straws together with the interlocking pieces to make all kinds of structures from space rockets to dens for their cuddly toy friends.

There are even wheels in the set so they can make carts and cars too!




The ultimate building toy for kids from 3 to 99 is, of course, LEGO.

With so many possibilities from the branded collections like LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Disney to open-ended boxes of LEGO that can be turned into anything their imagination can conjure up.

The LEGO Classic Medium Creative Brick Box is a great starter set for kids just getting into LEGO or to add to an existing collection.



Another great one for kids is the 3-in-1 LEGO Creator sets. We love the LEGO Creator 3 in 1 Mighty Dinosaur set.




I hope you get lots of inspiration from this list of the best building toys for kids.

Building toys are always such fun for kids.

I'm sure the child in your life will love to get down on the floor with you for some amazing STEM inspired play!

I have even more gift ideas to help you save time AND money this season, take a look at all of our gift  guides here.


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