[Childcare] Recommended for toddlers! Toy ideas you can make and play with
Toys you can make and play with can be created from everyday materials if you match them to your child’s age and interests.
Through crafting, kids can have fun, grow attached to what they make, and even find opportunities to communicate with friends.
Here, we’ll introduce simple, easy-to-make toy ideas for toddlers.
There are plenty of options for indoor play and for enjoying outside!
Many can be made easily using familiar recyclable materials, so please use this as a reference and try making them together with your children!
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[Childcare] Recommended for toddlers! Toy ideas you can make and play with (21–30)
3D horse made of Perler beads
Iron beads are a handmade toy you can even find at 100-yen shops.
You arrange small pipe-shaped pieces on a pegboard and fuse them with the heat of an iron to enjoy all kinds of designs.
Basically, you make flat designs, but like this horse idea, you can combine flat pieces to create three-dimensional results too.
Iron beads are sold in a wide variety of colors, so try making a horse in your favorite shades.
Add a horn and it might even become a unicorn!
Make a clear horse out of a plastic bottle!
Why not try a craft project using recycled materials? In this idea, you’ll make a horse out of plastic bottles.
Cut the bottles with scissors and glue the pieces together while imagining the overall shape of the horse.
Instead of fixing the shape from the start, you’ll turn the cut parts into a horse by using them creatively—an idea that really stimulates creativity.
Use clear plastic bottles to create a mysterious, beautiful transparent horse.
Since you’ll be assembling as you glue, a hot glue gun will come in handy.
Mini ranch diorama
Let’s make a miniature horse diorama.
First, cut the Styrofoam to fit the display box.
Then apply plaster, paint it, lay down the grass, and place trees, stones, and flowers.
Finally, set the horse figurine wherever you like, and it’s complete! This idea suggests a landscape reminiscent of a pasture, but feel free to create any scene you prefer.
A tool called a grass applicator is used to make the grass stand upright, and green powder is sprinkled on to add variation to the grass.
The attention to detail is so fine that it looks like a real landscape!
Make it with a snack box! Cute little horse
Let’s make a horse toy that sticks out its head when you pinch and move its tail! All you need is a box from your favorite snacks.
First, cut the box into three ring-shaped slices about 2 cm wide.
Stand one ring vertically, then place a second ring next to it to form the horse’s neck and body, and staple them together.
Take the third ring, align its left edge, and attach it underneath the neck and body.
Once attached, flatten it so that the box juts out to the left, and staple it again.
Finally, use the remaining box material to make the head, ears, legs, and tail, attach them, and you’re done!
Play with the wind! A colorful carousel
Let’s make a merry-go-round that you can spin and play with.
First, make a hole in the center of the base of one paper plate and the bottom of a paper cup.
Next, cut a 12 mm straw to 2 cm, then snip one end into fine fringes and flare them outward to make a stopper.
Thread the paper plate and the paper cup (with the bottom facing up) onto the uncut end of the straw, and tape the stopper part to the paper plate to secure it.
After attaching the 2 cm straw you just made as a stopper right above the paper cup, punch a hole in one end of an 8 mm straw.
Pass a short piece of 6 mm straw through that hole, place a paper plate shaped like an umbrella over it, and glue it in place.
Hang horse illustrations from the inside of the umbrella, insert the 8 mm straw into the 12 mm base straw, and it’s complete.
If preschoolers are making it, prepare the 8 mm straws with holes in advance.