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I’m not sure when we decided that all open-ended toys have to be wooden and cost $100, but that’s just not the reality.
I love a cute wooden toy as much as the next person, but some of the best open-ended toys for toddlers are colorful, plastic, affordable, and probably already sitting somewhere in your playroom.
Open-ended play isn’t about what a toy is made of. It’s about how many different ways your child can use it.
Here are five plastic toys we own that have way more play possibilities than you might expect.
1. Little People Animals
These are basically the same idea as those beautiful—and sometimes very expensive—wooden animals everyone loves. They’re just plastic.
There’s no one “right” way to play with them. They can go in and out of containers, be put to bed, eat pretend food, go for rides, join other toys, or just be carried around the house.
They’re also great for practicing animal names and sounds.
The possibilities are honestly endless, which is exactly what I want from an open-ended toy.
Shop Little People Animals on Amazon → Who bought the farm?
2. Ball Pit Balls
Yes, regular plastic ball pit balls.
Ours get used for so much more than the ball pit. Sometimes we hide other objects underneath them. Sometimes they’re rolled down ramps. Sometimes they’re transferred from one container to another.
They’re ridiculously simple, but that’s kind of the point. Give a toddler a bunch of colorful balls and a few random containers and somehow it becomes an entire activity.
Shop Ball Pit Balls on Amazon → Avoid the germs with your own!
3. Fisher-Price Stacking Cubes
These technically have a “right” way to use them: stack them into a tower.
But that’s definitely not the only way they get played with in our house.
They can become little homes for animals, places to hide things, nesting toys, or tiny bowls for pretend animal food. And, of course, they can still be stacked into a giant tower and knocked over again and again.
They give you so many of the same open-ended play opportunities as wooden nesting boxes—without needing to actually be wooden.
Shop Fisher-Price Stacking Cubes on Amazon → Stacking cubes!
4. Plastic Linking Rings
These seem to be marketed mainly as baby toys, and I’m honestly not sure why, because they’re actually such a good toddler toy.
Of course, you can use them for their intended purpose and attach toys to a stroller, car seat, or play gym. But toddlers can do so much more with them.
Connect them into long chains. Make necklaces for stuffed animals or Little People animals. Add handles to baskets. Create fences or boundaries during pretend play. Practice connecting them and pulling them apart.
They’re one of those incredibly simple toys that can become something completely different depending on what your toddler is playing that day.
Shop Plastic Linking Rings on Amazon → Connect them all!
5. Mega Bloks
Mega Bloks might be one of the easiest examples of a plastic open-ended toy.
They can become towers, houses, bridges, animal pens, cars, roads—pretty much whatever your toddler decides they are that day.
They’re chunky enough for little hands to put together and pull apart, and there isn’t one finished product they’re supposed to make.
Build something, knock it down, and start all over again.
That’s open-ended play.
Shop Mega Bloks on Amazon → We love the pink ones!
Open-Ended Play Doesn’t Have to Look a Certain Way
Open-ended toys don’t have to be beige. They don’t have to match your living room. And they definitely don’t have to be wooden or cost $100.
Sometimes the best open-ended toys are the colorful plastic ones you already have.
What matters isn’t what the toy is made of—it’s what your child can imagine doing with it.