50 years of the Early Learning Centre: The top toys you might remember from childhood

Although there might not be many toys our newborns can enjoy, this Activity Lion will give them plenty of things to explore and snuggle. Designed to attach to prams and car seats with its clip, this colourful lion comforter features different soft textures and sounds as well as things to crinkle with their little hands for plenty of sensory stimulation.  

Suitable from birth, the vibrant colours, patterns, textures, and sounds made when little one grips the crinkle toys all help to develop their fine motor skills.

This is a classic sensory toy that is a real staple in any toy box. This colourful rainmaker toy is mesmerising for little ones. As they turn, twist and shake the rainmaker, they’ll hear the calming rain-like sounds as the bright beads tumble around. Your baby and even older toddlers will love playing with this toy.  

Specially designed for smaller hands for hand/eye coordination, it stimulates their senses and is sturdy in design. One mum said this toy was game-changing, commenting: “anyone who has a small child needs one of these! Whenever my babies were crying (a lot where my daughter was concerned), I would get this and it always stopped the crying! Seriously, this is a game-changer of a toy!”

There’s no way we could do a round-up of our favourite Early Learning Centre toys without including this iconic wooden train set (we swear we all had one of these at some point?!). In the box, you’ll find more than 30 wooden pieces as well as the option to design your own little town, with shops, signposts, people, and trees. 

Connecting together using magnets, this train set is ideal for boosting children's imagination. From making sure all the passengers are aboard to pushing the train off from the station, they can use their best train conductor voice when playing.  

Parents particularly loved the quality of the wood in this toy, compared to other wooden toys, wiht one mum commenting: “I bought this for my two year old and the connectors are really easy to put together, I can see this track lasting. I have bought supermarket track before and it was more difficult to use and splintered easily.”

For outdoor fun, we love this sand and water table. It’s like having all the fun of the seaside in your garden. Featuring two separate troughs, one for filling with water and one for filling with sand like a sandpit, it also comes with ten toys to play with including a spade, moulds, scoop, and rake for the sand plus funnels, boat, and wheels for the water.  

It also comes with a waterproof lid to cover the table when it’s not in use, meaning you can keep the sand dry and clean from things like bird poop. The lid fits on perfectly while leaving plenty of room to keep the toys neatly inside. And as if that wasn’t enough, the lid also doubles up as an activity table with little road markings on, meaning your little ones can use their toy cars to play when the lid is on.  

Parents also loved how easy this was to put together, meaning tots could start playing with it straight away. One parent commented: “very easy to construct. Extremely useful to have a good lid so that it can be kept outside. Wonderful colour mixes. The variety of play equipment that came with the table was also very inspiring - surprised to see how much having water running through the sieve was enjoyed.” Just note that this doesn’t come with sand included and it needs to be purchased separately.

Shape sorters are an essential toy for developing numerous skills including their motor skills, hand/eye coordination and colour recognition. The challenge is to see if your child can match the different shapes to the correct shaped holes in correspondence with both the shape and colour.  

The bright colours also make this toy fun for your child’s visual senses as well as their mental stimulation. We also love that this toy is made from wood, making it an excellent choice for sustainability and also is great for standing the test of time.

We know musical toys can be a bit of a headache for us parents, but the enjoyment our little ones get out of making these new sounds bring us so much joy. One of the more least offensive sounds on the ears is a glockenspiel, as it’s a little more quiet compared to drums. One customer who bought this as a gift agreed, and found the child's parents really didn’t mind the sound: “Given as a present to a 17-month-old, whose parents were very pleased with the glockenspiel and the sounds it produced.”

Made using high-quality wood, it’s the perfect first instrument for any tot. It comes with a wooden mallet that your little one can use to tap and play on the eight bright and colourful glockenspiel keys. 

It’s a great toy for helping your child learn the different colours and their names as they play, and the bright rainbow colours are great for stimulating their visual senses, along with the sounds that stimulate their sound senses.

Children can get hours of fun out of a paint set. Whether you’re creating some seasonal crafts by painting leaves or you want to try some finger painting, having a set of child-safe paints in your cupboard is a must for parents.  

This set of non-spill paint pots are great for a mess-free playtime where you can avoid any spillages or accidents. Just note that paints aren’t included but you can buy the paints separately, allowing you to choose which colours you want and dispense just as much as you need into each pot.  

Excellent for boosting their creativity, there are so many different masterpieces your little ones can make using these paints. Parents loved that you can securely fasten the lids to each pot meaning your paints won’t dry up when not in use.

Bathtime with your toddler just got a whole lot more fun thanks to this adorable Bathtime Musical Froggie Foam Maker. With strong suction cups to attach to your bathroom tiles or side of the bath, all you need to do to make the foam is fill the base of the frog's mouth with your soapy bathwater and press the button for all the bubbles to start coming out of Froggie’s mouth.  

You also have the option of switching Froggie’s sounds on to hear his merry tunes and funny sounds that are sure to get a giggle. As well as stimulating your child's senses, this bath toy helps encourage them to love bath time.

Parents loved this for their little ones, however, some did say they found the build a little flimsy. “Our little girl (1 year old) loves this, it's made bathtime easier as it keeps her entertained for a little longer. The water tray felt a bit like it was going to break the first couple of times I took it off but it's been fine after daily use over the last month or so,” one parent commented.

There’s nothing like a fun jigsaw to keep children entertained on rainy days indoors, and we love this sweet farmyard-inspired jigsaw from ELC. With 12 pieces, it’s ideal for toddlers developing their problem-solving skills as well as their hand/eye coordination.  

Its bright and colourful design will also stimulate their visual senses and they’ll become very familiar with the farm characters in the jigsaw, including Martha Moo, Ruby Rabbit, Breezy Bee and more, further developing their imagination.  

The pieces are on the chunkier side, making them ideal for smaller hands, and it also means you’re less likely to lose a piece when tidying it away.

If you’re stumped on what to get someone for a Christening gift, we’d recommend checking out the Early Learning Centre’s range of toys. We particularly love this Noah’s Ark Shape Sorter for babies being Christened as it's something they can play with while sticking to the biblical theme.  

The challenge is for your little one to get all the animals to safety before the rain comes. All they have to do is match the animal pairs together and get them into the ark in time.  

As well as boosting their problem-solving skills, it will also help little ones learn more about the animal kingdom and boost their knowledge when it comes to identifying and naming different species. It’s also excellent for their imagination and fine motor skills.  

Parent testers loved how well-built this toy was, with one parent commenting: “Our one-year-old loves this toy. It’s the birthday present he keeps returning to. The animals are lovely and it's a well-crafted toy. Would highly recommend for imaginative play.”

There are only 3,150 of these Limited Edition Happyland Golden London Buses available to buy so don’t miss out. Designed especially for the 50th anniversary, this toy is inspired by an open-top London Bus. You can lift off the top deck of the bus to let the passengers jump aboard the bus and your little one can act as tour guide as they drive around the city. Perfect for imaginative play, this bus also includes fun buttons that make sounds. 

The three characters that come included can be stored away in the golden bus when not in use for easy tidying and storage. The characters are nice and chunky so little hands can easily grip them, and you also get a bus stop sign included so all the passengers will know where to get on. This special edition bus also comes in a more classic red colour too in case the gold isn’t for you.

They've also launched this very special ELC Birthday Bear, an ideal first cuddly toy for babies. With embroidered eyes and gold touches to stimulate baby’s senses, this cuddly companion is available in stores and online throughout this year.