The best toys for a one-year-old

Offer your one-year-old this colorful and stimulating multifunctional mini activity cube to encourage learning and exploration. They'll have so much fun and won't even realise they're learning. This cube is crafted to aid the development of cognitive and fine motor skills, colour and shape recognition and hand-eye coordination. Sophie Knight, mum to Eli, said: "Eli was given one for his first birthday, and it's still in the living room now (he's just turned three) as it's a toy he still likes to fiddle with. It's great that's it's grown with his development needs. It's so bright and cheery, with lots of different elements to keep babies' attention and focus as they develop different skills."

The chair includes Smart Stages technology, an exciting new way to change learning content as your baby grows. It teaches first words, numbers, shapes, colours and more. There are a variety of developmentally appropriate songs, phrases and sounds within three levels of play - just slide the switch or enter baby's age for automatic level changes.

More than a shape sorter, this is an on-the-go activity centre. Using nine plastic shapes and the padded carrying case, children can lift crinkly flaps, identify the pictures, match the shapes, and drop the textured blocks through the sorter. They can then pull the plush dog around the edge to unzip the case and start it all again. These one-year-old-friendly games and learning activities are great for enjoying together or for independent play. The easy-to-grasp padded handle makes it easy to carry the set from place to place - even for crawlers, scooters, and emerging walkers.

Let's play hide and squeak - see if your little one can match the egg shapes to the carton. The eggs have lots of silly faces that are sure to delight little ones, and the chicks will give a little squeak when you push the eggs down for added entertainment. This shape-sorting game is perfectly sized for little hands, improving manual dexterity and promoting colour and shape recognition.

A real musical instrument that creates perfect tones made with chunky, rounded edges and note bars that are accessible to tiny fingers. It is an ideal first instrument to introduce children to the delights of making music. It also features coloured balls with a hammer (a bit like a whack-a-mole game) - and trust us, the sound of your little one whacking the keys to make music with the hammer at 6am is what every parent wants for Christmas.

This play microphone is the ideal toy for the budding singers and entertainers. The toy helps little ones discover new experiences and encourages role-play. When your little one doesn't want to sing, they can listen to the built-in musical tunes or sound effects and watch flashing lights.

The Skip Hop Zoo Count & Play Bath Puzzle is the ideal bath toy and learning activity for your water baby. The colourful puzzle and bath book features fun artwork with a little mischievous monkey on one side, and friendly owl and busy bee on the other, plus number graphics to help children with their counting skills.

Stacking blocks are a super simple and really cheap option for your little one. Educational toys don't have to be complicated. These colourful and durable plastic stacking cups help your little builder with problem solving, counting and co-ordination. These eight brightly coloured cups stack up from large to small and include holes in the bottom so they can be used in the bath.

Suitable from 10 months, this Interactive Smart Duggee soft toy is bound to be a hit with your baby with music, woofs noises and phrases from the hit show. A lovely gift to encourage your baby to talk, there are three activity modes to choose from including voice-activation mode, question mode and press mode. We LOVE Hey Duggee.