25+ Non Toy Gifts For 2 Year Old to 6 Year Olds

Discover some great non-toy gift ideas for 2 year olds to 6 year olds for this holiday season or upcoming birthdays that are sure to be so much fun and a hit with everyone! While we love new toys for birthdays and as Christmas gifts, we also know what it's like to overwhelm both our sense and our kids with too much stuff! A great way to avoid this is with experiences and items that support your child's development, like the wonderful gifts on this list!

List Of Non-Toy Gifts For 2 Year Old to 6 Year Olds

Personalized Books

A really fun gift are these personalized books for our kids! They have age appropriate options for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. For babies, you can put their actual photo in the book; which is great because they love looking at themselves.

For 2 year olds and toddlers who have a hard time sitting through books, they have some fun silly books that encourage movement throughout like the dinosaur and digger books.

Lastly, they have some great books that instill values and encourage characteristics in your child like the “Wondrous Road Ahead” and “Great Prince/cess” books.

Yoto Mini

The Yoto Mini is our personal favorite audio player for kids.

And while the Yoto Mini isn't as durable as the Toniebox, you can get a case for it. It's also cheaper for the device and additional stories. We find the cards much easier to store and travel with too compared to tonies. Here are some top picks:

Board Games

One of our favorite non-toy gifts are board games! They are the perfect gift for the whole family to enjoy! Plus they teach so many skills – including impulse control, taking turns, and more! Here are some top picks:

• For 2 year olds: Monkey Around Game + First Orchard by HABA
• For 3 year olds: Snug as a Bug in a Rug + Pete The Cat The Missing Cupcakes Game + Pancake Pile-Up, Sequence Relay Board Game
• For 4 year olds: Hoot Owl Hoot + Kids Charades + Outfoxed!

Play Couch

While technically a play couch doubles as a toy, it's one of the most practical gifts we've received as we use it for our actual couch in our montessori playroom/living room.

TIP: pull the velcro down toward the ground to undo it when you first unbox, as it's very tricky!

It also features hidden teeth and zipper pockets to protect your walls, waterproof liners, and is made from Okeo Tex and CertiPUR-US certified foams and fabrics free of lead, PVC, BPA, BPS, and phthalates. Shop it here!

The other option we love is this one which also uses CertiPUR-US foam, no flame reatadants/PFAs, and is GREENGUARD GOLD Certified. While they don't have waterproof liners, their fabric is naturally water resistant as it's made from recycled water bottles.

Microscope

But you can get this one which is super comparable zoom at 80-160x, and comes with 8 prepared plant and animal slides that also works with your own specimen. If you're okay with skipping the included slides, this is a budget friendly alternative too.

Musical Instrument

My 2 year old son LOVES music and is always walking around with this toy guitar and toy microphone singing songs he's made up!

• Lovevery Music Set: This comes with 5+ music instruments and a guide for your child to learn music. Read the full review here.
• Loog Guitar for Children and Beginners: With options for 3, 4, 5, or 6 string guitars, left and right handedness, and music learning sheets these are one of the best beginner guitars to get kids starting as young as 2 or 3 years old!
• Niskite microphone: affordable price, cute colors, and bluetooth enabled to connect any song. Kids can adjust music volume, mic volume, record, and more!
• Fisher-Price Teaching Keys Keyboard: While it's on the smaller side so it's better suited for toddlers, it's one of the best little piano's for kids starting to learn music!
• KiwiCo Piano Xylophone and Shaker Set: This set is rated safe for 7 months and up, but even my 4 year old LOVES playing with it.

Camera

Both of my kids are obsessed with these cameras for toddlers + preschoolers! We've tested almost all of them out, but our top picks are:

Plant Growing Kit

This vegetable growing kit comes with the seeds and fiber soil for an easy, low mess, ready to go set up.

Butterfly Garden

Magnifying Glass

Climbing items

Climbing is critical for kids growing bodies and there are tons of options to use indoors or outdoors (check all our picks here)

Mud Kitchen

Mud kitchens are great for working practical life skills, STEAM, sensory play, independence, concentration, building a healthy immune system with getting outside and so much more.

For more picks, deeper reviews, and price checks read: Best Mud Kitchens For Kids

Bedding

This bedding makes SUCH a great gift! They have the most adorable prints, patterns, and favorite characters. Plus they are organic, easy to clean, and durable!

Clothing

We tend to follow the 5 gift rule, which means kids get something to wear each year.

We adore the bamboo pajamas from Caden Lane + Kyte baby. Both are always a good choice, super durable and soft. Or you could opt for Personalized Christmas Pajamas For Toddlers.

We also love H&M, Rylee & Cru, Target, LC Little Co, and Little Planet (swipe for some top picks of the season):

Barefoot Shoes

Sensory + Art Supplies

We love getting “consumables” that kids will eventually use up and work a ton of skills:

Subscriptions + Memberships

StoryNest

The StoryNest app offers hundreds of ad-free, original audio stories for kids up to 9 years old. Each story has a nice mix of regular reading, engaging sound effects, and sometimes different voices to really entice kids – without being too overstimulating; which is a rare find!

They also make it easy to navigate by authors, series, stories, or songs and length depending on how much time you need.

Chatbooks

Chatbooks offers a wide variety of photo album selections, including board books, but our FAVORITE gift for toddlers has been the monthly minis. It's a monthly subscription and one of their more affordable offerings, and the books are kid sized with fairly durable paper for young toddlers (my 2 year old hasn't torn one yet!).

My kids LOVE looking at the new books each month, and it's been nice to get them off my phone screen, and into the book.

It's also really nice to add pictures of family members who may not live nearby, or get a second subscription for them to see what you've been up to!

Streaming Service

We typically only keep an Amazon Video membership year round since it comes with our Prime membership, and we can easily “purchase” free episodes of our favorite kids shows using digital credits when we select delayed shipping. Plus it has our favorite kids shows (Elinor Wonders Why, Guess How Much I Love You, When You Give A Mouse A Cookie, + Tumble Leaf).

But my kids LOVE watching Netflix or Disney Plus when at grandparents house and we recently talked about asking for a gifted subscription for the year since we're so over toys.

Highlights

You may remember Highlights magazine from your own childhood and you'll be happy to know they have subscriptions for all ages!

For 2 to 6 year olds they have the High Five magazine which includes stories, crafts, puzzles, and recipes.

For 3 to 5 year olds they also have the High Five Bilingual magazine or non-subscription boxes for preschool and early readers.

Local Memberships

Look in your area for things your kids would like to do, and oftentimes they have a membership option. Some popular ones:

• Trampoline park
• Children's Museum / Museums
• Gardens
• Play gyms
• Gymnastics free play times
• State parks

Experiences + Nonphysical

Classes

In years past, our parents have gifted the kids gymnastics and ballet classes; both were a huge hit! Here's some to look up in your area:

• Gymnastics
• Tae-Kwon-Do
• Dance
• Music
• Tinkergarten
• Art
• Swimming
• Sports

Last year my kids were gifted gymnastic classes and they LOVED it!

One-On-One Date

Let your 2 year old choose the itinerary for the day or take them on a date they'll never forget! We've had a blast getting ice cream, jumping into whatever pretend play my little girl wants, or hitting the beach. Kids of all ages, but especially young children, just want your full attention, presence, and understanding of their world. There’s no greater gift than stepping into their wants fully for a special day date and some quality time!

College or Retirement Fund

The truth is, our kids have more than they need. Especially with my job reviewing toys! So we asked our whole family to skip the gifts and put money towards our kids savings account, college, and retirement funds.

We still tell our kids random items are from different extended family members, but because we don't need them to buy us anything else, we are more than happy to pass the credit along, and know when the kids get older the real surprise gift of their future's being taken care of is the best thing.

Gift Cards / Cash

Gift cards are a popular non-toy gift, but we personally hate them in our house. They are so hard to keep track of, and often either have a balance left over or you still need to use cash – that it just feels like more of a hassle for the parent with no added joy for the kids.

Instead we always suggest cash; it's the perfect non-toy gift kids can add to their piggy bank and it cuts out the “extra step” of remembering a gift card.

Final thoughts

While the best part of Christmas morning or a birthday may be seeing a kids face in awe of the presents, we all know that toys often end up crush and thrown aside within hours as we end up with too much stuff. We personally get one to three (or max five gifts per the five gift rule) and say it's from everyone. This is a fun way to not overwhelm the child, and still gives plenty of options for the perfect non-toy gift or useful gifts that will last longer. In our experience, it's a wonderful way to still inspire that awe and a deeper gratitude.