Our collection

We have over 1200 toys, games and puzzles to choose from. To view our entire collection, visit HERE.

Our collection is comprised of the following categories:

Active	Baby Play
Construction	Costumes
Games	Greater Learning
Musical Instruments	Playsets
Pretend Play	Puzzles
Sand & Water Play	Party Pack Hire

Active

From tractors, trikes, ride on and scooters, to balance boards, climb-on toys, slides, and teepees – this category comprises a lot of oversized toys for inside and outside use. To view Active toys, visit HERE

Playing outdoors is a form of exercise that promotes well-being and wholesome physical development. Children are naturally drawn to active play outdoors: it allows them to explore their environment, develop muscle strength and coordination, and gain self-confidence. Playing actively outdoors also increases flexibility, fine and gross motor skills and is related to the development of a wide variety of physical skills, including those involved in sports.

Toys that require balance and coordination, such as skates, scooters and bikes, teach children new skills, encourage the development of self-confidence and satisfy their interest in exploration. Choose sports equipment that has a grow-with-me feature, going from beginner to advanced, so children have the opportunity to master skills at their own pace. The beginner mode will give children that extra boost of confidence they need when learning a new skill. As children progress to the advanced mode, they can practice their newly acquired skills and try new and exciting challenges when they’re ready.

Baby Play

From things to look at, first handling and exploring toys, grasping and early coordination fine motor skills and musical and colour exploration, this category offers a variety of items to keep your baby engaged. To view Baby Play toys, click HERE

Playing with your baby may seem like all fun and games – shaking rattles, squeaking plush animals, and watching as your child tries his chubby hand at rolling a ball. But make no mistake: What looks like downtime is work to little ones, and toys are often the tools for getting the job done.

Playtime helps develop a baby’s social, intellectual, language, and problem-solving skills. Toys and games aid your child in learning to master motor skills and figuring out how the world works. When he’s stacking toy rings, for instance, your baby is exploring their shape and what happens when they’re thrown. He’s developing hand-eye coordination as well as learning to recognize patterns and colors, how things are similar and different, and spatial concepts like “up” and “down.”

The most important ingredient in play, however, is not a toy, but you. Your baby loves your attention, and playing is how he bonds with you and other caregivers.

Construction

Anything that connects items together, whether it’s Mr Potato Head, Marble Runs, Dominoes, Lego Duplo, Building Blocks or anything that can be fitted or constructed can be found in our Construction section. Construction is a great way to work on those fine motor skills! To view our Construction items, click HERE.

Toy blocks and other construction toys might not be as flashy as battery-powered robots or video games. But as developmental psychologist Rachel Keen notes, parents and teachers “need to design environments that encourage and enhance problem solving from a young age” (Keen 2011). Construction toys seem ideally suited to do that, and they may also help children develop motor skills and hand-eye coordination,spatial skills, a capacity for creative, divergent thinking, social skills, and language skills. Moreover, kids can integrate their own constructions into pretend play scenarios. There is also evidence that complex block-play is linked with advanced math skills in later life.

Costumes

Playing dress-ups has many great benefits for children, including activating the imagination, building relationships, developing confidence and establishing communication skills.

Dress-up play is great for tapping into and activating the limitless imagination of a child. These are the beginning steps of learning and brain development, especially in the area of creativity. By the use of imagination, creativity is established in a child. Letting a child explore his or her imagination is a fun way of experiencing the different roles that are involved in a community.

Learning social skills and building relationships is also a great benefit of childhood dress-up play when a child plays with other children. This is where children learn how to problem-solve issues that arise in playtime that can be later transferred to real-life situations. Developing socially is important in a child’s overall development and ability to get along with others. Children develop sharing skills and also see situations in life differently by pretending to be in a different role.

By dressing-up as someone else, children build their confidence. This is important in becoming an adult who is secure in himself or herself as a person in this ever-changing life. The development of confidence in yourself is essential in being a healthy adult, which can be instilled in children through encouraging dress-up. Confidence is brought about in children by the realization that they have the ability to be anybody they want in this life and accomplish anything they desire.

When children dress-up and play by themselves, with parents, or other children, their communication skills become fine-tuned. Children learn to relate with others and also learn how to clearly communicate their needs. They learn to use their words to convey certain meanings in effective ways, as well as controlling emotions and feelings in a conducive and positive manner.

Games

Games offer great benefits. Not only do they teach practical skills such as counting, reading and strategic thinking, but they also offer many social lessons, such as taking turns, cooperation and patience. Games are a great way for families and friends to spend time together.

What your child most wants — and needs — is to be with you with no goal in mind beyond the joy of spending time together. He wants you to take pleasure in him, play with him, and listen to him. Nothing bolsters his self-esteem more! Playing games is an easy and excellent way to spend unhurried, enjoyable time together. As an added bonus, board games are also rich in learning opportunities. They satisfy your child’s competitive urges and the desire to master new skills and concepts, such as:

• number and shape recognition, grouping, and counting
• letter recognition and reading
• visual perception and color recognition
• eye-hand coordination and manual dexterity

Greater Learning

We refer to our educational Toys as Greater Learning, as they encourage specific learning areas such as Literacy, Maths, Science, Music etc. and are often more expensive than “regular toys” as (hopefully) more thought has gone into the educational benefits and the usefulness for your child and they are more often built to last.

As you will know, we advocate for the benefits of learning through play.
The toys that we choose to stock in our collection can make a difference to a child’s development. Being presented opportunities to see, play with and experience specific materials will present different challenges, require different skill sets and cover different learning areas. Children can learn from any toy, (or anything they deem to be a toy), but the amount, depth and breadth of the learning depends on the interaction between the child and it, and the type of opportunities the toys provide. Further learning can also occur when the child plays cooperatively with peers or adults.

Musical Instruments

We have a small selection of mostly percussion musical instruments and toys that promotes sound discrimination as well as fostering an interest in music.

Children are naturally interested in music, and music is naturally good for children. Why is music so attractive to children and why is music so well suited to children?

• Music is a language, and children are oriented toward learning language.
• Music evokes movement, and children delight in and require movement for their development and growth.
• Music engages the brain while stimulating neural pathways associated with such higher forms of intelligence as abstract thinking, empathy, and mathematics.
• Music’s melodic and rhythmic patterns provide exercise for the brain and help develop memory. Who among us learned the ABC’s without the ABC song?
• Music is an aural art and young children are aural learners. Since ears are fully mature before birth, infants begin learning from the sounds of their environment before birth.
• Music is perfectly designed for training children’s listening skills. Good listening skills and school achievement go hand in hand.
• Developmentally appropriate music activities involve the whole child-the child’s desire for language, the body’s urge to move, the brain’s attention to patterns, the ear’s lead in initiating communication, the voice’s response to sounds, as well as the eye-hand coordination associated with playing musical instruments.
• Music is a creative experience which involves expression of feelings. Children often do not have the words to express themselves and need positive ways to release their emotions.
• Music transmits culture and is an avenue by which beloved songs, rhymes, and dances can be passed down from one generation to another.
• Music is a social activity which involves family and community participation. Children love to sing and dance at home, school, and at church.

Playsets

Play sets aren’t just a great way to keep your child entertained for periods of time, they are promote learning and growth. growth. Themed play sets help develop recognition skills, language development, creativity and imagination, coordination skills and problem solving.

Action figures and playsets both represent play in its most classic, analog form. From posable superheroes, to doll houses, to kitchen sets, these broad categories encompass toys fueled by imagination and screen-free play.

While they cater to a wide range of ages and interests, all action figures and playsets provide similar play benefits for kids. First, they provide a great alternative to screen time and promote imaginative play which develops creative skills. Whether the playset and figures hail from a fictional universe or are miniature versions of our adult world, kids will combine their real-world knowledge with their imaginations to create stories, scenarios, and adventures with these toys.

When playing with action figures or playsets, kids also have an opportunity to expand their communication skills. They use the vocabulary and concepts they have observed in the world around them to explain the action figures’ decisions and movements in the world or within the playset. This allows kids to practice elements of storytelling and communication.

Another benefit of many playsets, especially larger ones, is the opportunity for multiple kids (or kids and adults) to interact and play with them together. Working hand-in-hand with communication and creating a shared imaginative play scenario lets kids practice important social skills.

Pretend Play

From costumes to cooking, from playsets to play tables, this category broadly covers elements in developmental play that will interest your child, no matter what area of pretend play they are interested in. We have water and sand play tables and equipment, toy kitchens and tool benches, costumes, imaginative play toys and transport sets.

Imaginative or pretend play is any game or activity that requires children to think for themselves to create entertainment and fun. Many children participate in pretend play using household items. For example, some kids use remote controls as makeshift cell phones. Other children pretend that a fort of blankets and chairs is a castle. 

Regardless of how children go about make-believe, the educational, social, and personal benefits of pretend play are beyond comparison.

Not enough pretend play at your house? Consider creating a prop box or corner filled with objects to spark your preschooler’s fantasy world. You might include:

• Large plastic crates, cardboard blocks, or a large, empty box for creating a “home”
• Old clothes, shoes, backpacks, hats
• Old telephones, phone books, magazines
• Cooking utensils, dishes, plastic food containers, table napkins, silk flowers
• Stuffed animals and dolls of all sizes
• Fabric pieces, blankets, or old sheets for making costumes or a fort
• Theme-appropriate materials such as postcards, used plane tickets, foreign coins, and photos for a pretend vacation trip
• Writing materials for taking phone messages, leaving notes, and making shopping lists

At Hastings Toy Library we stock a wonderful selection of Imaginative Play toys to encourage this type of playing.

Puzzles

Puzzles are an important educational learning tool for people of all ages, as we like they way they challenge our thinking and exercise our minds. From toddlers to adults, puzzles provide many skills and mental learning benefits and opportunities. These include cognitive skills, problem solving, fine motor development, hand eye coordinator, social and self esteem.

When your child is alone with a puzzle you can expect three basic skills to be built:

• Physical skills — from holding puzzle pieces and turning them until they fit
• Cognitive skills — as they solve the problems of a puzzle
• Emotional skills — they learn patience and are rewarded when they complete the puzzle

These three basic skills are the building blocks for a well rounded person. Puzzles allow an opportunity for young children to focus on an activity that has an ending. In addition to these three basics, doing a puzzle with a friend or family member also allows for the growth of social skills as they work together and communicate about what fits where. This is a minor point as nearly any activity done with more than one person will have this benefit.

Sand & Water Play

Sand and water play is a great learning opportunity as it allows children to use their senses to learn and develop. Sand and water play allows for sensory exploration where young children can enhance their communication skills and motor skills, and can greatly accelerate their cognitive development. Sensory activities like sand and water play also help young children gain a basic understanding of mathematical and scientific concepts, as well as developing their language skills.

We have water play tables, sand toys and canal sets for members to borrow.

Some of the benefits of sand and water play are:

• Enhancing motor skills
• Improving language and speech
• Enhancing social and emotional awareness
• Introducing concepts of mathematics and science
• Sparking creativity

Party Packs

Party packs are a great way to keep the kids entertained when you’re organising a party or event. You can borrow these items and turn your backyard into a play centre, complete with large toys and pint-sized tables and chairs. Perfect for birthdays, playgroups or any large gathering.

To make an enquiry about Party Pack item availability, head over to https://www.hastingstoylibrary.org/party-hire-form/