Great Gift Idea for Toddlers & Preschoolers (Boy or Girl)

When my oldest was just over a year old, we spent $70 for a Little Tikes Junior Activity Gym for our living room. It is a 3-foot cube shaped plastic gym with a small slide sticking out the side. This has been, hands down, the most played with toy we have ever owned.

Unfortunately, it appears this great item is no longer available new, though you might find one used someplace. The trick would be finding one that has not been kept outside. The amazon.com link to the right is the best approximation that I can find currently available.

I had seen one of these things in my sister-in-law's very small house. Her son loved it, and so did our daughter when we visited. I figured if they could find room for it, we sure could. Little did I know that our kids would still be playing with it daily in my family room ten years later.

The activity gym has helped keep up our kids' activity level even on dreary days when they can't be outside. In the beginning, it was just a fun thing to climb on and slide from. Most of the kids learned to scoot up the slide before they could even crawl. As they have gotten older, the gym has acquired other imaginative uses: it has been a boat, an apartment building, a bus, and a judge's bench among many others. It has been so much a part of our family for so long that it is difficult for me to imagine what childrearing would have been like without one of these in the house.

Full disclosure: Our daughter fell off of the gym when she was 3 years old and broke her arm. But, she could've done the same thing falling off the bed.