Best Activity Cubes for Children's Cognitive Development in the UK

This activity cube has seven sides, each one offering a specific activity to promote the all-round development of your child. From learning how to count and read letters to first experiences with sounds made by various musical instruments, animal sounds, and working on the kid’s fine motor skills, this toy has everything we usually find in separate products targeted at toddlers and their parents. It’s everything you need, but instead of a variety of items scattered all around your house and getting in your way, you’ll have a single toy to engage the child for hours and days.

According to many parents who have bought this toy for their kids and other little relatives, the most popular “side” of this activity cube for toddlers is the driver’s dashboard. Admittedly, letting a little one imagine himself/herself a cab driver is not the activity included in this type of toys too often. Perhaps, other manufacturers could use the Miric’s experience since, apparently, the passion for cars in kids awakens quite early. At the same time, if your kid is not interested in this one, there are six other sides that offer all kinds of entertainment hand-in-hand with education.

Looking at the pictures on the computer screen does not translate the actual size: the cube is unexpectedly big. It is made of plastic and has neatly rounded edges and corners (to the point that it’s almost a sphere instead of a cube) for the little user to avoid injuring himself/herself. Note that you’ll need to buy the batteries beforehand if you want children to play with this activity cube right out of the box.

The first thing we feel obligated to turn your attention to in this East Coast activity cube is that it is made from wood and covered with a toxic-free paint, making it one of the most environment-friendly toys on the market; it is also a healthy choice for a kid’s plaything. If you care about our planet as well as strive to only let your little one play with non-harmful items, this one might just as well be your best bet.

The cube offers five activities to entertain and simultaneously develop your child. There is a clock-like number spinner to start learning numbers, a xylophone to have fun with making sounds (many kids’ favourite activity), a chalkboard, a maze, and a bead coaster. The nice touch is that you can actually hide the bead top when the toy is not played with—it fits neatly inside the cube eliminating the danger of breaking it accidentally; it also makes the toy smaller and, therefore, saves you a little storage space, even if not much.

This activity cube is very brightly coloured, it will catch the kid’s attention in an instant and, with this variety in entertainment options, will hold it for a long time. You can play together with your little one or you can leave them to their own devices and free yourself some valuable time to get other things done.

There are seven activities offered by this toy, some of them pretty unique. For example, this activity cube has a working microphone so that your kid could have fun singing and a toy cell phone to pretend to call grandpa to talk. The steering wheel will allow the kids to try their hands at driving and it even provides a fairly real sound of a working engine. As your toddler plays with a small water tank by turning the little gears, he/she will simultaneously train fine motor skills and enjoy the music that plays with the motion, kind of like a tin music box. The two bead sliding tracks are not only fun but also help develop colour recognition and learn numbers.

The side with the cell phone has a scene-changing window and a bell. When the baby pushes the bell switch, the scene in the window will change and there will be sound appropriate for the new scene, from waking up melodies to a Happy Birthday song.

There is quite a number of various buttons to push, gears to turn and shift, and even a hammer to smash the designated button to get sounds and light effects. In fact, this activity cube can produce several sounds and lighting effects; your baby can also play with a tiny mirror. The toy’s shape is very convenient and the toddler can grab things—handles, gears, etc.—to try and stand up or drag the cube closer.

The VTech activity cube for toddlers is on the cheaper side of the market and it has a somewhat limited number of functions compared to more expensive models but it has its own fun sides and is still quite an educational toy.

Although it looks like the simplest toy in the world—there is a box with five holes and five parts to match the holes shapes, simple as that—this model can help you teach your children to count up to five (a good start for a 1-year old kid), recognize shapes, and name animals, all that while simultaneously entertaining them with music and even a bit of singing. How does it work? The mechanism is pretty straightforward—by matching the shapes into holes, the child learns to recognize those and also improves their eye-to-hand coordination and motor skills, that’s the obvious part. But try and slam the shapes inside the box, and the drum will name the shape that’s fallen through, its colour, and the animal depicted on it! Furthermore, by drumming on the lid and on the sides, your toddler will call upon a variety of sounds preloaded into the toy. There are around thirty of them plus three nice songs to sing along to.

You can leave the shapes inside when you and your child don’t play with it, this way nothing will get lost accidentally. The lid is easily removed to get the shapes from inside when it’s time to play again.

Now to play with this children's activity cube, the young explorer will have to apply some thinking skills and quite a bit of curiosity to work, and that’s what makes this model so much fun for little ones. It is pretty simple in construction yet offers a number of fun activities. At the first glance, you can see the main entertainment here—the toy somewhat resembles a house and the kid will put the ball into the “chimney”, then push it down with a little plastic hammer so that it travels down and inside through cleverly tilted passageway with a hole at the end. Another way inside for balls (there are two of them) as well as for two cubes is through the respectively shaped holes using which the kid develops his or her fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. It all looks quite primitive but toddlers do actually marvel at the fascinating way down and inside, it makes them laugh happily and think about how to get the toys out. That’s where the tricky part starts—in finding the way to open the house. It will take some fun time exploring and maybe some help from the parent (hence, the family bonding time) to find the keys hidden on the walls and open one of two “doors” inside. It is all quite a journey, and one the kids between 1 and 2 years of age love to take time and time again.

This activity cube is made of BPA-free plastic so it poses absolutely no danger to your little one. It is also very bright and eye-catching. The set contains the house itself, two balls, two cubes, two keys, and a hammer. The toy calls for creative thinking and delivers loads of fun.