Everything parents need to choose safe, developmentally rich garden toys for babies and toddlers in their second year of life.
The single best outdoor toy for a one-year-old is one that invites whole-body exploration, tolerates a little mud, and grows with the child across the coming seasons. At twelve months, a child is on the cusp of walking, beginning to point at things they find fascinating, and drinking in every texture, sound and shadow the garden has to offer. What they need is not a gadget with flashing lights but open-ended, sturdy, preferably natural materials that let them set the pace and follow their own curiosity. Wooden skittles, rolling balls, simple stacking toys used on a blanket in the grass, push-along carts: these are the things that research and two centuries of play-making experience consistently bring to the top of the list.
In practical terms, look for toys that carry the CE or UKCA safety mark, have no parts smaller than a 50p coin, are finished with non-toxic paint or oil, and are substantial enough to survive the garden rather than merely visit it. Beyond the label, the decisive question is whether the toy does less so the child can do more. The most enduring garden toys for under-twos are the ones that ask an open question rather than give a pre-packaged answer.
The case for getting very young children outside is not merely intuitive; it is thoroughly evidenced. The World Health Organization's guidelines on physical activity for children under five recommend that infants not yet mobile should spend at least thirty minutes in prone position or interactive floor-based play in varied environments, including outdoors, while those who can move should accumulate at least three hours of physical activity across the day. Garden time counts directly toward those hours, and it carries benefits that indoor play cannot fully replicate: uneven ground, natural light, variable temperature, birdsong, wind, and the particular unpredictability of the living world.
What the research says: outdoor environments and early development
Researchers Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, whose work on playful learning spans more than two decades, argue that environments rich in novel stimuli and low in adult direction produce the deepest and most transferable learning in very young children. The garden, with its endlessly changing light, living creatures and irregular surfaces, is precisely such an environment. Pair it with a simple, open-ended toy and you have the conditions for what they describe as guided play: purposeful, joyful and led by the child's own agenda.
Richard Louv, whose writing on nature-deficit disorder brought children's outdoor experience into mainstream cultural conversation, argues that direct contact with natural environments in the earliest years shapes not just physical development but emotional regulation and attention. The garden is not a backdrop to play; it is an active participant in it.
Between twelve and twenty-four months, children move through a remarkable range of physical and cognitive milestones. Early in the year, many are cruising along furniture and taking first unsupported steps. By eighteen months, most can walk independently on flat ground, squat to pick something up, and begin to run in a wide, pleasingly unsteady fashion. By two, many can kick a ball, carry toys while walking, and begin to climb low structures with supervision.
Cognitively, the one-year-old is a committed experimenter. Piaget described this stage as the later sensorimotor period: children learn by acting on objects and watching what happens. Drop the ball, chase the ball, drop it again. Stack the skittles, knock them over, look up for the shared delight of it. This is not repetition for its own sake; it is the serious business of building cause-and-effect understanding.
Developmental note: the role of repetition
Jeffrey Trawick-Smith, whose TIMPANI study evaluated toys against developmental outcomes for young children, found consistently that the highest-scoring toys were those which supported sustained engagement and invited children to repeat actions with variation. A ball that rolls differently each time on uneven grass, or a set of skittles that falls in a new pattern with every attempt, scores well precisely because it sustains curiosity without scripting the outcome.
One-year-olds learn through every sense simultaneously. In the garden, this means they will stroke bark, press fingers into soil, listen to the sound a wooden ball makes when it rolls across paving versus grass, and hold their face up to the wind. Toys made from natural materials amplify this sensory richness rather than interrupting it. Wood is warm to the touch, slightly variable in grain and weight, and produces a satisfying, non-synthetic sound when it strikes another surface. These qualities are not incidental; they are developmentally useful.
Patricia Kuhl's research on early sensory learning demonstrates that the brain at this age is extraordinarily sensitive to variation and contrast. Novel textures and sounds do not overwhelm the one-year-old; they inform her. Wooden toys, natural rope, canvas bags, wicker baskets used as play containers: all of these belong in a well-considered garden play kit for under-twos.
The garden is uniquely suited to gross motor development because it offers the one thing a living room cannot: genuine terrain. A slight slope, a patch of longer grass, the edge of a patio slab, all of these challenge balance and proprioception in ways that a flat indoor floor does not. Adele Diamond's work on executive function and physical activity in early childhood points to a direct relationship between whole-body movement and the development of attention and self-regulation. Children who move more, and move across varied environments, tend to develop stronger foundations in both areas.
Garden toys that support this include anything a child can push, chase, throw or carry: balls in different sizes, push-along trolleys, lightweight skittles that can be set up on the grass and toppled with a roll. The act of repeatedly retrieving a ball that has gone somewhere unexpected is, from a developmental standpoint, a masterclass in planning, balance and persistence.
Wooden garden toys have a straightforward practical advantage over plastic: when they are well made and properly finished, they do not crack under impact, they do not fade irreversibly in sunlight, and they do not develop the sharp edges that make degraded plastic a genuine safety concern. A good wooden skittle set, stored sensibly, will accompany a child from first attempts at rolling at thirteen months through to confident, competitive play at four or five. The cost-per-hour of play, spread across that span, is extremely low.
A toy that lasts is a toy that stays in play, and a toy that stays in play is one that continues to earn its place in the garden rather than travelling to the charity shop after two seasons.
In the UK, toys sold to consumers must carry either the CE mark or, for goods placed on the market since January 2021, the UKCA mark. Both indicate that the toy has been assessed against the relevant safety standard, EN 71, which covers mechanical and physical properties, flammability, and chemical content. For toys intended for under-threes, the standard is stricter: no component should be small enough to pass through a cylinder of 31.7mm diameter, and all paints and finishes must be tested for heavy metal content.
Age guidance on packaging is not arbitrary. A toy labelled 12 months has been assessed as safe for children who are likely to mouth objects frequently. A toy labelled 36 months may contain smaller parts that are not a hazard for a three-year-old but could be dangerous for a younger child. When in doubt, choose the younger age guidance and supervise accordingly.
Jaques of London has been making and supplying games and toys since 1795, a span of more than two hundred years that has seen the company invent croquet, create the Staunton chess set, and supply generations of British families with the kind of equipment that gets handed down rather than thrown away. For one-year-olds in the garden, the collections that repay closest attention are the wooden toys range and the outdoor games range, both of which include pieces sized, finished and weighted for very young children.
Skittles are an especially good starting point. A set of smooth, brightly painted wooden skittles with a ball can be used from the moment a child can roll or pat an object across a short distance, which for many children arrives before their first birthday. The same set remains genuinely engaging through age five and beyond, making it one of the better-value garden purchases available.
Browse Jaques wooden toys for under-twos Explore the full Jaques outdoor games collectionA note on longevity and value
Montessori's principle of preparing an environment that respects the child's pace applies with particular force to garden toys. A toy that a one-year-old can engage with independently, without adult assembly or battery management, and that the same child will return to at two, three, and four, represents the ideal intersection of safety, developmental appropriateness and practical value. Jaques wooden outdoor toys are designed with exactly this arc in mind.
Yes, provided the toy meets current UK or EU safety standards. Toys carrying the UKCA or CE mark and labelled suitable from twelve months have been assessed specifically for children who mouth objects. Paints and finishes on compliant toys are tested for harmful substances including lead and other heavy metals under EN 71 Part 3. The wood itself, when smooth and splinter-free, is no more hazardous than a wooden spoon, an object most one-year-olds are already well acquainted with. Inspect toys periodically for chips or splinters, and retire any piece that has developed a rough edge.
Open-ended toys, particularly those involving rolling, throwing, stacking or toppling, tend to grow with the child rather than being outgrown abruptly. A set of wooden skittles is engaging at twelve months when a child is simply batting at them, at two years when she is attempting to aim a ball, at three when she is counting the ones that fall, and at four when she is keeping score and introducing rules. The play changes shape as the child develops; the toy remains relevant. A well-made wooden outdoor toy should last physically for a decade or more with basic care.
The age label is primarily a safety indicator, not a measure of educational sophistication. A toy labelled 18 months may contain components that are safe for a child who no longer routinely mouths objects but hazardous for one who does. It may also involve a physical action, such as a fine motor threading task, that most twelve-month-olds cannot yet manage, making it frustrating rather than stimulating at that age. Choosing a toy at or below your child's actual age is the sensible default; there is no developmental benefit to rushing ahead.
Most wooden toys are not designed for permanent outdoor storage and will deteriorate if left repeatedly exposed to rain and damp. Prolonged moisture can cause swelling, cracking and, over time, mould growth in the wood grain. The practical advice is to bring wooden toys in at the end of a garden session, or store them in a covered space such as a shed or patio box. If a toy does get wet, allow it to dry naturally in a warm space rather than in direct strong sunlight, which can cause surface cracking. A light application of natural beeswax or linseed oil once or twice a year will help maintain the finish and extend the life of the toy considerably.
Britain's oldest toy maker. Every toy open-ended, wooden, and built for exactly the kind of play the research recommends.