9 Best Wooden Toy Brands For Plastic-Free Playtime
What hurts more than stepping on a plastic LEGO®?
Finding out how bad plastic toys really are for your child’s health.
Wood you believe us if we told you that more than 100 chemicals found in plastic playthings may pose health concerns to children?
Including “forever chemicals” that have been linked to hormone disruption and cancer.
Our babies deserve better than that.
But no need to throw a temper tantrum (we know there’s plenty of those to go around as in), because the best wooden toy brands that can help you give those pesky plastics the ax once and for all.
If being non-toxic alone doesn’t tell you why wooden toys are best, the creativity nurturing and brain stimulating designs of these toys are sure to do it.
Everything we recommend to you on Sustainable Jungle is independently researched and we ask all brands to confirm their claims. To avoid waste, we test products on an as needed basis. This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a small commission. Learn more about why we do this here.
The Top Wooden Toy Brands For Blocks, Trucks, & More
Our Green House has a beautiful collection of affordable wooden toys for children of all ages–each of which is non-toxic down to the varnish on the FSC-certified wood.
Little Play Kit supports big dreams and slow, ethical manufacturing, with durable, high-quality toys for creative play handmade in the USA.
For unique wooden toys you’d simply have to see to be-leaf, Tender Leaf Toys doesn’t just use wood—they use reclaimed wood.
We’re (wood) shaving the rest for later, but jump to the bottom to see how these wooden baby and toddler toy brands stayed off our chopping board.
The Best Wooden Toys For Kids
- Our Green House | Visit Store
- Lovevery | Visit Store
- Little Play Kit | Visit Store
- Tender Leaf Toys | Visit Store
- Ev & Potique | Visit Store
- Meadow Love Craft | Visit Store
- PlanToys | Visit Store
- Buzy Puzzle | Visit Store
- Once-Kids | Visit Store
1. Our Green House
About Our Green House
Price Range: $3–$245
From small wooden food toys to larger than life dollhouses, Our Green House features a curated collection of the best wooden toys from across the globe.
While not all of their sustainable toys are wooden, the site filters allow you to sort what toys are made out of wood.
For example, under wooden baby toys, you’ll find zero waste baby rattles, pull cars, teethers, shape sorting toys, and more.
Under the wooden blocks tab, nesting blocks, balance games, and stacking toys.
You can also find some other unsorted wooden toys scattered in the other tabs, like this Wooden Kitchen Play Set listed under Kitchen Sets.
Our Green House’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Since Our Green House features several eco-friendly toy brands, it’s hard to compile a full list of materials and sourcing.
Many of their natural wood toys feature high-quality, FSC-certified woods that have been hand painted with eco-friendly paints and finished with non-toxic varnish.
Some that we have seen include beechwood, hardwood, and birchwood.
Supply chain & labor practices:
The fair trade wooden toys are made in countries around the world, including Thailand, Turkey, Germany, and Poland, to name a few.
You can find exactly where each product was made by clicking on the Origins tab on the description page.
While you can’t filter all locations, you can easily look for wooden toy brands made in the USA.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Many of the toys they feature are made from recycled materials and come sans plastic packaging.
Community & charitable giving:
5% of every gift basket sold goes towards a special cause, supporting things like elephant conservation, global women empowerment, and housing security.
You can read which specific cause a gift basket supports in its product description.
For example, the Seashells by The Seashore Gift Basket supports ocean conservation, while the At First Sight basket supports children’s wish granting.
2. Lovevery
About Lovevery
Price Range: $25–$400
Another organic baby toy brand that doesn’t exclusively deal in wood, Lovevery still has some of the best wooden baby toys and toddler toys.
And we should know, since we’ve tested a few of their items (both wooden, and not).
However, to get your hands on them, you’ll have to be okay with other sustainable materials too, since they are only sold in play kits (save their pull pup, which is their only stand-alone wooden toy).
Designed for kids 0 to 4, the eco-friendly sets help children build healthy patterns by exploring sounds, shapes, and colors with toys that are appropriate for their age range.
If you are looking for mostly wooden, The Observer Play Kit is probably your best bet. It’s filled with both classics, like a mini modular playhouse, and more modern wooden toys like an interactive weather board.
Lovevery’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Their wooden toys are made from sustainable forestry certified (FSC) wood and water based paints and finishes.
The other toys featured in the play kits and non-toxic play mats are made from organic cotton and baby-safe plastics.
All are free from lead, flame retardants, and phthalates.
Supply chain & labor practices:
The Certified B Corp’s designs are born in Boise, Idaho and raised (a.k.a. made) in Ningbo, China.
Their manufacturing partner is ethical, sustainable, and provides safe working conditions.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
All orders ship carbon-neutral and, in the coming years, the entire supply chain will be, too.
By 2025, the wooden toy makers will make 90% of their products and packaging with renewable, biobased, or recycled materials.
Community & charitable giving:
In the spirit of eco-friendly gift giving, Lovevery funds a donation for each employee to give to a non-profit of their choice during the holidays.
Organizations they chose last year include Idaho Rivers United, Feeding America, and Jumpstart.
3. Little Play Kit
About Little Play Kit
Price Range: $65–$89
Little Play Kit makes some of the best wooden Montessori toys and play kits on Etsy—with over 500 5-star reviews and 5 Etsy-top pick badges to prove it.
The wood toys for kids are designed to boost language development, improve fine motor skills, and reduce anxiety through sensory and pretend play.
Your child can use their imagination with full-blown musician, doctor, chef, and handy man sets.
Or, learn hand eye coordination with this rockin’ wooden xylophone.
Little Play Kit’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Their handmade wooden toys are made exclusively from high-quality natural solid wood and non-toxic paints.
All items are cruelty-free.
Supply chain & labor practices:
The small women-owned shop is based in New York and all toys are handcrafted by a single woodworker, as shared in photos on Etsy.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Etsy offsets carbon emissions from shipping and packaging of all orders.
4. Tender Leaf Toys
About Tender Leaf Toys
Price Range: $5–$500
Operating with tender love and care, Tender Leaf Toys is one of the best wooden toy kitchen brands the sustainable toy industry has cooked up.
Take these creative solid wooden eggs as an example. They are simply some of the best wooden food toys we’ve seen (some might say… they’re eggs-eptional).
Their other wood products, including their dollhouses, magnetic wooden blocks, musical toys, and educational toys, are just as noteworthy.
All of them are built for longevity, meaning they are durable enough to withstand even the most creative imaginations—read as: the best wooden toys for 2-year-olds who haven’t yet learned what it means to take care of their stuff.
Tender Leaf Toys’ Ethical & Sustainability Practices:
Materials:
Their wood toys are made from reclaimed rubberwood and FSC-certified plywood.
Toxic free paints and glues add the finishing touch, meaning all of their toys meet International Safety Standards (EN71, ASTM F963, and AS/NZS ISO.)
Supply chain & labor practices:
The wooden toy brand has been awarded the ICTI Ethical Toy Program seal of approval for their Indonesia-based ethical supply chain.
In other words, workplace conditions are safe, fair wages are paid, and no forced labor takes place.
The TLT team ensures these standards are continuously met by spending 2 months of each year with the family-run factory.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Following regenerative agriculture ideas, for every reclaimed tree used in their wooden toys, TLT plants a new one in its place.
Almost all single-use plastic packaging has been eliminated. Eco-friendly paper and recycled cardboard are used instead.
5. Ev & Potique
About Ev & Potique
Price Range: $24–$70
Ev & Boutique stocks chic, boutique worthy wood baby toys that double as sustainable home decor.
Namely, personalized abacuses (you know, the things you see in pediatric waiting rooms).
Abacuses make some of the best wooden educational toys for development, as they encourage the strengthening of motor skills and reasoning.
Absolutely every part of Ev & Potique’s wooden abacuses can be customized, from the colors to the shapes to the engravings on the beads, meaning you can make a wooden baby toy as unique as your precious child.
We personally like the Twisted Woody Bead Maze because it takes a little more creativity and stimulation to maneuver.
Ev & Potique’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices
Materials:
Some of the best wooden toys for babies who love putting in their mouth, they feature only safe materials, like formaldehyde-free glue, non-toxic eco-friendly paints, and natural unfinished and uncoated wood.
Supply chain & labor practices:
All items are handcrafted in the USA.
Community & charitable giving:
A portion of proceeds are donated to Samaritan’s Purse or Village Of Hope Guatemala.
6. Meadow Love Craft
Price Range: $6–$60
Meadow Love Craft has a vibrant range of plain and rainbow wood toys designed to develop intelligence, logic, and fine motor skills.
Made with nothing but good stuff, you’ll find sanded silhouettes of mushrooms, farm animals, rockets, and more—all of which contain smooth edges, so you don’t have to worry about busting out those biodegradable bandages.
Putting the fun in functional, we love their collection of wood toy trucks, like the Wooden Hook & Ladder Fire Truck equipped with fully functioning wheels and an adjustable ladder.
Meadow Love Craft’s Ethical & Sustainability Practices:
Materials:
They feature wood from an unspecified origin and non-toxic paint.
Supply chain & labor practices:
These are 100% USA-made wood play toys.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Etsy carbon offsets shipping and packaging.
7. PlanToys
About PlanToys
Price Range: $15–$117
PlanToys plans to build a better future, one wooden building block at a time.
Amongst their twinkling toy box, you’ll find treasures including wooden balancing toys, stacking rings, sorting boards, and wood baby toys.
The last featuring their very own category filled with rainbow rollers, wooden bear grasping toys, and key rattles.
While all of their toys are incredible, we are big fans of their push and pull toys since they inspire lots of movement. This Pull Penguin waddled its way right into our little hearts as one of the best wooden toys for 1-year-olds and up.
PlanToys’ Ethical & Sustainability Practices:
Materials:
Their best wooden toddler toys are made using sustainable materials like sustainable harvest rubber wood sourced from trees in Thailand that can no longer produce latex.
They also use PlanWood, a zero waste material made from surplus rubber wood sawdust.
It’s no surprise that best wooden toddler toys are also coated in a non-toxic, water based lacquer that allows the toys to be played with in water.
Supply chain & labor practices:
Not only are workers paid fair wages and provided a safe workspace, but they are also given opportunities to release their financial burdens.
That is, with an Employee Savings Cooperative and factory space to grow communal vegetable gardens. As well as organic rice planting activities with local farmers.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
The PlanToys rental service allows parents to sustainably support their children’s play without having to buy more toys.
Free toy repairs are offered at their Toy Clinic based in Bangkok.
PlanToys also participates in the T-Ver Project, a GHG emissions reductions plan designed by the Thailand Green House Gas Management Organization.
Through annual tree restoration projects, they plan 2,000 trees each year.
Community & charitable giving:
Part of their proceeds are donated to social development products that match the theme of their toys.
€1 for every Wonky Fruit & Vegetable Set sold is donated to Kromkommer and $10 of every Walking Elephant purchase is donated to Save The Elephant Foundation.
They also make toys accessible by donating products to local schools and providing free play sites for children.
8. Busy Puzzle
About Busy Puzzle
Price Range: $16–$450
Still looking for the best wooden toys for toddlers?
You’ve found the missing piece in your plastic-free playtime routine with Busy Puzzle’s wood puzzle toys.
Of all the European wooden toy brands (and sustainable Christmas decor brands?) out there, this one’s the one to beat.
The Etsy star-seller makes the most darling wooden cars, puzzles, trains, nightlights, and … drumroll please… a huge selection of Busy Boards.
Equipped with knobs, latches, sliding beads, and movable pieces of all sorts, busy boards are designed for multisensory exploration to keep your child… well, busy!
Busy Puzzle Ethical & Sustainability Practices:
Materials:
Their wood puzzle toys are made from sustainably sourced birch plywood and water-based inks.
Meanwhile, solid wood items are created from maple wood that is coated in linseed oil for protection.
Supply chain & labor practices:
The handmade items ship from Ukraine, but we’re confirming whether the shop owners are behind these charming and downright cool wooden toys, or if they outsource to other woodworkers.
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Water-based inks are more environmentally friendly than conventional inks, since they have little to no VOCs and harsh chemicals.
9. Once-Kids
About Once-Kids
Price Range: $10–$250
What toy company started out making wooden toys?
Once-Kids was born out of the market gap for toys that were both cool and environmentally responsible.
They’ve had time to perfect their best handmade wooden toys, working under the acronym ONCE.
Essentially standing for: Organic, Natural, Charitable, and Environment.
Their collections feature STEM-accredited bamboo bricks, customizable construction toys, action figures, and building block sets that promote hand eye coordination, fine motor skills, and problem-solving skills.
For those raising the next generation of sustainable travelers, their Wanderlust City Blocks collection showcases the enchanting architecture of iconic cities around the world.
Once-Kids’ Ethical & Sustainability Practices:
Materials:
Wooden baby and toddler toys are made from FSC-certified wood that is responsibly harvested and planted.
Non-toxic paints and finishes are utilized.
Supply chain & labor practices:
The supply chain for Once-Kids is unknown. We will reach out for further information.
Carbon commitments & green business practices:
All of their wood and bamboo blocks are biodegradable, as Once-Kids is committed to limiting the production of plastics.
Though sometimes their toys incorporate recycled materials, like felt made from plastic bottles.
Community & charitable giving:
Once-Kids’ partners with charitable organizations that make a positive impact on the environment, like One Tree Planted.
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How We Chose The Best Wooden Toys For Babies & Kids
When it comes to toys, greenwashing is a serious termite.
But we’re not playing around with that.
That’s why we referred to our sustainable fashion guidelines to determine which brands are playing the sustainability game without any tricks up the sleeves of their sustainable kids’ clothing.
Materials:
While wood is certainly more sustainable than plastic counterparts, not all of it is cut from the same tree. The best wood for wooden toys is those that are sustainably and ethically sourced and solid (as opposed to conglomerate woods, like plywood, which is often adhered with toxic glues).
Let’s not forget the finishes. The best paints for wooden toys (or oils, if unpainted) should be lead-free and 100% natural.
And if you’re wondering how to clean wood toys, we recommend the occasional bath in some warm water and gentle, non-toxic dish soap. Just be sure to dry thoroughly to prevent any warping or water damage.
- Certifications: Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC)
Supply chain & labor practices:
The only labor that should involve blood, sweat, and tears is the labor of the little one you’re buying this fair trade present for.
Workers should have the right to fair wages and a healthy workspace, at the very least.
- Certifications: Fair Trade, Certified B Corporation (B Corp), Ethical Toy Program (ICTI)
Carbon commitments & green practices:
Your children’s children should be able to rejoice in a healthy planet, which is why we look for brands rooted in sustainability by utilizing carbon offset programs, sustainable packaging, and zero waste manufacturing.
Community & charitable giving: Generosity is one of those building blocks we hope to instill in our children at an early age. Which is why we look for charitable brands.
Final Thoughts On Wood Toy Brands
As you can see, life in plastic is not so fantastic…
By making the switch to wooden toys, we can ensure that both our planet and our children stay happy and healthy for generations to come.
But don’t go tossing those plastic toys in the dump just yet.
Consider donating them to a second hand store so that families who can’t quite afford those new wooden toys can still bring joy to their homes.
This isn’t the perfect solution, but until the world gets the plastic problem in check, this is the best way we can avoid contributing to the landfills.
Without further ado, help spread the seeds of sustainability by sharing this article with those sustainable mothers, doting grandparents, and loved ones out there.
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