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?
These include “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.
With our new Brand Rating System, we will start examining brands across 22 different sustainability criteria like chemical management and charitable actions. We haven’t run these brands through the system yet, but iuntil then, learn more about what to expect here.
We independently research all featured brands and we ask them to confirm their claims. In many cases we personally review recommended products. This post contains affiliate links which means we may earn a commission if you buy something. Learn more here.
The Top Wooden Toy Brands For Blocks, Trucks, & More
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.
Index: Best Wooden Toys For Kids
- Lovevery Jump to brand
- Little Play Kit Jump to brand
- Tender Leaf Toys Jump to brand
- Ev & Potique Jump to brand
- Meadow Love Craft Jump to brand
- PlanToys Jump to brand
- Busy Puzzle Jump to brand
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 FSC-certified 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:
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:
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.
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.
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. The TLT team ensures their safe workplace 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.
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:
They feature only baby 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.
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.
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.
All are 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 extra opportunities like an Employee Savings Cooperative, factory space to grow communal vegetable gardens, and 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 donate products to local schools and provide free play sites for children.
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.
