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One of the ironies of many so-called educational toys is that they don’t leave much for children to do or figure out on their own. You spin the arrow, pull the cord, and a pig oinks, end of story. “The way I like to put it, the best toys are 90% the kid, 10% the toy,” said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a psychologist at Temple University, who has led some of the most widely cited research into the effects of play on child development. “If it’s 90% the toy, and 10% the kid, that’s a problem.”

simple, open-ended, non-realistic toys with multiple parts, like a random assortment of Lego, inspired the highest-quality play. While engaged with such toys, children were “more likely to be creative, engage in problem solving, interact with their peers, and use language,” the researchers wrote. Electronic toys, however, tended to limit kids’ play: “A simple wooden cash register in our study inspired children to engage in lots of conversations related to buying and selling – but a plastic cash register that produced sounds when buttons were pushed mostly inspired children to just push the buttons repeatedly.”