So that’s what our Best Toy Awards delivers: Toys that are safe, designed well, developmentally appropriate, and constructed with quality and - most of all - fun to use. (Check out “How We Tested” for more information on our methodology.) But then kid testers across the country, from toddlers to teens, did the all-important fieldwork, telling us which ones they'd go back to again and again. The pros at the Good Housekeeping Institute Parenting Lab covered the adult stuff: checking safety documentation, checking the engineering of the toys, keeping track of toy trends, and so on. It’s a lot to ask for, but we enlisted experts big and small for the task. But, most of all, we wanted the toys to be fun - something you can’t test for in the Lab. We also looked for toys that went beyond, offering some kind of developmental benefit, like the chance to work on those fine-motor coordination skills or develop those all-important social-emotional skills. We searched for toys that were safe to use, easy enough to assemble and constructed well. When it came time to put together a list of the best toys of the year - our 16th time around - we had a few goals in mind: First, to ensure that we considered every aspect of the play experience, from taking the toy out of the box - is it easy? is the package sustainable? - through how well it would hold up after heavy use.
