One of the Best Toys for Kindergarten, Preschool and Special Education Classrooms
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If you’re searching for the best open ended toys for kindergarten, the best toys for preschool, or for easy task box ideas for special education… you’ve come to the right place.
I’m going to remind you about one of the best toys of all time. It’s in my opinion one of THE BEST toys for the classroom!
Potatoes!!! 🤣
Ok, no, not real potatoes (although those might be a hit too). I’m talking about the GOAT of toys - Mr Potato Head. You might remember him from your own childhood, and it turns out, he’s still a superstar in the classroom.
The Potato Head toys are fantastic for helping to develop fine motor skills, problem-solving, creativity, and speech and language skills. And seriously, who can resist the sight of kids trying to balance those tiny glasses on their noses. I mean… it ALWAYS happens right? 🥹
In my opinion, their easy-to-clean parts and the option to find them new or gently used make the Potato Head toys one of the best toys for preschool, kindergarten and special education classrooms!
Obviously this toy can be used as a free play option, but another great way to use them is in sensory play setups, morning bins and task boxes for special education, and in play based centers for kindergarten and preschool. Building potatoes is a great idea for STEM bins for kindergarten too!
So let’s get into how to use Mr. Potato head in the classroom. and where to find this toy (don’t worry, it’s not hard).
One of the Best Toys For Free Play and Play Based Building Centers
If you’re looking for play based center ideas for preschool or kindergarten, you can’t go wrong with this toy.
Simply store them in any bin and pull them out during play time. Your students will love exploring and building with these.
They go great on top of a table, on a carpet and are perfect if you need easy building center ideas for the classroom.
One of the things I love about this toy is how easy it is to clean up. The pieces are rather large, so it’s one of the fastest centers to clean up at tidy up time (sorry Lego).
A Super Simple Sensory Play Idea for Sand and Water Play
It’s a SUPER easy sensory play idea for water tables and an easy sensory play idea for sand tables too!
Literally just dump the bin of potato head toys into the sand or water!
Your prek, preschool, kindergarten or special ed. students will probably just build these in the sand or water.
OR you could give them some dish soap and sponges (or scrubby brushes from the dollar store) and VIOLA! They’re going to clean the toys for you too! 🙌 Honestly, this is the BEST toy for the classroom!
And if you’re a parent looking for easy bath ideas for kids, these toys are also the best bath toy for older kids and younger kids. I’ve used this super easy bath idea for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarten aged kids, and they’ve loved it at every age.
Just don’t use this idea every night. Everything gets old if used too often.
Toy rotations are important for the bath and during sensory play too.
In Task Boxes, Morning Bins, Stem Bins and Building Centers
If you need fun and easy early childhood special education activities, adding this toy in your play based centers or task boxes in so fun!
It’s great for sequencing activities and speech and language activities.
You can use this invitation to play printable and low tech printable core board with Boardmaker picture symbols to model language and social skills like sharing and turn taking.
These potatoes allow us so many opportunities to model vocabulary like colors, body parts, clothing, size, and prepositions.
If you’re looking for fun and easy task boxes for special education, you’ll love this simple task box idea. Students use sequencing strips and building task cards to help them build different variations of the potato.
This printable task box activity comes with a task box label, step-by-step instructions with visual aids (in first, next, then format) and over 30 task cards in 3 differentiated styles.
Where To Get Mr. Potato Head Toys for Your Classroom
I often get asked where I purchased my Potato Building Toys, especially the ones I’ve photographed for the task box printable.
To be honest, all of my potato head toys are from multiple trips to the thrift store. This is because they’re so easy to find, affordable and easy to clean, making them ideal to buy gently used. However, I know not everyone has access to thrift stores where they live, so I thought I’d list a few options for you here if you’re looking at finding some of these toys for the classroom.
When I photographed my potato toys, I chose what I thought would be the most common pieces (pieces that I hoped most people would already have in their classroom). This leads me to option #1.
Option 1 - Your School / District
Take a walk around your school or ask your colleagues if they know where there might be any extra toys in storage. Some districts even have toys in a lending service. Or, you could ask your admin if you can purchase some of these toys for your classroom.
Option 2 - Your Community Library
Your community library or early learning centers might also have a toy lending service. This isn’t a permanent solution but it could be worth checking out.
Option 3 - Purchase Used by checking thrift stores, online marketplaces, and watch for garage sales
As I mentioned before, these toys are so easy to clean and are great quality making them perfect to buy gently used. Check Facebook marketplace and keep your eyes peeled for garage sales in your area, and you might get lucky!
Option 4 - Purchase New
If you can’t find them used or you just really want new toys, I found these sets online that seem to have similar parts to what I used.
Please note that as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made through links on this page.
If you do use them, thank you so much for supporting my small business. 🫶🫶🫶
Amazon US Links
Potato Head Set (Mr. & Mrs.)
Single Potato Head #1 🇺🇸
Single Potato Head #2 🇺🇸
Single Mrs. Potato Head 🇺🇸
Amazon Canada Links
Potato Head Set (Mr. & Mrs.)
Single Potato Head #1 🇨🇦
Single Potato Head #2 🇨🇦
Single Mrs. Potato Head 🇨🇦
Happy playing!
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