Best gift/toy for a 4yo boy?

[love bug]

I am looking for a great gift for my almost 4yo ds.
I am sick off toys and bits left around the house. Both my mother and grandmother have a thing for garage sales and thrift stores and we seem to have an abundance of kinda broken bits and pieces toys. I don't want to add to this chaos but I do want to get him something as he has his friend giving to the food bank instead of him

So any suggestions would be appreciated. What are you kids favorites??

TIA

[LynnS6]

Well, our son is 5, and his favorite toys, hands down are:

Bruder Trucks http://www.activetoys.com/ -- they're very realisitc, high quality construction (they take a beating) and just plain old fun. He's a major garbage truck fan and those toys have gotten several years worth of great use. They also have cool fire trucks, concrete mixers and cranes. The garbage truck obsession is waning, but he still plays with them, and our daughter likes them too.

Thomas the Tank Engine trains (we would have preferred the non-themed Brio, but we have a relative who loves to 'collect' things and she decided that getting Thomas stuff for him would be great -- who am I to argue with her giving our son $150 in trains every Christmas and Birthday?) Dd likes them too.

Toy cash register and shopping/cooking stuff

Board games (we started with chutes and ladders & candy land, we've progressed into Monopoly Jr. (it was a gift!), Trouble and Uno and the Secret Door, which is a nice cooperative game (http://www.familypastimes.com/)

Other favorites among his friends:

Legos (my son just hates small motor stuff)
Playmobil (plastic, but well made - we've got the airplane and a bus)
Dress up stuff (maybe your garage sale loving relatives could look for these instead?)

Our son also spends a lot of time 'playing' with real objects. Washing the car with the squeegie; spraying and cleaning with his spray bottle (I've got to find a source for QUALITY spray bottles), or digging in the sandbox (we've got a nice large one that I built), driving his trike and pretending to be a bus line.

Hope that helps,

[Rigama]

My ds LOVES his "Jungle truck"...You can get it at Target, and I think it's about $30. This was a waaayyy special thing for him. It's an RC truck but it's durable and it does really neat tricks. It also has a steering wheel type control instead of the two joy sticks. I believe it's actually called TYCO Safari Scout

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...70439?v=glance

[AngieB]

Well I'm not sure how you feel about this sort of toy, but my ds(5) can't live without his wooden sword and shield. You can find a really cool set with a red dragon or blue horse on the shield at Magic Cabin. Throw in a really great cape to go with it.

[4evermom]

Does he have a marble run? Ours is just a cheap transparent plastic one, but it is one of the most popular toys when we have guests, leading me to believe most kids haven't seen them before around here. I just got replacement marbles and the bag is mixed colors which will be nice if kids want to keep track of their "own" marbles. There are really nice wood ones that have great special features like musical elements. Some of the wood ones don't have interlocking pieces so they get knocked over easily which is frustrating.

[mahogny]

my 4 yo DS loves his tape player, his wooden train set, his matchbox cars, his toy helicopters, his Candyland game, and his Go Fish card game. Outside he loves his little shovel, his nerf-type balls, his jumprope, and his frisbee.

And of course, books are always a terrfic gift. My son especially loves comicbooks. He has some SuperFriends comic books that he loves, but he also has some child-friendly Superman and Batman ones that he loves just as much.

[BohoMama]

We love costume bits and pieces: sword and shield; some old funny hats, pieces of fabric that can be tied or held as capes, kilts, wings, etc.; a set of devil horns; feathers; an old knit top of mine that works great as a knight's tunic; a king's crown; clown's nose; strips of fun-fur that can be pinned onto a pant loop as a tail.......

Other things Andrej loves...a little wooden chair (nursery school standard-issue) that I re-painted with a swirly sun on the seat and his name on the backrest. This chair gets dragged all over the house and usually serves as a stepstool. Then there are his finger paints; a train set (Fisher-Price); chess (believe it or not, he is actually learning to play); musical instruments; a big leaf (decorative object) from Ikea that hangs over his bed and shelters him; a stuffed pig that giggles when you jostle it; croquet or petanque - fun for the whole family......

Good luck, I know you'll come up with something

[**guest**]

Barnyard Bingo or Dinosaur Bingo

[lucyem]

My 4 yr old will play with toy cars for hours. Matchbox etc. He loves to crash them and race them accross the floor.

[Rigama]

Oh and Also...

Rescue Heroes stuff.

DS is a big big big fan of race tracks (we scored him the HotWheels V-Drop for $5 at Mervyns the other day and he's been playing with it for hours every day)

I offered up the Safari Scout truck because your op sounded like you really didn't want something with lots of pieces. Unfortunately Rescue Heroes come with lots of pieces, but they are pretty affordable Mini-Sets. Ds has an entire drawer devoted just to these items.

Tinker Toys are another favorite. He has the giant set with about a billion pieces (well okay, 200) and he builds lawnmowers, robots, buildings, aliens...whatever. Storage for that one is it's original can. It's big and unattractive, but at least they all fit!