You do not need every educational toy on the internet to start tot school at home. But the right supplies can make learning activities faster to prepare, easier for toddlers to use, and much more likely to become part of your weekly routine.
After more than a decade of teaching through play, both in my classes and at home, these are the toddler school supplies I consider genuinely worth buying. Each item can be used in multiple ways, supports real developmental skills, and earns its place in your home instead of sitting unopened in a closet.
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. I only recommend supplies I use in my classes, at home, or would confidently add to a toddler learning space.
The Best Toddler School Supplies for Fall
1. A Laminator and a Large Pack of Pouches
If you buy one supply for tot school, make it a laminator.
Toddlers learn through repetition, which means they rarely use an activity only once. Laminating turns a printable into a reusable learning material that can survive dry-erase markers, playdough, sticky fingers, spilled snacks, and repeated practice.
Use it for tracing pages, matching mats, playdough cards, cutting strips, scavenger hunts, visual schedules, and activity binder pages. Instead of printing another copy every time your child wants to repeat an activity, you can wipe it clean and bring it back tomorrow.
Why you need it: It protects everything else you print and helps one activity last for months instead of minutes.
Use it for: Reusable printables, activity mats, matching games, visual schedules, flashcards, and playdough cards.
👉 Get the laminator · laminating pouches
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2. Dry-erase pockets
Dry-erase pockets are the quickest way to make almost any printable reusable.
Slide in a tracing page, matching sheet, maze, scavenger hunt, or counting activity and hand your child a dry-erase marker. When they finish, wipe it clean and replace the page with something new.
They are especially helpful when you do not want to laminate every page or when you need an activity ready in less than a minute.
Why you need them: They eliminate much of the preparation that makes parents abandon tot school after the first few weeks.
Use them for: Tracing, prewriting lines, matching activities, mazes, counting mats, and travel activities
3. Crayola Triangle Toddler Markers
Traditional markers can be difficult for toddlers to control. These Crayola markers have a wide triangular barrel that is easier for little hands to grasp and helps guide their fingers toward a more functional writing grip.
The triangular shape also keeps them from rolling off the table, which is a surprisingly useful feature when you are working with a toddler. The set includes eight washable colors and is designed for children ages two and older.
Why you need them: They give toddlers the bright color payoff of markers in a shape that is easier to hold, control, and keep on the table.
Use them for: Coloring, drawing, journals, large paper activities, printable pages, tracing practice, and open-ended art.
👉 Get the Crayola Triangle Toddler Markers
4. Crayola My First Egg Crayons
Regular crayons can be difficult for very young toddlers to manage. They are thin, break easily, and require more finger control than many toddlers have developed.
Egg-shaped crayons fit inside the palm, allowing younger children to begin experimenting with color and mark-making without struggling to hold a traditional crayon.
These have also been one of the most frequently purchased art supplies by readers after I recommended them.
Why you need them: They make coloring accessible for younger toddlers who are not yet ready for thin crayons.
Use them for: Scribbling, first coloring activities, sensory art, large paper projects, and simple printables.
👉 Get Crayola My First Egg Crayons
5. Chunky or Triangular Crayons
As your child gains more control, chunky or triangular crayons are a useful next step.
The wider shape is easier for little hands to manage than a standard thin crayon, and triangular crayons stay on the table instead of rolling onto the floor every twelve seconds.
My favorite option is Honeysticks because they are sturdy, smooth, and richly pigmented. For a budget-friendly choice, Crayola triangular crayons are easy to find and replace.
Why you need them: The right-size drawing tool helps children focus on creating marks instead of fighting with the crayon.
Use them for: Coloring, scribbling, journals, rubbings, process art, and prewriting activities.
6. Do-A-Dot Markers
Do-A-Dot markers are one of the easiest ways to make a learning activity feel like art.
There are no paintbrushes to rinse, no water cups to spill, and almost no setup. Toddlers simply press the marker onto the paper to create a dot.
That simple movement encourages hand-eye coordination, visual attention, and controlled placement. Use them with dot-marker printables, letter pages, counting activities, color hunts, or a blank sheet of paper.
Why you need them: They offer the satisfaction of painting with far less mess and preparation.
Use them for: Letter recognition, counting, patterns, color sorting, process art, and seasonal printables.
7. Playdough and a Basic Tool Set
Playdough is not just an extra art supply. It is one of the most useful fine-motor materials you can keep in your toddler school cabinet.
Rolling, squeezing, pinching, flattening, and cutting playdough strengthen the hands children use for dressing, drawing, cutting, and eventually writing.
It can also be added to almost any learning theme. Roll balls for counting, form shapes, cover laminated number mats, create pretend food, or use animal figures to make tracks.
Choose soft playdough and a simple tool set with rollers, cutters, and child-safe dough scissors. You do not need a giant kit with fifty tiny pieces.
Why you need it: It combines sensory play, creativity, and hand-strengthening practice in one inexpensive material.
Use it for: Counting, letters, shapes, pretend play, sensory activities, and fine-motor development.
👉 Get the playdough or make your own homemade play dough
👉 Get the playdough tools
8. Toddler-Safe Scissors
Cutting is a skill children develop by being given safe opportunities to practice.
Toddler-safe scissors allow children to experiment with opening and closing their hands while reducing the risk of cutting fingers, hair, or clothing.
Start with playdough, thin strips of paper, old magazines, or simple cutting pages instead of expecting your toddler to follow complicated lines.
Spring-assisted scissors can be especially helpful for beginners because they reopen after every snip.
Why you need them: Scissor skills require real cutting practice. They cannot be replaced by tracing or coloring.
Use them for: Cutting strips, collages, playdough, crafts, fringe activities, and fine-motor practice.
9. Washable Glue Sticks
Liquid glue has its place, but glue sticks are much easier for everyday tot-school activities.
They give toddlers enough independence to complete collages, sorting pages, and cut-and-paste activities without soaking the paper or covering the table in glue.
Choose larger washable glue sticks with purple disappearing color so that they can see what they are doing and using the jumbo ones are easier for small hands to hold, and buy a multipack. Glue sticks have an uncanny ability to disappear precisely when you need one.
Why you need them: They allow toddlers to participate more independently in crafts and printable activities with much less cleanup.
Use them for: Collages, cut-and-paste pages, shape pictures, letter crafts, and seasonal projects.
10. Washable Tempera Paint
Toddlers should have access to real paint, but it needs to be paint you are not afraid to use.
Washable tempera paint works for brushes, sponges, toy-car painting, nature stamping, color mixing, finger painting, and process-art activities.
Start with a basic set of primary colors instead of buying every shade. Children can learn far more by mixing a few colors than by opening twelve premixed bottles.
Why you need it: Paint supports creativity, sensory exploration, color discovery, and full-arm movement in ways coloring pages alone cannot.
Use it for: Process art, color mixing, stamping, seasonal crafts, painting toys, and sensory activities.
11. No-Spill Paint Cups With Lids
Paint is much easier to bring out when your toddler cannot accidentally dump an entire cup onto the table.
These no-spill paint cups have lids with small openings for the brushes, helping contain drips and reduce spills. The set also includes individual brushes, so you can keep one brush with each color instead of turning every cup into the same mysterious shade of brown.
These have been one of the strongest-converting art recommendations among my readers, and it makes sense. The cups solve one of the biggest reasons parents avoid painting: the cleanup.
Why you need them: They turn painting from a major production into an activity you can offer on an ordinary weekday.
Use them for: Tempera paint, finger paint, color mixing, process art, seasonal crafts, and open-ended painting.
👉 Get the no-spill paint cups and brushes
12. A Long-Sleeved Art Smock
A regular bib protects the front of a shirt. A long-sleeved smock protects the child you actually have, including the elbows, cuffs, and arms that somehow end up inside the paint tray.
Choose one that wipes clean easily and has enough coverage for painting, glue, sensory play, and simple science experiments.
Why you need it: When cleanup feels manageable, you are much more likely to say yes to messy learning activities.
Use it for: Painting, glue, sensory bins, water play, cooking activities, and science experiments.
👉 Get the long-sleeved art smock
13. A Sensory Bin With a Lid
A dedicated sensory bin keeps materials contained and gives you a clear space for hands-on exploration.
A lid is especially useful because it allows you to prepare an activity ahead of time, pause it when needed, and bring it back another day instead of throwing everything away after one use.
Use age-appropriate materials and supervise closely, especially if your toddler still puts objects in their mouth.
Why you need it: It contains the mess and makes sensory activities reusable, which means you are more likely to offer them regularly.
Use it for: Water play, shredded paper, taste-safe sensory materials, playdough tools, scooping activities, and themed learning invitations.
👉 Get the sensory bin with lid
14. Activity Trays or Shallow Bins
A tray may not look like an educational supply, but it can completely change how an activity feels.
Instead of placing several loose materials across the table, put everything your child needs on one tray: the printable, crayons, counters, glue stick, or playdough.
The activity immediately looks organized and inviting. Trays also contain messes, define the workspace, and make it easy to move an unfinished activity out of the way.
You do not need expensive Montessori trays. Inexpensive cafeteria trays, craft trays, or shallow plastic bins work beautifully.
Why you need them: They transform a pile of supplies into an activity your toddler can understand and begin.
Use them for: Invitations to play, art projects, sensory activities, sorting, transferring, puzzles, and printables.
15. A Child-Sized Table and Chair Set
A child-sized table gives your toddler a comfortable place to work, create, eat a snack, and return to throughout the day.
This is not about recreating a classroom or expecting a toddler to sit through long lessons. It is about giving them furniture that fits their body.
When their feet are supported and the table is at the right height, drawing, cutting, rolling playdough, and manipulating small materials become much easier.
Why you need it: Adult furniture is designed for adult bodies. A properly sized workspace makes hands-on activities more comfortable and accessible.
Use it for: Art, snacks, puzzles, sensory play, printables, playdough, and independent activities.
👉 Get the child-sized table and chairs
16. A Binder and Heavy-Duty Sheet Protectors
A binder is what keeps your carefully printed curriculum from becoming a loose pile on the kitchen counter.
Organize it by week, theme, or skill and keep the pages you plan to use where you can actually find them. Sheet protectors prevent tearing and can also be used with dry-erase markers when you do not want to laminate a page.
You can create one binder for the parent guide and another for your child’s reusable activities, or keep everything together with labeled dividers.
Why you need it: A curriculum only helps when you can find the activity before your toddler loses interest and wanders away.
Use it for: Curriculum organization, printables, activity plans, artwork, progress samples, and reusable pages.
👉 Get the binder
👉 Get heavy-duty sheet protectors
17. A Visual Daily Schedule
Toddlers cannot read a clock, but they can understand pictures.
A visual schedule shows what is happening now and what will happen next: breakfast, play, tot school, snack, outside time, lunch, and rest.
It can reduce repeated questions and help transitions feel less abrupt. You do not need to schedule every minute of the day. A simple rhythm with four to six pictures is often enough.
Why you need it: The most useful school supply may be the one that helps you use all the other supplies consistently.
Use it for: Morning routines, transitions, outings, quiet time, building independence, and creating a predictable daily rhythm.
Educational Toys Worth Adding to Your Tot-School Shelf
Once you have the basic art and activity supplies, the next step is not filling a shelf with electronic toys that flash, sing, and quiz your child.
The toys worth investing in are the ones your toddler can use in different ways as they grow. These are tools for building, sorting, imagining, experimenting, and solving problems through real play.
19. Magnetic Tiles
Magnetic tiles are one of the few toys that can begin with simple connecting and stacking and continue into preschool engineering, pretend play, pattern-making, and early geometry.
A toddler may connect two pieces or sort them by color. Later, those same tiles become houses, ramps, animal enclosures, towers, letters, and three-dimensional structures.
Why you need them: They combine creativity, spatial reasoning, problem-solving, and fine-motor work in one toy that grows with your child.
Use them for: Color sorting, building, shapes, light-table play, ramps, patterns, and imaginative play.
20. Wooden Blocks
A good set of wooden blocks may look simple, but that simplicity is what gives it so much value.
Blocks do not tell children what to build. They invite children to experiment with balance, compare sizes, solve structural problems, create stories, and try again when something falls.
One day they are a tower. The next day they become a zoo, a road, a kitchen, or a bed for a stuffed animal.
Why you need them: Few toys support engineering, imagination, early math, and independent play as naturally or for as many years.
Use them for: Towers, roads, houses, counting, comparing, small-world play, and building challenges.
21. Animal Figures or Animal Counters
Animal figures work as both learning materials and pretend-play toys.
Children can sort them by color, habitat, size, or animal type; count them; make patterns; match them to picture cards; add them to sensory bins; or use them to create stories.
Realistic animal figures are wonderful for science and imaginary play. Colorful animal counters work especially well for early math activities.
Why you need them: They turn counting, sorting, language, and science activities into play while remaining interesting outside of lesson time.
Use them for: Counting, sorting, patterns, vocabulary, storytelling, sensory bins, habitats, and science themes.
👉 Get animal counters
👉 Get realistic animal figures
22. Counting Bears With Sorting Cups
Counting bears are a classroom favorite because they make abstract math concepts visible and touchable.
Toddlers can begin by moving bears between cups and matching colors. As they grow, they can count quantities, create patterns, compare groups, and act out simple number stories.
Choose pieces appropriate for your child’s age and supervise closely because small manipulatives can be a choking hazard.
Why you need them: They help children understand quantity with their hands before expecting them to understand numbers on paper.
Use them for: Sorting, counting, patterns, color matching, one-to-one correspondence, and simple addition stories.
👉 Get counting bears with sorting cups
23. A Fine-Motor Tool Set
A set containing jumbo tweezers, scoopers, droppers, and squeeze tools can be used across dozens of tot-school activities.
Children can transfer pom-poms, rescue objects from water, sort counters, squeeze colored water, collect leaves, or help with simple science experiments.
Instead of buying several separate fine-motor toys, one tool set can be paired with materials you already have throughout the year.
Why you need it: It turns sensory play, science, and sorting activities into hand-strengthening practice.
Use it for: Sensory bins, transferring, color sorting, water play, science experiments, and fine-motor activities.
24. Bristle Blocks
Bristle blocks are easier for many toddlers to connect than smaller interlocking bricks.
The pieces press together from multiple angles, allowing children to build successfully without needing extremely precise alignment.
They begin as a simple connecting toy and later become vehicles, animals, buildings, creatures, and inventions.
Why you need them: They offer the creative benefits of construction play without the frustration of pieces that are difficult for young toddlers to connect.
Use them for: Building, color sorting, pretend play, patterns, fine-motor practice, and simple design challenges.
25. A Large Peg Board
A large peg board gives toddlers a clear place to practice grasping, placing, matching, and creating.
At first, children may simply fill and empty the board. Later, they can copy color patterns, make pictures, count rows, or recreate simple designs.
Choose a version with pieces large enough for your child’s age and supervise closely.
Why you need it: It provides focused hand-eye coordination and fine-motor practice while still leaving room for creativity.
Use it for: Color matching, patterns, counting, design copying, quiet play, and hand-eye coordination.
👉 Get the large toddler peg board
26. Chunky Wooden Puzzles
Puzzles are one of the more structured toys I recommend because they help children practice visual discrimination, spatial reasoning, persistence, and problem-solving.
Choose puzzles with large pieces, simple images, and knobs that are easy for small hands to grasp. Animal, vehicle, shape, and everyday-object puzzles can also support vocabulary and matching.
Avoid electronic puzzles that announce every answer. The puzzle itself should provide the challenge.
Why you need them: They give toddlers a clear problem to solve while allowing them to test, adjust, and try again independently.
Use them for: Matching, vocabulary, shape recognition, spatial reasoning, and quiet-time activities.
27. Play Silks or Lightweight Scarves
Play silks may become capes, rivers, picnic blankets, doll beds, costumes, roofs, dancing ribbons, or hiding places.
They do not look traditionally academic, but they support symbolic thinking, storytelling, movement, creativity, and the ability to use one object in many ways.
They also take up very little storage space, which earns them bonus points in my book.
Why you need them: They create dozens of play possibilities without telling your child what the finished play should look like.
Use them for: Dress-up, music and movement, storytelling, color games, forts, small-world play, and sensory exploration.
28. One Simple Pretend-Play Set
Choose one pretend-play set connected to real life, such as play food, a doctor kit, cleaning tools, dolls, a tool set, or an animal-care kit.
Pretend play allows children to process experiences, experiment with social roles, practice language, and rehearse everyday routines.
You do not need an entire pretend-play town. Start with one theme your child already shows interest in.
Why you need it: Pretend play builds language, sequencing, social understanding, creativity, and emotional processing in ways a worksheet cannot reproduce.
Use it for: Vocabulary, role play, storytelling, routines, social-emotional learning, and independent play.
What Should You Buy First?
You do not need to purchase all 28 supplies in one afternoon.
Start with the materials that make activities reusable and easy to prepare:
- A laminator or dry-erase pockets
- Washable dry-erase markers
- Egg crayons, chunky crayons, or Do-A-Dot markers
- Playdough
- A binder and sheet protectors
- Washable paint and no-spill cups
- One open-ended toy, such as blocks or magnetic tiles
Then add scissors, glue, sensory materials, manipulatives, and additional toys as your routine develops.
The goal is not to create a picture-perfect classroom. It is to build a small collection of dependable materials your child can use in many different ways throughout the year.
Supplies Are the Easy Part. Here’s the Hard Part.
Here’s what nobody tells you when you’re filling that cart: supplies don’t make a tot-school year. A plan you’ll actually stick to does.
The number-one thing I hear from parents is some version of the same sentence: “I want structure — I just can’t build it myself and keep it going.” That’s not a you problem. Building a full year of developmentally-appropriate lessons from scratch, at midnight, while exhausted, is genuinely hard. It’s a whole job.
That’s exactly why I built My First School. It’s the plan that turns these tools into an actual year of learning: open-and-go weekly lessons you print, slide into those dry-erase pockets, and follow along — no planning, no guessing what comes next, no Pinterest spiral. Just play that quietly teaches, the same way I run it in my classes.
Fall is when this decision gets made. Set up the plan now, and the year runs itself.
Back-to-school offer: use code BACKTOSCHOOL at checkout and My First School is $67 (regularly $97) — through Aug 30.
Not ready to commit? Start with the free curriculum sample and see how a week of it feels first.
Frequently Asked Questions
What supplies do I really need to start tot school at home?
Far less than you’d think. Start with a way to reuse printables (a laminator or dry-erase pockets), a low-mess fine-motor tool (dot markers or chunky crayons), and one simple routine cue (a table or a visual schedule). Everything else can wait.
What age is tot school for?
Tot school generally works from about 18 months through age 3 — the toddler window before formal preschool. The supplies above scale up beautifully into the preschool years, too.
Do I need to laminate everything?
No. Dry-erase pockets do the same job with zero setup. Laminating is worth it for the pages you’ll reach for over and over — the rest can live in a binder with sheet protectors.
How do I keep a routine going once I’ve bought the supplies?
This is the real challenge, and it’s why a done-for-you plan helps so much. A visual schedule keeps the rhythm visible, and a weekly curriculum like My First School removes the daily “what do we do today?” decision that derails most home routines.
Looking for more low-prep ideas? Pair these supplies with my sensory bin activities and taste-safe recipes — the fan favorites my community reaches for all year.