Expert consulted: What makes a great toy? As parenting editors at Good Housekeeping, it's a question we take seriously. (Though, admittedly, we have a lot of fun coming up with the answers.) When we evaluate toys as experts, we're looking for the quality of construction, ease of use, and safety, which is always top of mind. But as parents ourselves, we know that nothing matters to kids more than the fun factor. So when we approach toy testing, our goal is find toys that live up to their promises, can withstand rough play, are safe to use, and, most importantly, keep kids coming back again and again.
Each year, we put hundreds of toys through multiple rounds of testing as part of a year-long process leading up to the Good Housekeeping Toy Awards, our annual list of the year's must-have gifts for kids, which is now in its 18th year. Here's how we determine our recommendations.
We Keep Tabs on Toys All Year Long
Our toy editors and experts at the Good Housekeeping Institute Media & Tech Lab stay on top of all the major new toy releases each year. This involves attending trade events (like the annual Toy Fair in New York City), meeting with brands, tracking bestsellers across retailers, and frequently scouring the toy aisles in brick-and-mortar stores. By doing this, we keep tabs on trends big and small—from the rise of play couches to the growing popularity of axolotls (or Highland cows, or capybaras, or whatever the hot animal of the moment is)—so we can discover what's capturing kids' attention and generating buzz among shoppers.
Testing Starts in the Lab
Once we've surveyed the year's toy landscape, we bring in products for testing in the Media & Tech Lab, where our engineers and analysts evaluate them to ensure they perform as promised. (You'd be surprised how often much-hyped toys fail to match their commercials.) In addition to assessing the durability and innovation, we also consider how easy it is to remove the toy from its packaging—a common pain point for parents!—how much waste the packaging produces, and how hard the toy is to assemble. If a brand makes any claims about its manufacturing—such as using post-consumer recycled materials—we ask for supporting documentation to ensure those claims are backed by evidence.
But most importantly, our experts look out for safety red flags. They assess potential dangers, such as small parts or long strings that could be choking hazards for babies and toddlers, as well as items like water beads or unsecured high-powered magnets that have been flagged by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) for being unsafe. We pay special attention to the manufacturer's age recommendations, particularly for kids under 3. When we say a toy is suitable for toddlers, it means it's safe for 1- and 2-year-olds.
Toys Are Then Sent Into the "Field"
This is the fun part! After toys are evaluated in the lab, we get them into the hands of the true experts—the kids. Toys that pass the lab assessment are then sent for at-home testing. We assign toys to children based on their age and interests, as determined by screening surveys completed by parents. These surveys help match toys to kids' preferences and dislikes (because there's no point in sending a doll to a child who doesn't like dolls or a baby toy to a 6-year-old). In 2025, we sent 200 toys to the homes of more than 250 families. Each toy was tested by multiple kids, with some families having more than one toy tester providing feedback. We ask families to let the kids use the toys the way they would normally, so some toys traveled to the playground or the beach, while others were handled in the less-than-careful manner that children have.
After testing, we ask families to provide detailed evaluations of each toy: how much they enjoyed it, how long they played with it, what they liked or disliked and whether they would recommend the toy to others. This feedback gives us valuable insights into which toys are hits, which are misses and which don’t hold up during real-world play.
We also invite a select group of kids into our Labs for side-by-side toy testing. In 2025, more than a dozen kids, ranging from toddlers to tweens, came to the Good Housekeeping Institute for play sessions with toys set up for them. This part of the process is a staff favorite because it allows us to see firsthand which toys kids naturally gravitate toward in a room full of playthings. Sometimes, their favorites even surprise us!
We save all this feedback to inform our ongoing toy coverage beyond the Good Housekeeping Toy Awards, too. For instance, our writers and editors exhaustively update our gift guides for kids of every age throughout the year, helping you to narrow down the options for the children on your list for birthdays, holidays and beyond.
Other Considerations
We—along with the parents of our kid testers—love to see toys that support various developmental skills, so we also consider:
- Does it help kids practice their fine or gross motor coordination?
- Does it prompt them to use their creativity and imagination?
- Does it make them use their strategy, logic or problem-solving skills?
- Does it offer any sensory benefits?
- Does it provide any social-emotional learning?
- Does it expose kids to or represent different people and cultures?
- Will it help them in any academic subjects, like STEM or reading?
Again, if kids tell us the toy isn't fun to play with, all of that is moot, but we like to keep learning in mind when deciding if something is worthy of recommending.
We also make sure we're offering options for every budget. While we won’t recommend a toy that doesn’t offer good value, we don’t set an upper price limit for the toys we evaluate. If a toy’s quality justifies a higher price tag and can be enjoyed by multiple kids for years, we include it in our recommendations.
Meet the Experts
Amanda Constantine
Amanda Constantine is a is a reviews analyst at the Good Housekeeping Institute. She managed the consumer testing experience for this year's Toy Awards, overseeing the matching of at-home testers to hundreds of product submissions and coordinating the in-Lab toy testing experience with kids.
Jessica Hartshorn
Contributing Writer Jessica Hartshorn has spent countless hours poring over our toy data and tester feedback. She previously ran the Best Toys program for Parents magazine and covered the baby-gear market for the brand. As a mom of two, she also reviews parenting products of all kinds for the Good Housekeeping Institute.
Marisa LaScala
Senior Parenting Editor Marisa LaScala has contributed to GH's toy coverage since 2018. She previously wrote about parents, families and work at Parents and Working Mother. Marisa lives with her husband (a Star Wars toy collector) and daughter (a D&D enthusiast who has tested more than 20 toy submissions herself).
Lexie Sachs
Lexie Sachs is the executive director of strategy and operations at the Good Housekeeping Institute and a lead reviewer of products in the parenting space. She oversaw the planning and operations of this year's Toy Awards program. Lexie is also a mom of two elementary-aged children, who tested and love many of this year’s winners.
Alec Scherma
Alec Scherma is a mechanical engineer in the Good Housekeeping Institute. When it comes to toy testing, in addition to building many of the toys himself to provide an engineer’s perspective, he also conducts hands-on testing of parenting gear, including strollers, sound machines and more.
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
Jessica (she/her) is a freelance writer with several decades of experience writing lifestyle content and evaluating home and parenting products. A mom of two teens and two cats, her previous work can be seen in American Baby and Parents.
Lexie Sachs (she/her) is the executive director of strategy and operations at the Good Housekeeping Institute and a lead reviewer of products in the bedding, travel, lifestyle, home furnishings and apparel spaces. She has over 15 years of experience in the consumer products industry and a degree in fiber science from Cornell University. Lexie serves as an expert source both within Good Housekeeping and other media outlets, regularly appearing on national broadcast TV segments. Prior to joining GH in 2013, Lexie worked in merchandising and product development in the fashion and home industries.
