Dana Gutkowski
Latest posts by Dana Gutkowski (see all)
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- End Your Silence. Support Black Lives Matter - June 29, 2020
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Are you looking for a great birthday or holiday gift for little girls around the age of five years old? Do you have a niece or little girl turning 5-8 years old soon? Are you having trouble figuring out what to get for her?
Whether it’s for her birthday, special event, or holiday, there are certain gifts that are always a winner amongst this age group of girls.
My niece Layla LOVED all of these toys at 5 years old and beyond. Even now that she’s 9, she STILL plays with them. These aren’t toys that kids just simply grow out of because they allow
By five years old they’ve grown out of their preschool toys, and now they’re ready for big girl toys. They still want to play, but not with anything that they deem to be “baby” toys. It doesn’t mean that they don’t want to play with baby dolls, but they don’t want toys that light up and make noises like the ones for toddlers.
Barbies are great, but what else is out there??
So what do you get for your little girl who’s now turned into a big girl overnight? Here’s the list of toys that I got my niece Layla when she was around 5 years old.
Here’s a list of Layla’s Favorite Toys!
Shopkins Cutie Cars
Have you heard of Shopkins? They’re miniature food and other inanimate objects with faces on them (depending on the “Season”). Shopkins comes out with new items and calls them seasons like shows. They also give them very cute names like Kooky Cookie, Lippy Lips, Strawberry Kiss, etc. Those are Layla’s favorites.
To expand on their brand, they came up with Cutie Cars. I gave these to Layla not only because she asked for them, but because it felt like a real gift. She asked for the figures, which was fine, but then what do you do with 30 miniature food items?
I felt like I was adding a creative element to her playtime with these Cutie Cars. They’re relatively inexpensive and they’re not cheaply made. It was a sound investment.
You get 3 cars per box, and they come in different themes. I bought her 3, Bumper Bakery, Candy Combo, and Pretty Performers. Here’s the list of choices:
- Bumper Bakery
- Breakfast Beeps Collection
- Candy Combo
- Fast and Fruity
- Pretty Performers Collection
- Dessert Drivers Collection
- Freezy Rides
- Speedy Style Collection
Check them out on Amazon:
Num Noms
What is a Num Nom? Well, it’s two toys in one. They are little scented creatures that are filled with other creatures.
Nums are the outer portion of the toy. They’re soft, squishy, and hollow. They’re nested on top of the Noms which are hard shells. They Noms are either mobile with tiny wheels on them or they’re filled with lip gloss.
Like Shopkins, Num Noms come out with different characters and are featured in Series. This set below is Season 4, featuring:
- 10 scented Nums (outer) in a variety of flavors, including one mystery Num
- Two scented glitter lip gloss Noms
Reuseable lunchbox package as a storage case
Num Noms are also great for imaginary play and are often depicted on YouTube as mischevious characters. I’m not really sure why, maybe it’s because of how they look, but it’s how Layla always played with them, often with her Shopkins.
Check them out on Amazon:
Hatchimals
What is a Hatchimal? A Hatchimal is a robotic pet that hatches from an egg.
When you first buy the toy it’ll be encased in its hard
There are directions inside on how to care of the
I bought this gift when my nieces and nephews were still living in Maryland and I was in New York. So although I got to see the unveiling of the gift, I didn’t get to see how long it took for them to get the egg open. However, it did come out. According to the company it takes approximately 20 minutes for the egg to hatch on its own.
What’s so cool about this toy is that it has stages of life. The toy doesn’t grow, but it’s abilities develop. Each
They come with everything you need: 2 AA batteries, an official Hatchibirth certificate, 4 accessories, an instruction booklet & cheat sheet.
Check it out on Amazon:
Baby Alive
Baby Alive is a great gift for a five-year-old because she’s not just a regular doll. She’s a doll that little girls can feed and change because she asks for it!!
Little girls can practice their nurturing skills with this doll. They can make her food in the Baby Alive blender, feed her, give her a bottle, and change her diapers because she actually pees and poops.
I opted for Baby Alive Spoonfuls because the other one uses playdoh as her food. There were customer complaints about that food getting stuck in the doll and never coming out. I didn’t want to deal with that and my sister hates Playdoh so I went with this one instead.
The food is powder and is mixed with water which seems to go down pretty easily and doesn’t get stuck in the doll.
The diapers can be used a few times, but eventually they need to be thrown away. Layla got some hand me down diapers when her brothers outgrew the ones that they were in. That worked out well for her.
Note that this doll DOES NOT talk.
Check it out on Amazon:
LOL Surprise Dolls
LOL Surprise Dolls are very popular with little girls. The LOL isn’t laughing out loud like in text. It stands for little outrageous littles. However, you might laugh once you find out the secret to each doll.
They love the anticipation of finding out what’s inside the spherical egg. The packaging of the LOL Dolls prevents anyone from seeing the actual doll. Hence the name Surprise Doll.
Each doll is encased in a plastic ball and then sealed with plastic wrapping. You’ve gotta do a little work to open them and that builds on the surprise.
Once open and revealed, you’ll find 7 surprises!
- secret message sticker
- collectible stickers
- water bottle
- shoes
outfit - fashion accessory
- L.O.L. Surprise! glam glitter doll
So what does this LOL Surprise Doll do? Well, that’s another surprise. You have to put her in water to find out. After she’s been dunked in the water you’ll discover if she cries, spits, tinkles, or color changes!
It’s a fun toy since there are so many surprises that go along with this gift. The only negative is you’re not sure (when you buy more than one) if you’ll be getting duplicates of the same. On a positive note, Layla just treats the duplicates as twin sisters.
Each ball that the doll is designed for more play. It becomes a little carrying case, doll display, or hang out and bathtub.
I’m not sure how many Layla has collected by now, but she LOVES every one of them.
Check it out on Amazon:
Littlest Pet Shop
Layla was turned on to Littlest Pep Shop toys (LPS) by her cousin Lola. Both are obsessed with animals and so it’s no surprise that they like playing with the toy versions.
They both love that you can pop their heads off and put them on different bodies. Think the puppy head should now be on the duck’s body? No problem!
This LPS toy is an Amazon exclusive with 15 pets inside!!
- armadillo
- 4 dogs
- duck
- fawn
- guinea pig
- turtle
- hippo
- meercat
- fox
- bear
- mouse
- cat
What’s also special about this LPS set is that it comes with a special cat, named Ziza
Check it out on Amazon:
Pugicorns
What exactly IS a pugicorn? Though I don’t know who actually came up with this idea, but the person is a genius! They’ve combined a pug and a unicorn together, creating this adorable creative. Essentially it’s just a pug with a unicorn horn, but the two combined are adorable! This is something that’s pretty popular amongst girls right now. Unicorns are great, pugs are cute, but pugicorns are AWESOME!
What’s better than a gift with a cute pugicorn on it? A PERSONALIZED gift with a pugicorn on it. Help her decorate her room, a cool new shirt with her name on it, or simply some playing cards with this cute mug on it!
Personalized gifts are some of the most unique and thought full. It’s that little extra something that really sets any gift apart from the rest!
Here is my pugicorn collection from my Zazzle store!
Of course there are also FREE gifts that can go along with these toys.
Try writing her a letter. It’s a gift that they can hold on to forever. Loving words are never outgrown!
Does your niece love to color? Layla always asks me to draw her different things so that she can color them in! She loved my animals so much that I decided to create an entire book for my readers. Enter your email address for a FREE hand-drawn, coloring ebook – A-Z Animals!
I hope that you’ve found the perfect gift for your 5-year-old girl in your life. Layla loves each and every one of these toys and continues to get great use of out them. I often peek in on her to find that she combines these toys so that they all play together. Her imagination never ceases to amaze me.