Stars' Smartest Toy Picks

I'm always telling my 5-year-old daughter, Ashby, how important and fun learning is. It's one reason I love my career so much: There's always something new to explore. We all want our kids to have fun, and it's even better when they can learn at the same time. I asked a few celebs to share their fave educational toys.

By Nancy O?Dell

Published on December 18, 2012

Kristin Davis

Sex and the City star, mom of 1-year-old Gemma

"She's recently become very good at the sorting toys. For her birthday, Cindy [Cynthia Nixon] gave her a house that has blocks in different colors and shapes. In two days, she got it! And she knows how to open it, get all the blocks back out, and start again. I'm very impressed."

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Ali Larter

Resident Evil: Afterlife actress and mom of 2-year-old Theodore

"He's amazing with the alphabet and with his numbers and all of that. Alphabet flash cards have been incredible. On airplanes, they have saved us! It might be like A-B-C ... T-P-O ... but we're getting pretty close!"

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Melissa Roycroft

Dancing With the Stars diva, mom of Ava (2 years this month)

"My husband [Tye Strickland, shown] and I are huge fans of the Melissa & Doug wooden puzzles. They have a wide variety of jigsaw puzzles, peg puzzles, knob puzzles. Ava can't get enough of them, and she's learning about shapes, sounds, and textures at the same time."

Shop for Melissa & Doug wooden puzzles at melissaanddoug.com.

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Debra Messing

Smash cast member and mom of 8-year-old Roman.

"There's an app called Word Worm, which I think is fantastic. It's all about finding words in a graph, and the worm eats the letters as you go. We love to do that together."

Find Word Worm in the iTunes store.

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Nancy's New App for Kids!

Follow a budding reporter and her crew from the Grand Canyon to the moon. The educational app ($3; ages 3 to 8) is available for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Get the scoop at LittleAshbyStarReporter.com.

Originally published in the February 2013 issue of Parents magazine.

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