Nearing 21 months here but not much has really changed in terms of activities in the last 2-3 months so am chiming in...
Ditto on the Fisher Price Little People sets. They are expensive here in Germany (ie/ the car garage is $45 Canadian versus 55 Euros here which is $75 Canadian!!) but worth EVERY penny. We have the garage, the farm, Noah's Ark, and the town and each one gets HOURS of play. Would not know which one to pick as the #1, probably the garage, but only because that one he can do totally on his own driving the cars up and putting them down the ramps, while the farm and town and arc he needs someone to play with him if it is going to be fun. But, will still use the others for shorter times on his own if i get it set up and show him something to play but he does get bored quickly without me or DH with him.
Anything vehicles -- he now has so many little cars (matchbox ones, iykwim) that we have a huge bucket filled with them and sometimes he will just sit and go through them one by one and examine each one before reaching in and getting another....like probably 30-60 minutes each day is spent with his cars.
Arty stuff - he has been into playdoh recently but really needs guidance with it. I help him roll it out and he uses the cookie cutters to make shapes he knows (animals, cars, etc) and then squishes them again. Probably only 10-15 minute spells at once, but he asks for it every day. Same with crayons, he asks to get them out every day but only spends a few minutes at a time scribbling. About once a week we get out all of the week's flyers (there are an absurd number of advertisement flyers here, like every week a stack about 1-2 inches thick not joking!) and we go through them and cut out things that he likes and he glues them on to a paper and we stick it on the fridge. Takes an hour or so and he's really into it!
Plastic animals - sets of zoo animals or farm animals. Similar to the cars, he just likes to look through them and sort them, put them in his farm (yes our farm has monkeys, zebras and elephants as well as race cars and its very own postbox, LOL).
Toy kitchen - with plastic food and a teaset and all of the dishes. He sets up tea parties for his stuffed animals and cooks things for them
He loves playing in the kitchen sink, standing on his chair and using my cups and plastic tubs and things. Hours!
Aside from that DS is also an outdoors boy and we do spend a lot of time out and about so when we do come home he generally is happy to run straight to his toys and play on his own for a good stretch, aside from rainy days when he is bored stiff!!
