The best double-sided art easels do something a tablet never will: they give a kid a vertical surface, two different textures to work on, and total permission to make a mess that wipes clean. One side for chalk, one for markers, a roll of paper down the middle, and suddenly the afternoon runs itself.
We bought our first easel when my daughter was about two and a half, mostly out of desperation. She had discovered that walls are basically large blank canvases, and I had discovered how much magic eraser costs. The easel didn’t fix everything overnight, but it gave her a place where drawing was the whole point, and it’s been in steady rotation through all three kids since. My youngest, now a year and a half, mostly bangs the chalk against the tray and calls it art. That’s fine. That’s the range these things have to cover.
After years of having an easel in steady rotation through three kids, I know what actually matters once the novelty wears off: the surfaces that hold up, the heights that grow with a kid, the accessory piles that look great in the box and vanish under the couch by month two. I dug into the specs, the accessory lists, and a frankly unreasonable number of reviews to pull together the six below, grouped by who they’re for rather than ranked one through six.
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The 6 Best Double-Sided Art Easels in 2026 (at a glance)
| Easel | Best For | Material | Accessories | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joyooss Double-Sided Wooden | Best overall | Pine wood | ~98 pieces | ~$80 |
| Basytodio Kids Easel | Best for toddlers 2–4 | ABS plastic | Basic set | ~$40 |
| Melissa & Doug Deluxe | Best classic wooden | FSC wood | None included | ~$45 |
| Tiny Land Deluxe | Best for small spaces | Pine + MDF | Mid + magnets | ~$74 |
| YOHOOLYO Wooden Standing | Best budget standing | Wood | Sparse | ~$53 |
| Rundad 100+ Accessories | Best all-in-one gift | Wood | 100+ pieces | ~$80 |
Prices bounce around constantly — check the live listing before you commit.
Why a Double-Sided Easel Earns Its Floor Space
Standing at an easel is different from drawing flat at a table. The vertical surface makes kids extend their wrist and shoulder, which is part of why occupational therapists like easels and chalkboards for building the kind of fine-motor strength that later supports handwriting. It’s the same reason all that early scribbling matters: by around age three, drawing a circle when you show them how is an actual cognitive milestone the CDC tracks at this age, and an easel gives them a low-stakes place to practice the lines and loops that get them there.
The other quiet win is that it’s screen-free by default. The CDC and AAP both suggest capping screen time for toddlers and preschoolers and leaning on play and interaction instead, and an easel is one of the rare toys that delivers open-ended play for genuinely long stretches. If you’re weighing creative play against the alternatives, our roundup of the best learning tablets for kids is the screen-based counterpart — though for the under-5 crowd, the easel wins most afternoons in our house.
What to Look For Before You Buy
- Two real surfaces. The point of double-sided is variety: a magnetic dry-erase whiteboard on one side, a chalkboard on the other. Magnetic matters more than you’d think, because alphabet and number magnets turn the easel into a learning station, not just a drawing board. One honest heads-up: cheaper dry-erase boards can ghost or stain if marker sits overnight, so wipe them down at the end of the day and skip permanent markers entirely.
- Height adjustment. A two-year-old and a six-year-old are not the same height. The easels worth keeping adjust up as your kid grows, ideally across a wide enough range that one purchase covers several years.
- Stability. Kids lean, push, and occasionally try to climb. Wooden frames with side stabilizer bars or a wide base tip less than lightweight plastic ones.
- Paper roll setup. A built-in roll holder with a safe cutter is the difference between “grab a fresh sheet” and “rummage through the craft drawer.” Just know most easels measure the roll width oddly, so check before reordering paper.
- How many accessories you actually want. Some come with 100-plus pieces; some come with almost nothing. More isn’t automatically better. More is also more small parts to lose under the couch.
1. Joyooss Double-Sided Wooden Art Easel — Best Overall
Joyooss Double-Sided Wooden Art Easel (98+ Accessories)
This is the one I’d steer most people toward, partly because it does everything and partly because the sheer volume of reviews behind it tells you the design has been sanded down over many iterations. It’s solid pine, folds for storage, adjusts across three heights tall enough to take a kid from preschool into early grade school, and both sides are magnetic. The roughly 98-piece kit covers two paper rolls, magnetic letters and numbers, finger paints, markers, and chalk, so there’s no scramble for supplies on day one.
Heights: 3 settings, ~39.6″ / 46.6″ / 50.1″
Ages: 3–8 (small parts)
Includes: ~98 pieces — 2 paper rolls, magnetic letters & numbers, finger paints, markers, chalk, eraser, tray
Best for: A do-everything pick for a 3-and-up kid, families who want zero day-one supply runs, anyone who wants one easel to last from preschool into grade school.
Honest drawbacks: At around $80 it’s an investment, and all those little magnets and caps are a choking hazard for anyone still mouthing things, so it’s genuinely a 3-and-up pick. If your kid is under three, look at the Basytodio below.
2. Basytodio Kids Easel — Best for Toddlers (2–4)
Basytodio Kids Easel for Toddlers, 360° Double-Sided
This is the size and price point I’d start a two-year-old on. It’s compact, it spins a full 360 so two kids can argue over it from both sides, and at around $40 it’s the kind of easel you can hand a toddler without holding your breath every time they lean on it. You adjust the height by swapping the feet, which is a little fiddly but means it grows with them through the toddler years. It comes with chalk, dry-erase markers, a few magnets, an eraser, and a chalk holder.
Heights: 3 settings via swappable feet
Ages: 2–4
Includes: 6 chalks, 8 dry-erase markers, 4 magnets, eraser, chalk holder
Best for: A true first easel, small toddlers, tight budgets, and rooms where a compact spinning easel beats a full standing frame.
Honest drawbacks: It’s ABS plastic, not wood, so the writing surface is smaller and it doesn’t feel as substantial as the standing wooden models. For a first easel at this age, that’s a fair trade. The same small-parts caution applies to the magnets.
3. Melissa & Doug Deluxe Wooden Standing Art Easel — Best Classic Wooden
Melissa & Doug Deluxe Standing Art Easel
If you want the easel your own mom would recognize, this is it. Melissa & Doug has been making this folding wooden easel for the better part of two decades, it’s FSC-certified, and it’s built so two kids can work back to back. It has a locking paper-roll holder that fits an 18-inch or 12-inch roll, a child-safe paper cutter, four clips, and two removable trays. Its reputation for lasting through multiple kids without wobbling is the main reason it still sells after all these years.
Dimensions: 47″H × 27″W × 26″D, ~19 lbs; FSC-certified wood
Ages: 3+
Includes: Locking paper-roll holder, child-safe cutter, 4 clips, 2 trays (no paper/chalk/markers)
Best for: Parents who want a timeless wooden frame, two kids who’ll share, and anyone who already has art supplies on hand.
Honest drawbacks: It ships with almost no supplies. No paper roll, no chalk, no markers, no paint, so set aside another $15 to $20 for the basics. It’s also the heaviest here at around 19 pounds, which is great for stability and less great if you move it room to room.
4. Tiny Land Deluxe Double-Sided Magnetic Easel — Best for Small Spaces
Tiny Land Deluxe Foldable Double-Sided Easel
For anyone short on square footage, this Tiny Land model folds down with side stabilizer bars and tucks against a wall, but feels sturdy when it’s open. It’s natural pine and hemlock with eco-friendly MDF and water-based paint, third-party tested to U.S. ASTM and CPSC standards, which is the kind of detail I notice now that I have a kid who still occasionally licks things. Setup is just attaching four legs, it adjusts across three heights with twist knobs, and the deluxe kit adds magnetic letters and a math set on top of the paper roll, paint cups, chalk, and marker.
Heights: 3 settings, ~38.6″–43.9″, twist knobs; folds flat
Ages: 3–8
Includes: Paper roll, paint cups, chalk, marker, eraser + magnetic letters & math set
Best for: Apartments and shared rooms, parents who want a foldaway easel that still feels solid, and anyone reassured by third-party safety testing.
Honest drawbacks: Reviewers note the paper-roll mechanism can be stiff for little hands to pull on their own, so you’ll be the official paper-tearer for a while. The accessory pile is also smaller than the 100-piece bundles, though I’d argue that’s a feature.
5. YOHOOLYO Wooden Kids Easel — Best Budget Standing Easel
YOHOOLYO Wooden Children Art Easel with Paper Roll
This one quietly racks up sales because it nails the basics for the money. It’s a real wooden standing easel with both magnetic surfaces, a bottom storage tray with cups, and a paper roll the kids can pull down themselves instead of fighting with clips. The standout is the height range: it goes from under 30 inches all the way past 53, which is the widest span on this list, so it realistically lasts from preschool into the years when my daughter started writing her name and wanted to do it standing up “like a teacher.”
Heights: ~29.9″–53.5″ (widest range here)
Ages: 3+
Includes: 18″ pull-down paper roll, storage tray with cups, 3 dry-erase pens
Best for: Budget-minded families, a long-lasting standing easel, and kids who like to pull their own paper without help.
Honest drawbacks: The included supplies are sparse, basically a few dry-erase pens, so this is more easel-and-paper than all-in-one art station. If you already have a craft drawer, that’s no loss. If you’re starting from zero, factor in supplies.
6. Rundad Double-Sided Wooden Easel — Best All-in-One Gift
Rundad Double-Sided Wooden Easel (100+ Accessories)
If your idea of a good gift is one box that contains absolutely everything, that’s the Rundad’s whole pitch. It’s a wooden double-sided easel where both surfaces are magnetic, the height adjusts with a side knob, and it lands with a genuinely loaded kit: markers, chalk, paints, brushes, magnetic letters and numbers, two paper rolls, plus an oversized tray and two storage bags to corral it all. For a birthday where you want the kid to gasp at the pile, it delivers.
Heights: 3 settings via side knob, ~43″–48″
Ages: 3–8
Includes: 100+ pieces — markers, chalk, paints, brushes, magnetic letters & numbers, 2 paper rolls, tray, 2 storage bags
Best for: A gift-ready, everything-included easel, and families who’d rather not buy supplies separately.
Honest drawbacks: It overlaps a lot with the Joyooss at the same price, so it really comes down to which listing’s color you like and whether you want the extra storage bags. The starting height also runs a touch tall, so a small two-year-old might be reaching up. And, predictably, 100 small pieces is 100 small pieces to keep track of.
Setting Up a Space They’ll Actually Use
The easel that gets used is the one that lives where the living happens. Ours sits in the corner of the kitchen, not in the playroom, because the playroom is where toys go to be forgotten. A few things that made a real difference for us:
- Put it on a wipeable floor or a cheap splat mat. Chalk dust and washable marker happen. Carpet plus toddler plus art is a combination you only make once.
- Keep supplies down to a handful at a time. A full 100-piece bin overwhelms little kids. We rotate maybe ten things and the rest live in a closet.
- Pair it with a low table for sit-down days. Some afternoons they want to stand and paint; others they want to sit and focus. If you don’t have one yet, our picks for the best toddler table and chair sets cover the sit-down half of an art corner.
- Let the process be the point. Resist asking “what is it?” The research on early art is consistent that the doing matters more than the finished picture, and honestly, you will guess wrong anyway. It’s a dog. It’s always a dog.
FAQ
What age is a double-sided art easel best for?
Most standing easels are rated 3 and up because of small magnets and caps, and they comfortably last into the early grade-school years. For under-3s, choose a toddler-specific easel like the Basytodio with the small parts kept out of reach, and supervise closely.
Chalkboard, whiteboard, or paper roll — which side actually gets used?
All three, in waves. In our house the chalkboard wins for open scribbling, the magnetic whiteboard wins for letters and numbers once a kid is into them, and the paper roll is for the “real” drawings that get saved on the fridge. That variety is the entire argument for double-sided.
How do I stop a dry-erase easel from staining or ghosting?
Wipe it down at the end of each day rather than letting marker sit overnight, use only dry-erase (never permanent) markers, and for stubborn ghosting, go over the marks with a fresh dry-erase marker and wipe immediately. A drop of board cleaner once a week keeps the surface from graying.
Are art easels worth it, or is a table enough?
A table is fine, but the vertical surface is the point: it builds the shoulder and wrist strength that supports later handwriting, and standing to draw keeps a lot of kids engaged longer. If you’re building a broader play setup, our guide to the best toys for 2–3 year olds pairs well with an easel for that age.