Don't buy toys for your child - let them make their own! They'll love it!
By coffeebreak
@coffeebreak (17797)
United States
July 8, 2008 8:33pm CST
While the good ol' box is a fantastic toy for little ones....
http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/1588402.aspx
as well as tupperware....
HEre's something to think about too... I bought, few years ago, a pup tent for my GD to play in and it is inside toy. Esasy to put up, lace the plastic poles through the top and they cross at the top - nice flap door with velcro to keep it closed and a window screen in the back! She loved it. Now 8 and my other GD age 2, they got to play with it together today for the first time. Oh, they had a blast... at first. Then my 8 yo decided to take blankets and drape them over the little kitchen table I have and each blanket on each of the four sides. Now they have a tent! THey played in that one three times longer than the pup tent and even named it "noona" and imagend rain storms and such.... here I had the realy thing for them, but they made their own and liked it better!
Moral of the story: save $10 (that is what I paid for the pup tent fewyears ago) and use blankets and the table and every house can have a tent ..oh, excuse me.. a "noona". WHy that name, I haven't a clue but the fun they had in it sure gave me joy! (and a break so I could lay down and rest while they played)
1 person likes this
3 responses
@twoey68 (13627)
• United States
22 Nov 08
When my brothers were growing up we didn't have alot of money for toys (Mom was a single parent of four kids) so they did make their own and they seemed at times to like them better than the store bought ones. My Mom also had a little trick of when they did get store bought toys she'd keep so many out for them to play with and the rest would be packed away, six months later she'd unpack them and the boys would have new toys to play with.
One of my favorite things to do with them was to make drawings on paper with glue and then cover the clue with glitter or crayon shavings. The boys loved doing it and they were really pretty too. They had all kinds of things they made with sticks, rocks, paper, string...you name it.
[b]~~AT PEACE WITHIN~~
**STAND STRONG AND TRUST IN GOD**[/b]
1 person likes this
@twoey68 (13627)
• United States
23 Nov 08
See that's called using your imagination and I don't see many kids doing it anymore. Most of them want to play on the pc, watch videos or expect to be entertained. Not how it was when I was a kid.
[b]~~AT PEACE WITHIN~~
**STAND STRONG AND TRUST IN GOD**[/b]
1 person likes this
@coffeebreak (17797)
• United States
23 Nov 08
I know! Isn't that the saddest thing?! My 8 yo grand daughter loves hearing my stories about when I was a kid. She told me the other day when iwas telling her about my childhood times, she said "I wish I could go back in time and be a kid when you were a kid - you had so much fun!". Sure made my day! But at my house, she seldom watches tv, I seldom offer (unless she needs a nap) and she never asks (unless she is really tired)She says she'd rather do crafts and take walks and stuff like that. I have her a big box of plastic dinosaurs (she is a huge fan!) and lincoln logs nad she loves building with them!!!
@coffeebreak (17797)
• United States
23 Nov 08
I know what you mean! The one "toy" I remember that we loved as a refridgerator box - we cut a door in it, and made a "fortune teller" machine out of it - one of us was inside and and we made slots for this and that. ANother time we used that same kind of box we found it in a vacant lot (we lived in the desert) and cut doors and windows nad filled it with empty aluminin cans to throw at any snakes that might happen by! Another time we made what they now call an ATM machine! Those were the best toys! .... I have to wonder now, where we always were able to get a refridgerator box!!!
@arkaf61 (10881)
• Canada
9 Jul 08
LOL it is true that kids have an amazing imagination and will play hours with something they "discovered" themselves. We sometimes buy them toys that they hardly play with and then find them making the most interesting things with the box the toy came in :)
Glad your GDs enjoyed their noona :):)
1 person likes this
@coffeebreak (17797)
• United States
9 Jul 08
I have been to the toy stores, and see hardly anything for the imagination. Everything is automated, batteried, or computerized. I did see a small bucket of Lincoln Logs on the lower shelf ... nearly out of site from the automated lego versions!
1 person likes this
@coffeebreak (17797)
• United States
9 Jul 08
And not just the box they came in, but the packing materials! Styrofoam peanuts, cardboard sectionals, styrafoam corners...these make great blocks!
1 person likes this
@littlefranciscan (18327)
• United States
29 Nov 08
I don't have children but I had little brothers and sisters and I remember that all of us: me included, preferred things like pots and pans, tools, hammers, and all the kinds of things that couldn't be wrapped up and topped with a fancy bow.
I remember my brother and I lining up chairs making pretend we were on a train ..Or drapping our bedspread off the top bunk of our bunk beds and making our little tents.
We had a prairie behind and aside of us and we loved to create stick houses etc.
Today I don't know how many children still pretend and imagine when they play ?
@coffeebreak (17797)
• United States
29 Nov 08
YOu sound like a part of my family! We went to the moon and back and out on the range and back - we went everywhere!
My grand daughters love it at my house and the tv never goes on and no electronic games in site! THey love to put a sheet over this small 2-person table I have and make a tent (I have a little pop-up pup tent, but they want to make their own!) and play for hours under there! I am jealous as I can't fit under there anymore! Plastic dinosaurs, hot wheels and plastic ponies are their favorite and rocks, and dirt are their favorite "landscapes".
It is a shame that so much is already done for kids these days and they dont' even get a chance to use their imaginations or thoughts and creativity! Very sad!
