Tuesday, June 16, 2009

In Praise Of Simple Toys

Today, I wanted to Talk About simple toys. Since I've been part of this motherhood cycle for a while, I've learned a few things. We've all discovered you don't need every baby product on the market. We've all seen that kids enjoy the product packaging as much as the fancy toy inside. We've all discovered that a child's attention span is very small.

One thing I have found with my own children is that they seem to enjoy simple toys the most. We have lots of wooden toys at our house. Blocks, puzzles, "food" and tool sets. These draw my kids together more than anything else. I think that it is because there is room for their imaginations as well.

We have cleared out a lot of the excess stuff in our home recently. A lot of what went were the "new" and "great" toys that were all the rage in past years. What has stayed are the simpler things. Wooden toys, open-ended play things, books, puzzles and board games. We've found ourselves to be happier and more creative because of this.

What are your children's favorite, simple toys?

-Julie

3 comments:

  1. I completely agree. The photo of blocks was what drew me to this post. My boys are 4 and 6 and still play with the blocks like crazy. They also very much enjoy stuffed animals and random bits of recycling that they turn into "guys" and develop a story around. No need for fancy toy sets here.

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  2. I loved our wooden bricks and would still recommend a set to anyone with young children.

    Add a roll of masking tape and a few toy cars and you can make whole towns out of wooden bricks on the floor, using the tape to mark out the roads.

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  3. Great post. I find that the more simple a toy is, the more freedom a child has to be creative and use it in different ways.

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