Selfsufficientish.com

We have bought/been bought some stinkers over the years.

Worst: (what was I thinking??) toy popcorn maker and toy marshmallow maker. Utter plastic crap.

Best: Duplo, playdough cutters, etc (to go with home made playdough), dressing up clothes (mostly castoffs from jumble sales)

What are your best/worst toys?

Jane

meccano...........the one and only original metal meccano.......
-comes over all misty-eyed at the thought

best
cardboard boxes
sticks
left over pieces of timber
amazing ingenuity and imagination of children

worst - any plastic tat that breaks
'You can make this' toys that take ten minutes

I'd second that snapdragon. My two love nothing better than digging dirt, making dens etc and can go into absolute raptures over a big cardboard box !

As far as buying a toy goes - mine like small figures thats they can use in a pretend world - duplo - homemade playdough and sellotape !

Best toys
Wooden spoon and tupperware bowl (E's current fave)
A small bag or bucket filled with small cuddleys, building block, etc. (E's current other fave)
Duplo
Stickle bricks (I loved them)
Brio - train set and other stuff, they seem to invest alot in the quality and play value of toys.


Worst toys
Anything that needs batteries
Anything that make horendous electronic noisies
Books that talk (pet hate... grrrr)
Platic tat that comes in a box more than twice the size of the toy
Plastic play house
Plastic slide (for age 18-24 months)
Plastic sand pit
Plastic kitchen
Plastic ride-on
Anything affiliated with Walt Disney princesses

best toy

My son has a pedal go cart, its fantastic, and as he cannot ride a bike this is perfect. He has an adult trike, but that sets him apart from other kids.. whereas the go-cart is the envy of other kids. its metal, sturdy, with proper steerings etc. and it has a trailer.. which means he will take away grass clippings for the compost heap, twigs for the kindling pile etc. he hurtles around on it, gets lots of exercise.

worst

well we dont have any.. but I really loathe those 'toys' that read to the child.. and imply that their child will become brainy as a result, so the parents dont have to read to their kids any more.... grrrr

best toy...any art stuff and if i dont put horses my eldest would never forgive me lol

worst toy...a garage from tomy that broke within days

BEST

I go with the consensus that pretty much any random object and a child´s enthusiasm and imagination seem to do the trick.......right now DD is emptying my kitchen shelves of pans and squeaking! Oh now she´s climbed inside the roasting pan - who knows!

"Proper" toys she likes are simple things like wooden animals, I also have some nice robust baby friendly (german made) plastic animals that make their sounds, Theo Klein they are made by, I would recommend them - even though they are plastic, as they are definitely not tat.

WORST

Thankfully we have so far managed to avoid plastic tat and baby bleedin´einstein nonsense - being abroad makes people a little less likely to send you bulky rubbish!



I used to have every 5 year old´s dream job - I bought toys!

I worked for a special needs organisation and part of my job was to find toys that would motivate children with autism to communicate - so basically anything that flashed, spun, was gooey, made a noise or did a combination of the above! These toys whilst generally we may think of them as being unimaginative (and quite often cheap and cheerful), actually do have a part to play where there is a need to be met.
But, yeah I really did struggle with the ethics of all that plastic rubbish - but then the higher aim was to get these non-verbal students to communicate, and in most cases, unpainted wooden toys just didn´t hold interest.

actually in my sons opinion - the best toys are the ones that interest adults too - particularly visiting adults. so a marble run is always popular, train sets, outdoor swings, lego, slinky! - things that make adults go ooooo and start to play too!

i used to have a fantastic marble run that was about 5ft tall. i have no idea what happened to it though but its something i'd definitely play with again!

best (thinking of a 5 year old here)

lego, crayons and paints, scrap paper and old catalogues. Metal meccano, marbles, musical stuff - ie tamborine, drums, recorder, xylophone. Games to play with the rest of the family - ludo, snakes and ladders, draughts, chess etc. Tiddlywinks. In fact, a box filled with the basic old fashioned games along with a packet of cards and some dice is a great idea. I've got a great game that was made by the Green Board Game Co and it's an environmental education game called Sorted. It's great - aimed at school children really but J enjoyed playing along too. Really makes you think.

Worst
Anything that speaks/squeaks/buzzes. AAARGGGH!! the rest has already been mentioned. Things that you buy that encourage the child to say 'hey mum, I need this, this this and this before I can really play with it'. Toys with batteries.

By far the best for my kids was a big collection of lego, second would have been their sandpit, although made of plastic they sparked imagination and were used for years and years.

Worst has to a head designed for the budding hairdresser. It was never used and spent it's time thrown in the corner ready to scare the living daylights out of anybody with a nervous disposition.

Well there is a place where as a childminder I do buy toys from. they may not be the cheapest butas we know cheap is not always good. I prefer one or two decent toys than a load of crap that has to be binned in a very short time.

and they have 10% of if your really quick....

http://www.letterbox.co.uk/

Best? Home-made bow and arrows.

Worst? Home-made bow and arrows.