I feel like I've started this thread before - toys recs

[moonflower]

I'm sure I started this exact thread years ago, but it was an old account and my search skills are not making it turn up in google.

I have 7 kids and I still don't know exactly what things to get for a horde of little ones.  We are sort of starting over with stuff -they have stuffed animals and small cars and other vehicles, but that's mostly it.  My inclination is to get a set of wood blocks, some fake food (they loved the fake food at a place we stayed over the summer), and maybe some play weapons?  They like guns and swords and etc (which in their cases are all sticks from outside).  I think maybe also they could use a small cart to push things around in.

Anyway, what else do little active kids like?  They're 7, 5, 3, and 2. They enjoy building things and destroying things and making messes.

[gardenmom5]

I grew up across the street from a family with four boys.

they had:

wood blocks

wood trains

fisher price little people

everyone wanted to play at their house.

 

I did something similar with my kids

wood blocks

wood trains

FP little people  (though now it seems more playmobil)

lego & duplo

rokenbok (when the boys got to the tween age)

we had a play kitchen and food.  (gotten rid off)

k'nex  (I'd like to sell, but last time dudeling stopped me, even though he doens't play with it.)

 

the thing is: I would buy some for each of them that they could put together into a bigger set.   I could add something at birthdays.   it was mostly communal.  lego creations could go up and be displayed.

I too ended up with the house - visiting kids didn't want to leave.

i've gotten rid of some - but still have plenty for visiting grandkids (when he's bigger) and nieces & nephews kids.

[medawyn]

We’ll, mine are a little younger (5, 3, 2, and <1) but Magnatiles and (Duplo) legos get the most play here.  Like a PP, I add to the communal collection at gift giving occasions.

Also unexpectedly but played with just as frequently are tubs of plastic animals from Target.  A little more annoying to pick up (they seem to travel more places) but tons of play time gets clocked.  We have several variations of these: https://www.target.com/p/terra-miniature-wild-animal-collection-by-battat/-/A-15842685

Magazines are also a favorite gift.  We receive and frequently reread Highlights (Hello and High Five), Ladybug (plus Babybug and Click), and Zoobooks (Zootles and.... can’t remember).  Lots of grandparents/aunt/uncle gifts.

[Terabith]

Building toys - blocks, legos, magnatiles, wedgits

play kitchen and food, maybe a toy shopping cart, couple dolls/ stuffed animals, doctor kit, maybe a toy cash register 

art materials

athletic stuff - balls, frisbees, bikes.  I really like wobble boards and pikler triangles for toddlers   Trampolines have safety issues but also lots of play value   Those ride in cars are great too or a step 2 roller coaster    Outdoor swing, push lawn mower, stomp rockets

toy trains, cars, little people and animals, maybe a fisher price farm or doll house, play mobile stuff 

play silks, dress up clothes, maybe toy weapons.  Pool noodles are great for this.  

Puzzles, board and card games, sensory bins and toys to go with (eye droppers, scoops, etc)

Edited September 17, 2018 by Terabith

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

You've gotten some good ideas.  Here are the toys that get daily play:

- fake food/kitchen

- play scarves (these are large, brightly colored silk scarves I bought off etsy, they are about 3ftx3ft or so)

- Wooden blocks- I'd get good ones that are built on the "standard unit" block scale, f.ex. Melissa and Doug.  You can do a lot more when the dimensions are consistent-ish.  

- Lego.  Just lots and lots of bricks (try garage sales and similar), you don't need to spend the money on special kits

- Art supplies

- For swords, look for tutorials on turning pool noodle toys into light sabers.  We've had the same sabers for 5+ years now, and they are just now beginning to break a bit.  They are fantastic, and don't hurt if you get hit, so I just let my kids go crazy with them.  About half the neighborhood got them at my son's birthday party 5 years ago, and the other half copied us, so now everyone has them!  

- I've been wanting to either buy or build one of the PVC building kits that are out there... google around, they look fantastic!!!  

 

 

[lavender's green]

We were drowning in gifted toys last year and decided to re-do things. For the downstairs communal toys we have a tent, play silks, lincoln logs, marbles, magnatiles, games/puzzles, foam swords, and crafty stuff. It sounds like a lot when I type it out, but it's easy to pick up and store on a bookshelf or two. Sometimes we bring down the trains or play kitchen with fake food, but those mostly live in the rooms of the kids who like them the best. I like this mix of communal toys because they're not "one-trick ponies." They fuel the imagination in different ways and can be played with by kids of differing ages and interests.

They keep personal toys in their own rooms (they still wind up all over, but that's where they live and go back to). For one kid, that's LEGO and small stuffies, for another, that's trains, marble works, DUPLO, robots, and a highly-prized collection of knick-knacks, and for another that's the kitchen items, dolls and figurines. 

[mmasc]

Definitely Duplo! They got tons of use in our house, especially the little set where you build cars. 

https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-DUPLO-First-Trucks-Year-Olds/dp/B017B19LD2?keywords=duplo+cars&qid=1537189503&sr=8-2&ref=mp_s_a_1_2

for outside, what about a water/sand table?

also, this truck: 

https://www.amazon.com/Tonka-Toughest-Mighty-Dump-Truck/dp/B009IVPFES?crid=3RFQEIF08GRVA&keywords=tonka+trucks+for+boys&qid=1537189612&sprefix=tonka+&sr=8-6&ref=mp_s_a_1_6

my DSs used it to haul all kinds of outdoor stuff...sticks, rocks, pecans, and various other treasures. It’s pretty big, so sometimes it was even used to haul a little brother  ??

At your kids’ ages, my kids really loved and got the most use from the make believe indoor kitchen, food, shopping cart, and cash register. They could all play together and it was just a super-useful set of stuff for our family. One day, they’d set up a grocery store and we’d shop. One day, it was a McDs drive-thru, one day it was their kitchen for cooking dinner...you get the idea. ?  

 

 

[vonfirmath]

7 hours ago, moonflower said:

I'm sure I started this exact thread years ago, but it was an old account and my search skills are not making it turn up in google.

I have 7 kids and I still don't know exactly what things to get for a horde of little ones.  We are sort of starting over with stuff -they have stuffed animals and small cars and other vehicles, but that's mostly it.  My inclination is to get a set of wood blocks, some fake food (they loved the fake food at a place we stayed over the summer), and maybe some play weapons?  They like guns and swords and etc (which in their cases are all sticks from outside).  I think maybe also they could use a small cart to push things around in.

Anyway, what else do little active kids like?  They're 7, 5, 3, and 2. They enjoy building things and destroying things and making messes.

 

If you are starting over, I'd get Magnatiles or Magformers (or both).  These are great for building with. They inter-play with other toys (plastic animals, etc) and my 11 year old is still playing with ours.

 

When they were younger my kids loved Castle Marbleworks: https://smile.amazon.com/Castle-Marbleworks®-Marble-Discovery-Toys/dp/B0040V0WCQ/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1537191114&amp;sr=8-10&amp;keywords=Marbleworks

 

They still love marbleworks (The older version), but not the cleanup required after playing with it. It'd probably be a better toy/used more often if we had the space to leave it up and "Fiddle with it" over time.

Edited September 17, 2018 by vonfirmath

[barnwife]

I'll throw out a suggestion of K'nex, which yours would grow into. We recently were given some and our just turned 8 yo loves them.

[Chris in VA]

My suggestion is to get them real things and loose parts. This is coming from a preschool teacher in the Reggio style, so take with your own grain of salt.  I don't do plastic anymore (except magnatiles, legos and duplos, frankly--these are fab). I want to give my kids the richest sensory experience I can, in order for their brains to develop. Google loose parts theory. 

So if you want to do an outdoor kitchen (super great idea, btw...google "mud kitchen" for diy ideas), you go to the op shop/thrift store and pick up 10 bucks worth of pots, trays, wooden dishes, etc. Collect corks, tree cookies (cut your own), pretty stones (Dollar Tree) and utensils (again, op shop or Dollar Tree, or even go thru your own stuff and give away what you have duplicates of)--use instead of food. A plastic cuke can be...a plastic cuke. A tree cookie can be a cake or a cookie or a plate or....When I got rid of the plastic food in our dramatic play area in my preschool class and subbed in loose parts, first time out a kid made fried rice. He brought himself and his own experience/culture/ideas in. 

As they say, the more the toy does, the less the kids does. So think of things that aren't ordinarily seen as toys. 

Building stuff is awesome, small worlds are awesome, playdough is super super awesome...--and you can set up things called "invitations," which are intriguing items set up...invitingly. Google Stimulating Learning with Rachel for an excellent blog about that. 

I love loose parts so much. I had a little 14 month old over a few days ago. I got out a big wooden bowl of rice (she started eating it so I quietly took it away--too young), a bowl with corks (loved it), a basket of hair curlers (they were plastic, fwiw), a spoon, and a few books and spread them all out on the floor on a sheet. She played longer than usual, her g'ma said. 

For olders, tinker trays either filled with parts to glue/screw/nail together or pieces to create transient art with are AWESOME. Oops--this tray is to teach math. I'm just going to leave it here because it's interesting and pretty. lol

Edited September 17, 2018 by Chris in VA

[Ausmumof3]

For every one over 5 in our house it would be LEGO as this is literally the only thing my 6 year old plays with.  Oh and Nerf guns depending how you feel about that.

 

[Ottakee]

If you can swing it one of the best outdoor things I ever bought was a dump truck load of clean fill dirt.  That dirt pile got.climbed.in, dug in, hauled around the yard, etc.   Years and years of fun.

[kbutton]

I had two kids with totally different taste in toys. Both had some motor issues, but different motor issues. I suggest buying a few things at a time, observing their play, and buying things that can be recombined into different types of play. 

I really, really second the clean dirt--both kids played in the dirt extensively. 

We also added (eventually), a climbing dome (one of the larger ones but not playground size), a tetherball pole, various kinds of swings from trees. The neighbors had the swingset (and were totally about sharing), so we majored in the other outdoor toys. 

I also agree about giving them at least some real things that are age appropriate, and then also exposing them to ways to use them. My kids were imaginative, but one was not into pretend (autism diagnosed very late). He was an imaginative problem-solver and also mimicked (elaborately) things that adults did (at 3, he watched a tree trimmer take down a tree in our yard--the rest of the summer, he "cut down" our redbud tree in the front yard over and over, including using ropes to lift his toy chainsaw up into the tree and to lower chunks of wood back down. He nailed every detail). End result--he spent the last year helping us fix up and sell our old home and upgrade things in our new home--installing vinyl plank flooring (continuously on one level--lots of doorways to run it under), plumbing, painting, landscaping, replacing light fixtures...the list is huge. My kiddo that was really good at pretend play is still pretty young, but he's really into mythology and maybe learning languages. He likes to do artsy things. 

Anyway, I think some kids need to be given examples of imaginative play, but then they take off and put their own spin on it. 

[Alte Veste Academy]

Our favorites for those ages, which I'm keeping for grandkids...

wooden unit blocks from Barclay Woods (the largest set you can afford)

Haba Ball Track with many add-ons

play figures and animals from Schleich, Papo, Safari

play silks of all sizes (I also had the playstands with the arches and a long silk over those which was wonderful for pretend play. They could rearrange them to be anything.)

art supplies, art supplies, and more art supplies...

puzzles, puzzles, and more puzzles...

Fort Magic is amazing. It was a later purchase for us that I wish had been available when they were little. My kids (15, 14, and 12) still use them to make forts for the cats. (Cats love forts. LOL)

I can't keep it for grandkids, but the huge sandbox DH built in the backyard was amazing. He'll definitely build a new one for grandkids if they live close by. They also had a geodesic dome in the backyard that I got a perfectly sized parachute toy to go over, and that was a great outdoor fort. Their wooden playset with a fort, swings/rings, and a slide was well loved as well. 

Lots of dress-up clothes and puppets, although I donated those to charity instead of saving them.

They did love DUPLO as well, but by the age of your older kids were well into LEGO. I'd rather spend the money on wooden blocks than DUPLO, knowing that they will eventually age into the LEGO anyway.

I'm sure I'm forgetting things... Good memories. ?

Edited September 18, 2018 by Alte Veste Academy

[maize]

My kids love duplos and magnatiles.