Top Ten+ Toy Tuesday

One of my most favourite bloggers has had the wonderful idea of people posting their top 10 toys to help others choose presents.

After a morning's photographing I have come up with these and there may be more than 10. I apologise for the quality of some of the photos. I must have been a bit jittery from all the excitement! I would also like to point out that these aren't necessarily in order.

First up is playmobil. I only started buying this when my eldest was about 7 or 8 as before then it was too expensive for us. It is fantastic plastic stuff and the kids love to get it out and play. They can go in the bath, they can go in sand and they are lovely and chuncky to hold. The animals are a particular hit with my kids, even though we have Santa and his sleigh and pirates and knights.


Next up are these horrible looking things. Once again I didn't start buying these until my eldest was about 7. He and his next brother down LOVED them. But they drove me nuts because they would pull them apart and loose bits everywhere. I kind of gave up on them and would have been happy to ditch them, BUT every birthday money that's what they bought. We now have a box full of Bionicle bits that the two middle boys make into all sorts of creatures (I have let go). This little set up here is a collection of creatures my 10 year old has in his room. They are made up from all different parts and he uses them to play cricket and rugby (not the wad of paper...that's a ball. I'm always getting into trouble for throwing out his balls). I love these now as I can see the potential they have for kids to make of them what they will. They articulate really well and both the younger boys (and even my daughter) can make of them what they will.



And here we have yet more plastic! I can't even begin to imagine how many plastic animals we have had in our time:lizards, dinosaurs, whales, sharks, dolphins, snakes (oh all the snakes), bats, insects, these birds and probably more. All 4 have been fascinated with animals when they were little and having these little bits of plastic fueled many, many hours of playing. Remi (10) now has what is left of the collection (mostly birds) in his room as he is a made bird watcher and still likes to play games where he takes on the voice of David Attenborough. The nature of our lives and how many times we've moved has meant that many of these plastic animals have been handed on to other people. But as stocking fillers I always found these were a hit.


To more plastic! Little People. I bought our first little people for Remi for his first birthday...the train set and remember thinking at that time that $25 was so much and I was spoiling him. These weren't very common in Australia back then and were very expensive. But when we first moved to the States and had 2 little ones and it was so cheap, we went all out. They had the dolls house and diggers and helicopters and all sorts of stuff. As they have outgrown it (the youngest is nearly 6) I have let it go to cousins. But it was a wrench getting Ella to give it up. So this is her consolation....our nativity. She has been sneaking up to the attic since we moved here and playing with it, so I know it's still something she loves. It's something about the chunkyness of the pieces. They remind me of the original weebles I used to have as a child which were my favourite.


Ah finally to something wooden. This Plan Dolls house I gave Ella for her 2nd Christmas. I had always been tempted to get one for the boys but they were out of our reach price wise back then and I really didn't know if they'd play with it. When Ella first got this, I remember that all 4 of them would sit around and play with it, but over the years it has become more just Ella's. It was originally just wood, but she wanted me to paint it and I must say I did an aweful job on it, but she loves it like that. We had lots of the plan furniture for it, but my one dissapointment has been that they tend to fall apart or break pretty easily. The highchair didn't make the last move, and actually a piece of the roof came off too. And who lives in this house? Well anyone who wants to including a family of these little animals which have also been a favourite over the years. When Oscar was 2 he had a little pink pig one that went everywhere with him because it was just the right sizze to fit into his hand. Unfortunately he is at the bottom of Sydney harbour after being accidently dropped from a ferry one day.


So back to plastic, and here is one of our many boxes of legos. This is the starwars box I think. What can I say? The kids love this stuff. Even Oscar (12) can still be heard rummaging around in this box, making things. Once again I have had to let go and realise that while the kids like making the "real thing" the first time, after that they just like to make things. When Kit was in Kindergarten in Australia he used to make something new each week and take it in for show and tell.


This is a pile of "dress ups"...various remnents of fabrics, home made costumes and ex halloween costumes all thrown in together. I had to cull these pretty savagely before our last move, but they have always been a central part of all the kids play. I have so many photos of them in various costumes. We had been very anti weapon with all the kids as they grew up. I still won't allow toy guns in the house (the older boys didn't even know the word until they went to school) so we were very suprised when young Kit at the age of 2 was obsessed with swords and knights. Added to that the boys became rather obsessed with Lord of the Rings when it came out at the movies, but in my defence, they had the Hobbit read to them before all of that, and Oscar read all of the Lord of the Rings trilogy when he was 9, also before he had seen the movies. The point of all this? Swords and bows have featured high upon the list of dress up play. We have bits of plastic swords everywhere and sticks that are precious because they are infact a bow or a sword. Many people may find this disturbing, but I actually love watching my kids go off and play (totally on their own) and you can see them get into the character of what ever book they are reading. They don't fight each other with swords, but fight imaginary beasts. [ A bit of a digression, but Oscar wrote a wonderful poem for school called "Where am I from?" which has this line:
I am from brothers and sisters who fight imaginary dragons with sticks.
I think he sums it up perfectly]

For those of you who are still with me, we have the collection of soft toys. These are Remi's who is 10, but all of them have their bed toys and none of them could leave them behind in Aus, although we culled. My husband dispairs at the number of soft toys, but they love them and they play with them. They use them in all sorts of games during the day and even when they are falling asleep. My favourite word when hearing kids play is "pretend", and I often hear "pretend the seal is really our baby/mother/can fly..." or whatever.

Lucy. Lucy has to get a mention because she has become Ella's best friend. Lucy is a part of the family and Ella even bought her a present recently at a craft fair and has wrapped it and put it under the tree. I know these American girl dolls are over marketed and expensive etc, but I love the fact that Lucy is not just a doll. She's looking a bit ragged today because Ella slept on her.

And I have to say that I have only in the last few months discovered Steiner dolls, otherwise I am sure they would be a big part of our play life.

And we have Barbie's car here, although you never know who is driving it. Today it's Todd and Wendy these weird looking bend figures that Ella loves. Usually the car is stuffed full of things in the boot/trunk. That has been one well played with toy.

But sometimes I wonder why I bother with toys....Ella is so fondof just collecting bits and pieces and playing with them. Scraps of fabric, scraps of wool, broken bits and pieces. She's like a little squirrel and she packs them all into bags and purses and boxes and squirrels them away. And they are all precious.

And of course all multitude of crafting/painting/drawing/sticking/paper stuff which they all love. They often get their own sketch book for Xmas with proper water colour pencils or paints. They love to have their own special supplies.

Oh and now the boys are older it's all balls, balls, balls. But they love to have a kick of the footy (Aussie rules, Rugby, Gridiron, soccer...you name it, we've go them all) with their dad (and occasionally mum) on the weekend.

Whew! That's a lot of toys...but we have been doing this for 12 years now...And of course there are all the ones we had but have let go over the years as you can't take everything with you when you move: Thomas the tank engine trains ( the boys were never into cars...maybe it's because I don't drive and we used to catch trains?), sand pits/boxes (although the sand in the house drove me nuts), Duplo blocks, wooden blocks, and probably more that I can't remember.

It's funny how doing this has become an opportunity for me to remember little tales about my kids. As they get older there will be certain things I keep because I remember how they were at that age by what toy was special to them then.