californiagirl
03-02-2005, 12:56 PM
We had a party recently for DD's birthday and mine and my best friend's (DD's first birthday isn't actually until Friday) and we had an almost-3 year old, a 4 and half year old, and a 6 year old among the guests. I was interested to see which of DD's toys still amused the other kids. The 4 and 6 year old (both girls) were most interested in the pieces of cloth (some remnants of red and purple satin and an almost 2-yard piece of sparkly stuff) which they played with for basically the entire afternoon, incorporating them into most of their other games. (DD likes the cloth mostly for playing hide and seek, although she also enjoys just kind of crumpling it up.) They also liked the Duplos (we have a big bin that came with some extra bits, almost all plain blocks but lots of colors). DD just takes Duplos aparts and shoves them in her shape sorter; the big girls built things with them (a castle to go with their princess dresses) and played a "game" based on the colors of them. We also bought a bag of wood pieces at a teacher's supply store, and picked out the ones that were choking hazards, which left a bunch of balls and disks which were very handy for princess tea parties for the older girls. (One of DD's favorite things at the moment is taking the plain, unfinished wood disks, putting them into a measuring cup with a top, putting the top on, taking the top off, putting the disks into the top, dumping them out, and starting over.) This assortment looks better than ours, although it has fewer balls: http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/product/product.asp?sku=3613 They also used our supply of empty yogurt pots for the tea party.
The almost 3-year old had more commonality, of course. He loved the Radio Flyer walker wagon, and a somewhat underinflated Gertie bumpy football (DD likes to feel the texture and roll it about, he wanted to play catch and was just thrilled with how catchable it was). He also liked the Duplo, and even assembled things, but he just wanted to build towers, putting together as many pieces as possible. He liked the yogurt pots the same way DD does -- with a spool or a cat toy inside, used as a rhythm toy. He loved DD's shape sorter, http://store.yahoo.com/kidsurplus/tomty6633.html although he took off the shape sorting end and shoved things through the other end (it's a curved tube). This is the best shape sorter ever, in my opinion. It's the only one DD can currently put the shapes in, and it's a good toy even if you aren't trying to sort shapes. He also liked her new stacking toy, http://store.yahoo.com/kidsurplus/bri39533200.html which somebody on here recommended. He thinks it's a boat.
All of them were thrilled by 2 beanbag chairs and a yoga ball, which strictly speaking aren't toys.
The almost 3-year old had more commonality, of course. He loved the Radio Flyer walker wagon, and a somewhat underinflated Gertie bumpy football (DD likes to feel the texture and roll it about, he wanted to play catch and was just thrilled with how catchable it was). He also liked the Duplo, and even assembled things, but he just wanted to build towers, putting together as many pieces as possible. He liked the yogurt pots the same way DD does -- with a spool or a cat toy inside, used as a rhythm toy. He loved DD's shape sorter, http://store.yahoo.com/kidsurplus/tomty6633.html although he took off the shape sorting end and shoved things through the other end (it's a curved tube). This is the best shape sorter ever, in my opinion. It's the only one DD can currently put the shapes in, and it's a good toy even if you aren't trying to sort shapes. He also liked her new stacking toy, http://store.yahoo.com/kidsurplus/bri39533200.html which somebody on here recommended. He thinks it's a boat.
All of them were thrilled by 2 beanbag chairs and a yoga ball, which strictly speaking aren't toys.