Parenting Tip - Cool Toys

My secret wish is to be a toy inventor.  I love to watch children play with toys, and I'm always interested in what toys keep their interest the longest.  My grandchildren in Virginia have Magformers.  These are sturdy plastic shapes that connect together because of magnets.  My four year old grandson played with these shapes for hours for two days straight, making different geometric designs and 3D shapes.  His two year old sister loved to play with them too.

 
 Bristle Blocks was another favorite toy.  I think my grandson must have made a whole fleet of airplanes.

 

A game that I play with my older grandchildren (ages 9-12) is a thinking, logic game, called Lotto.  You just need paper and pencil to draw up your own strategy page .  You are trying to guess your opponent's number sequence-made of 4 digits (or 5 digits when you're good at the game) and he is trying to guess yours.  Or if you have several people playing, you guess your neighbor's number who guesses his neighbor's number, etc.  You get a "hit" for the correct number in the correct position and a "miss" if the number is in the sequence, but not in the order you placed it.  It's kind of like Battleship, but you're not sinking ships, you're guessing a number sequence.  You can also play it with words.  You guess your opponent's 4 letter word (or 5 letters to make it harder).  I love this game!

The trouble with toys is, different children like to play with different toys. My out of state grandchildren recently came to visit and they played with different toys than my in-state grandchildren.  And two of them were both 4 year boys.  I guess I'll just have to keep buying toys because I know that some grandchild will play with them. Eventually.

Thanks for reading,

Cathy

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