Posted on 01/23/2016 12:20:20 PM PST by dangus
Future parent? Recent Parent? As a fairly old first-time parent, I thought I'd share some things I hadn't known about for entertaining young kids. (I'd be thrilled if this thread was eternal because new parents share their discoveries.)
My son is 3. He still seems a long way away from when he cares whether a toy was a brand name or a home made. Fantastic. Home-made entertainment isn't nearly so hard. But this isn't ONLY about home-made entertainment.
Modeling clay is much better than Play-dough. Play-dough actually sucks. With a young kid, you can't control when it's going to dry out, (You can refresh mildly stale Play-dough by wrapping it in wet paper towels.) You also can't control when colors will blend together; they will wherever you put different colors next to each other. And nothing has any support: you simply cannot make something on legs with Play-dough. Modeling clay bends when you bend it, but holds it shape when you don't, instead of wilting. It's non-toxic, never dries out and never needs to be dried out to stiffen it, so it's infinitely reusable, and fairly cheap. And because it doesn't blend, you can use it to create remarkably fine details .
By the way, the modeling clay is for YOU. It's fun and not terribly difficult to make whatever characters your kid is into.
Colored cardboard is much better than construction paper. You can make toy buildings, etc., that -- again -- have strong enough structure to become toys, not just art projects. But glue is fairly poor for making toys. I find two-sided tape works much better.
Did you know that you can turn any piece of panelling or plywood into a dry erase board with a special, inexpensive can of spray paint? You might not want to rely on it for business presentations, unless you're better at keeping the bubbles out than I was on my first try, but the bubbles didn't make it non-function. And now my son can draw all over anything he wants to. This morning we were drawing a village on a large piece of panelling, that he could drive his Matchbox cars all over.
Buying toys is tough nowadays. There are so many cool toys to help grow your kids imagination, and also thinking skills... and they're often waaaay cheaper than they were when we were kids. But now when you buy a toy, you invest in a "universe" of interrelated toys. And even a given brand or character doesn't mean that they toys are from the same universe:
I bought the new "trackmaster" Thomas trains (with grey tracks). I wasn't too surprised that the older (beige-track) trains couldn't climb the new hills as well, but I was surprised that the newer ones had trouble gripping the old tracks.
But they CAN be interoperable in surprising ways: I stayed away from the wood tracks because they were so expensive. But I found cheap wood tracks from other makers flooded e-bay, and they fit fine with Thomas tracks and Thomas trains.
Legos -- even old ones on E-bay -- are cost more than their weight in gold. If you find them in a thrift store, nab them. Buy the smaller pieces with single rows of nubs... you can use single-rowed Duplos (large Legos for kids under 4) instead of double-rowed Legos. But don't buy Megablox: they don't interconnect with Lego; they don't really connect well with each other; and most of the pieces are useless single-nub pieces. K'Nex work well with Legos, but they aren't much cheaper.
Don't ever throw toys away, or sell them at yard sales. EVERY toy is a collector's item in the age of E-bay.
Your kid will never need a TV to see his favorite shows. Everything is on YouTube. My son is fixated on Thomas the Tank Engine (here in the states, the mini-episodes were compiled into a longer show called Shiny Time Station). I also like Curious George for him, because that little monkey is really an engineer in training. HIGHLY educational. Sesame Street isn't so educational anymore, but it's still not bad. And I totally expected kids these days to be great at computers at a very early age -- after all in my generations, parents marvelled at tweener kids like me programming -- I was blown away that it's absolutely normally for 3-year-olds to be masters of smart phones!
My child has so many toys that we play toy store. I come in the home and shop while she plays owner and helps me pick a toy. Then I pay and she hands me the bag. I go back out, come back home and give her the toy.
Read to them and make sure they see YOU reading.
One of the best moments in my life was when I walked into my younger daughters room and she looked up from a book she’d been reading with huge eyes of wonder and said “It’s like a movie in my head.”
She took off a bit slower then her older sister in this area, but once I got the eyes and that statement I knew she’d be fine.
Agreed about the Play-Doh (they call it Play-DOH for a reason). I always thought it was crap when I was a little kid.
Oh and make sure to “wrassle” and don’t cheap on the tickling. :)
We had Thingmakers when I was a kid, burned my fingers a few times on it, but it was all in good fun.
You are completely wrong about Play-Doh. It’s been a successful brand name product for generations because kids love it. Can you name a brand name for clay? Clay is boring and kids hate it. Clay is the brussel sprouts of toys.
Ha! My daughter and I do this very same thing!!
Ping
Whereas modeling clay is commodotized, Play-Dough has built a brand through marketing.
The key thing is that I said “Modeling clay,” not “clay.” Clay also dries, makes a terrible mess, is always monochormatic and goopy, constantly needs to be moistened to keep a slimy sheen of filth over it. No wonder it’s a mess.
Modeling clay doesn’t need to be moistened, doesn’t dry out, doesn’t have a sheen of muddy slime over it while you use it, comes in a huge array of colors, including very bright ones, doesn’t clump off, doesn’t get all over your hands... HUGE difference.
I had no idea of the difference when I first started buying play-dough for my kid. In frustration, I bought modelling clay and couldn’t believe how much better it was.
Absolutely agree on the reading AND the wrassling. Saturday mornings have become my favorite time of the week, when my son comes in to make sure I don’t sleep in, and proceeds to treat my body like a jungle gym until I’m up and chasing him and throwing him around the bed and couch.
Nickelodeon has a show with gay characters.
You don't want kids to watch any TV that you do not control.
Grandma has bought a lot of toys, but my two grandsons favorite game is bank robber. I hold up the bank, steal play money, and run to my hideout, they, armed with toy guns, find me and put me in jail. I stay in jail a short time, break out and start again.
Teach your child to read using Phonics, and read read read together.
3 years old is not too young to start.
Blankets and boxes = tents and forts.
Beans and macaroni, Elmer’s glue and cardboard = beautiful mosaics!
Storebought toys: Whack-A-Mole was a favorite when my boy was 3.
I’ve got an 8 year old and one on the way. We rarely turn the TV on and when we do, it’s something like “The Waltons” or “Little House on the Prairie”. Today’s kid shows are trash. Trading is paramount in this house. At least 20 minutes a day. We started accumulating so many books we were running out of space so one Christmas, my daughter got a Kindle and now downloads as many books as she pleases. We keep the classics in traditional book form though. Did you realize most children’s classics are being or have been eliminated from the school’s due to Common Core? She attends a private school that still uses & believes in classic literature but for those whose children don’t, I highly recommend buying your kids all the classic kids books. Fiction helps them develop an imagination as well as the critical thinking skills that help them problem-solve later in life.
Reading not trading.
And I agree w the play doh. Modeling clay is a much better medium. Cheap at your local Michael’s, Pat Catan’s, or JoAnn Fabrics.
Netflix is worth it. My kids love the good old fashioned violence in the original Loony Toons and Disney movies.
card games. card games, card games. GoFish for the little ones and expand into war, hearts, rummy as they get older. there’s SO MUCH INTERACTION that goes on around the table when you play cards with the plus of working on counting and memory skills!
when they get older, if they are lucky, they’ll have a grandma who will teach them to play pinochle and poker!
I had grandsons visiting recently, and they had a great time with something new I had bought, “Amazin’ Marbles” by Ideal Toys. There are various types of blocks with channels and holes for building marble races.
The 3-year-old was more interested in just stacking the blocks, but the 7-year-old and especially the 5-year-old really got into it. The 10-month-old just wanted to eat everything. :)
Our Granddaughter is almost three and loves reading. Once a story is read to her, she delights in “reading” it to you in tern. Her memory for the stories is remarkable. Books are fun and important. Her father has her started on numbers and words in an enjoyable way.
I was initially hesitant about her playing with my Ipad but I came across the “Originator” series of apps. They have been great teaching numbers/addition/subtraction and alphabet/spelling recognition/sentence construction. “Endless Alphabet”, “Endless Numbers”, “Endless Words” and “Endless Reading” are highly recommended. They supplement books but don’t replace them by any means. It’s best if you and the child do them together.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.