Comments on: Child’s Play

By: Melinda

Melinda — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:57:42 +0000

When I use to buy UHT Milk (longlife milk) in 1 litre cartons my daughter would have wonderful fun building City towers.
Ah, those days of innocence!

By: katmaxx

katmaxx — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:36:08 +0000

My kids have what we call “the homeless shelter” made of blue tarps, old boards, and cast off furniture and stools. It’s sort of a fort but it seems to have the same architecture that our homeless population use. They also seem to think the large rolling tote for our recyclables is actually a craft material cart.I often see them hanging upside down in it dumpter diving for cardboard or egg cartons.

By: AnnMarie

AnnMarie — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:02:14 +0000

My daughters favorite toys when she was pre-walking were Daddy’s socks (used or clean, she didn’t care!) and shoes.

By: Diane

Diane — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:17:24 +0000

My girls love to play “family” and will make “families” out of just about anything – markers (each color representing a different family member), pens and pencils, hair scrunchies, toothbrushes, spoons & forks, etc. Anything that is a set becomes a family. Then they will take their shoes and make “boats” or “cars” for their little dolls to ride in. Bookcases become doll houses. They re-purpose everything they can get their hands on. Their creativity amazes me.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:45:06 +0000

I love this topic. My mother was so good at modeling for me the fun to be had in reusing items for other purposes. I think some of that has rubbed off on my kids through me, leaving them a legacy from the grandmother they never got to meet.

My kids’ “secret” playhouse is a stack of cement blocks my husband and I salvaged from a house that was being demolished. We just piled them on the back edge of our property near untrimmed trees and shrubs. The kids move them around as they see fit to make walls for rooms, furniture, etc. Sometimes they use the wheelbarrow to haul large chunks of firewood over to the playhouse for chairs.

Someone at church this week offered me bags filled with various sizes of unfinished wood pieces. I took home three gallon sized bags, and the kids have used them to make all kinds of buildings for their cars.

I see no point in buying doll accessories when the girls use the old baby sling for wearing their dolls, cloth diapers for burp rags and changing pads, my old purses for diaper bags, etc.

My five year old has a red bandana that goes nearly everywhere with her and has for months used it for a cape, a tablecloth for her dolls, a sling for her arm, a bandage, a diaper…

The five year old is currently using a crib mattress that didn’t sell at our garage sale for a boat in the living room. I’ll store it in the basement after this week, but it’s been rainy all week so I left it out for her to play on.

The eight and ten year olds regularly rummage through our recycle bins for jars or cans for projects. One is using a large jar for a moss garden, the idea coming from our science lessons. They repurpose metal lunch boxes to hold all kids of things depending on the day (everything except lunch since we homeschool.) =)

And ten minutes ago the five year old reshelved a bucket of homemade pumpkin pie playdough in an ice cream bucket. I repurposed a bottle of very old pumpkin pie spice, found in my father-in-law’s cupboard, to make the playdough pie scented.

I’ve learned to never throw away “junk” that’s sitting outside before asking my kids what it’s being used for. They find all kinds of things on this property (orginally a homestead in the late 1800s). Lately, it’s not uncommon for me to find “fairy stew” cooking in rusty muffin tins.

By: Mrs. Pear

Mrs. Pear — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:21:18 +0000

When my daughter was about 6-12 months she was fascinated with the tea towel cupboard – she would very gleefully pull them all out and spread them all out. We started putting the rags in there so that I would have clean tea towels, and it did not kill the game. She had so much fun. We have pictures of her with a big smile and the mess all around her.

She also could flip through my Bible for long periods of time! And thinks that dusters are toys….

By: Linda

Linda — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:41:09 +0000

My 4-year-old just discovered that an ice cream bucket lid makes a pretty decent Frisbee! I love to see the creativity that comes out in children. I grew up with very few toys and the sort we had were old wooden thread spools and such like. I really believe those sort of toys spark more creativity and learning than most any push button noisy toy. My challenge is to keep it simple for my kids. With all the yard sales I go to I really can get lots of nice toys for really cheap. I need to think harder. Do my kids really need this to be more creative?