I have a confession to make- don't hate me ok? I've finished my Christmas shopping- in fact with one tiny exception I was finished shopping for the kids in October. (Les is a little harder to buy for).
If you still have some small people to buy for here are my top eleven toy must haves (budget and otherwise) as well as eight simple stocking fillers....
1. Play Kitchen + Tools + food- the low cost solution is to make one with pie plates, milk bottle lids and bottle tops (Pinterest will have a bunch of ideas). And then shop your local thrift store for kitchen items and start collecting food boxes, yoghurt pottles and other items to stock the kitchen. Also find a printable menu on Pinterest, a notepad and a pen- instant restaurant. The Higher cost option is to get an Ikea Play Kitchen and food and utencils. Go with wood and fabric- stay away from tacky plastic. Don't be mistaken in thinking that this is a girl toy!
2. Musical Instruments- Only buy these for your own kids because then you can decide what you're willing to put up with. Once again you can easily make shakers and drums at home. Or buy from a store: Reccomended: Maracas, Wooden Xylophone, small drum (Trade aid stores are good for these), triangle, harmonica, Rhythm Sticks, Ukulele. Avoid whistles- seriously. This is a cool set.
3. Play Dough and tools- Playdough is a huge hit in our house- follow the link to see some of our adventures in playdough. It's cheap to make and you can do a bunch of different colours and put them in cheap plastic (lidded) containers- don't forget you can add essential oils and other flavourings for great smelling play dough. Then once again hit the kitchen section at the thrift store and see what you can find- keeping in mind things that will cut out, and things that will make cool patterns. Don't forget when you are playing with playdough to pull out some things you can press into or roll over the dough- vehicles and plastic animals- are good. Invest in a kid size rolling pin- and oil it up before use so the playdough it less likely to stick (use what ever oil you cook with). Make a cooked or hot water play dough and it will last for ages.
4. Blocks- Wooden or Duplo/Lego- A really good set of wooden blocks is super expensive but a lasting and versatile toy. I think it's the sort of thing that grandparents could pool together and contribute to buying a few smaller sets over the first few years of a baby's life when the baby doesn't know what's up any way. (And it'd be way more useful than the plethora of soft toys that people seem to give).
If blocks of any kind aren't in the budget then perhaps try contacting a tree surgeon and seeing if they can help you out- just make sure you check what tree's are safe to play with.
5. Water Table - this is such a simple toy with lasting appeal. All you really need to a large plastic under bed storage tray/box- and grab some plastic cups, some kitchen utensils and funnels and you are good to go. You can make a simple frame to put it on, find a cheap coffee table- or just park it on the ground outside. Ours gets SO much use!
6. Wooden Puzzles- You don't need a whole heap of Puzzles- But have a good stash of puzzles that are versatile and will stretch across a wide age range. Some ideas:
* A custom made puzzle with your child's name- (Make sure it has an upper case letter for the initial and lower case for the rest!).
* A very basic puzzle that shows a basic shape (circle's are good) increasing in size.
* An alphabet puzzle- one that is actually cut in the shape of the letters- either with both upper and lower case or lower case only.
* A number puzzle- one that is actually cut in the shape of the numbers.
* A puzzle that shows colour concepts.
* A basic shape concepts puzzle
* A puzzle that allows for sequencing.
* A puzzle that shows fractions
* A puzzle that doesn't have a set way of going together.
* a 3-d puzzle or two - in other words not a flat board puzzle.
* And finally my kids have always loved the magnetic fishing puzzles.
7. Dress-ups- There are a lot of super commercial and super expensive costumes around- you don't need those! Head to your thrift store and get- some hats, purses and small bags, 'old lady' scarves, bead necklaces, a couple of neck ties, waistcoats, bandannas, a bow tie or two, pretty skirts in small sizes with elastic waists, gum boots, fancy shoes and sunglasses. If you can sew- keep an eye out for work clothes as well that can be adapted to fit. Then head for a bargain store and look for masks, fairy wings, tiaras, crowns, pirate hats, wigs and sometimes they even do cheap fairy skirts. Then all you need is a couple of capes- see my link below in stocking fillers. Also have a think about how you might store your dress-up's they're so much more likely to be used if they can be seen- also less mess if they don't need to pull everything out of a box to find that essential thing that's always right at the bottom.
8. Sand Pit + tools- A sand pit doesn't have to be big to be fun. IT can be anything from a plastic box- large and flat (The under bed containers again) to a Clam shell pool or as big and permanent as a raised garden bed depending on your home and budget. The bigger the sandpit the bigger the tools you can use- but once again a quick trip to the thrift shop plus a few other items are all that's needed. Look for things to dig with, things to fill (buckets, plastic cups and bowls), things that will make textures- toy cars and trucks, sieves or colanders, and cooking options- jelly moulds, cake tins, muffin tins- (silicon works well and doesn't rust) and pots etc. Look for off cuts of down pipes and guttering. Natural materials: pebbles, shells, leaves, sticks, pine cones, gum nuts, acorns, leaves and flowers etc Recycling: plastic bottles, lids, corks, plastic meat trays, bottle tops. Then maybe invest in a truck and some sort of digger.
9. Dinosaurs / Animals- It's easy to buy a whole bunch of smaller plastic animals and dinosaurs. But I'd strongly recommend that your money is better spent on a smaller collection of quality animals. We collect Schleich Animals and Dinosaurs. I like them because they are realistic looking. Because you can buy them individually- so you can choose what you get. Because the animals come in family sets- so you can buy the male, female and juvenile. You can choose to get a variety with no specific aim. Or you could try and cover a number of different types mammals, reptiles etc. Or from different areas of the world. Or from different habitats: savannah, desert, artic, antartic, farm/domestic. Or from one specific habitat- eg African plains. We generally get one adult and the baby- and we've covered a whole bunch of different countries/habitats- although now that I think on it pretty much all mammals. We also have a collection of dogs (Tama) and a collection of horses (Merenia). The smaller animals and babies generally cost around $6- so a good stocking item- in amongst the sweet stuff that Santa puts in ours.
10. Scarves and other Fabric- We have a collection of silk and chiffon scarves collected from Thrift stores. They get used for dancing, wearing, wrapping dolls, and creating environments for our animals among other things. We also have some fabric scraps from the remnants bin at spotlight- we have green velour for grass, some yellow chiffon for sand, blue satin for water and some super cool sequinned red stuff because it looked cool. Plus we have a vintage sheet that I picked up in a thrift store- this gets used as a picnic mat and for play houses. These materials have been super cheap to collect and get used for a variety of things.
11. Black or White board- If I was voting I'd go for a whiteboard- as big as you can afford and fit in your home- a quality metal one (not cheap foam). A set of FAT white board pens, and a duster. Some fun magnets and magnetic letters or numbers. Try and have it on a wall so that the horizontal centre of the board is directly in front of your child's chest. Encourage big movements- strokes, circles, side to side and up and down. Have some text printed out large maybe your childs name, address and phone number, or family names for them to copy if wanted (use a font like Century Gothic or Futura- with a regular 'a' and 'g').
Eight Stocking Fillers:
1. Water balls: search for Crystal Soil on ebay- and compare prices. Note: These need to be prepared the night before and the smaller set with need supervision as they will try to eat them (don't worry they're non-toxic).
2. Match box cars
3. Lego Mini Figures
4. T-shirt cape- check it out here- only costs the price of two t-shirts from the thrift store.
5. Mini slip in photo album - with photos- buy a small 4x6 slip in album that takes 20 to 50 photos and fill it with prints of your children and others that they know doing stuff.
6. Finger puppets.
7. Pre-inked stamps. (Look in two dollar/bargain store type places)
8. Smaller Schleich Animals
And books, always books!
♥
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