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    Toys Worth Owning: Imagination-Sparking, Hands-On, Open-Ended Play

    48.7KViews Modified: Dec 6, 2022 · Published: Nov 24, 2017
    By Jacqueline 2 Comments

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    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. . Classic Legos, 'Let's play house broom, mop, dusting set', butterfly wings, moth wings, toy horse

    Hands down and year after year, the toys which have received the most love and use in our home by our children, and their friends who have played with them, are the open-ended toys.

    Open-ended toys are those that can be used any number of ways depending on the day, the children, their imagination and desire. They stimulate creativity, investigative play and imagination. They are the ones your kids fondly remember years from now.

    A good toy is 90% child and 10% toy!

    Treasured Old Books
    Print this booklist before going to the library!

    For play skeptics, experiments conducted by the Early Childhood Cognition Lab in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) show how play:

    • helps children calculate probabilities during play
    • develop assumptions about their physical environment
    • adjust perceptions according to the direction of authority figures

    Other researchers are also discovering a breathtaking depth to play: how it develops chronological awareness and its link to language development and self-control.

    Reasons Today’s Kids Are Bored At School, Feel Entitled, Have Little Patience & Few Real Friends

    Think multiplied hours of building farms with animals, medieval toy soldiers and castles, racing cars on mats, dress-up accessories and home-made forts, building blocks and talking animal figures.

    So today, as many of us are starting to think about holiday gift shopping, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite open-ended toys. 

    Open Ended Toys Worth Owning for Kids

    We’ll start with building and construction.

    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. A homemade fort, magnetic tiles, and a marble run

    • Magnetic tiles building set (above top)
    • Wooden blocks: Melissa & Doug Standard Unit Solid-Wood Building Blocks With Wooden Storage Tray (60 pcs) not shown)
    • The giant Fort Magic Kit (354 Pc flexible tubes and connectors) (above bottom left)
    • Schleich North America animal figures (including Andalusian horse in top image)
    • Marble run (above bottom right)
    • Legos (we found much of our extras at garage sales) – again multiplied hours learning without knowing it! (top of post photo)
    • LEGO Yellow Submarine in the pool (unless you live in warm weather, this will require some delayed gratification 😀

    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. Beautiful, imaginative toys for hands-on play

    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. A wooden train set, Thomas the Tank Engine, Engineering building set, train cars, space shuttle, cardboard building blocks,

    (clockwise from top right)

    • Wooden Train Track compatible with major brands including Thomas
    • Engineering Building Blocks (above bottom left)
    • 12 Pc Wooden Engines & Train Cars Compatible with Thomas Wooden Railway
    • Lego Creator Space Shuttle Explorer
    • Jumbo Extra-Thick Cardboard Building Blocks (above left)
    • Toy Car Road Tape (extra long and wide) as seen in the very top image (upper left)

    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. pirate ship, Lincoln Logs, Gears,

    • Melissa & Doug Pirate Ship 3-D Puzzle and Ship in One (100+ pcs, 21 x 16 x 5.25 inches, assembled)
    • Lincoln Logs (below)
    • Gears! Gears! Gears! (below)
    • Fischertechnik Building Sets beloved by our boys (age 9+, high quality) (not shown)

    Food and Kitchen Play

    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. wooden 4 food group set, usable dishes, play pots and pans, Let's play house broom, mop, dusting set,

    • Melissa & Doug’s 4 food groups set
    • an emptied kitchen base cabinet doubles as a ‘house’. Add a childrens’ real usable dishes and pots and pans near where you you cook
    • Their Let’s Play House Dust! Sweep! Mop!
    • other Melissa & Doug Wooden cooking sets

    More Toys – Ones That Don’t Do Much On Their Own

    (…besides big cardboard boxes for playhouses and race courses…)

    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. open-ended toys, friends, stimulate, creativity, memories,

    Some Of Our Other Favorites For Make Believe Play

    • Melissa & Doug Deluxe Puppet Theater
    • chunky dolls, stuffed animals, puppets
    • plastic Army men, green vs tan
    • manipulatives and sensory bins
    • Etch-A-Sketch
    • old costumes, props, silks
    • scraps of fabric and an inexpensive sewing machine
    • camera (not tied to internet)
    • couch cushions, sheets
    • car mat

    Outside Toys

    If we were talking outside the house, it would have to be the hammock which is not a kids’ toy at all, but gets more use than anything else outdoors.

    • And H.A Rey’s (creator of Curious George) fabulous Star and Constellation books (that readers ages 8-80 can understand) and this 5-star monocular telescope for older children and young adults
    • a sprinkler
    • a wagon
    • a small wading or larger pool (also used to clean after sandbox, mud puddles, painting)
    • clothesline to make a tent with sheets and tarps
    • scrap lumber (nails and hammer), a hatchet

    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. Star, Constellation books by H.A. Rey, monocular telescope, camping hammock

    • bubble wands, silks, butterfly and moth wings all from Magic Cabin (photos below)

    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. imagination using bubble wands, butterfly wings, moth wings, a homemade tent
    I can’t over-emphasize the importance of open-ended play!

    100 Wholehearted Books to Help Fight Back the Culture
    Print this booklist before going to the library!

    “You don’t stop playing because you grow old, you grow old because you stop playing.” ~George Bernard Shaw

    ****For the Full Spike Protein Protocol (including NAC) to protect from transmission from the “V” and to help those who took the “V”, go here.

    printable or PDF

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    Toys Worth Owning: Curiosity-Sparking, Hands-On For Open-Ended Play. Beautiful, imaginative toys for hands-on play

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    « Tea Tree Oil: 21 Practical Ways To Use This Anti-Fungal Disinfectant
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    Hi! I’m Jacqueline!

    Thanks for being part of this journey with me.
    Welcome to my own little place on the internet! Home is where I love to be. I feel there is no greater place to incubate souls. These days you’ll find me using my experiences here to write about herbal remedies and natural health research — a big passion of mine. But being a wife and mother is not easy. It is challenging and potentially lonely. I get that. I wanted to create a place to connect with and support other moms for creating a natural, healthy, and fulfilling home life.
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