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Best Toy Ever: The Stick
I'm wondering what would happen if I just wrapped up a stick and put it under the tree on Christmas morning for my daughter. Because frankly, I'm not too impressed with what Hasbro, Mattel, et al., have to offer this year. And neither is my daughter.
"Anything you like?" I asked my three-year-old as we flipped through a Target catalogue this week.
She picked out the collection of Disney Princess dolls and a princess dress, but that was it. The fancy doll houses, $300 Triceratops (thank goodness) and the other toys didn't interest her.
The stick is looking pretty good.
Not exactly the Target catalogue, but the stick was just inducted into the pantheon of all playthings - the National Toy Hall of Fame. It's at the Strong National Museum of Play, which we visited on a recent trip up to New York state and highly recommend.
"... Sticks inspire spontaneous, unstructured play and can be used in unendingly imaginative ways," according to the press release earlier this month announcing the winners. The stick joins the cardboard box, which was inducted in 2005, and other more traditional toys like the baby doll, Candy Land, Easy-Bake Oven and jump rope.
My daughter has been picking up sticks since she could pick them up. She bangs them against telephone poles (her drums) or swings them like a baseball bat. She drags them on the ground to make designs or runs with them (as I scream to her about getting her eye poked out).
And just the other day, she was some kind of ninja/warrior/captain and was using a long stick as some cross between a sword and a hose. (She was shooting fire out of it, she told me. I later convinced her that it was really rainbows and fairy dust.)
I'm sure we'll end up splurging on some item - it was a kitchen from Target last year, which she plays with. A kid-sized table and chairs the year before, which is covered with a million pieces of artwork now.
But, for this Christmas, for now, I'll be on the look out for a nice stick.
So are you exited by any of the toys this year? What's at the top of your kid's lists?
Need ideas?
Old favorites: Inducted toys in the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester.
What's popular: National Retail Federation's list of top toys in 2008
Local picks: The folks at Raleigh's Tookie's Toys make these recommendations.
Check out our other daily themes at TriangleMom2Mom:
MONDAY: Meet!
TUESDAY: Ask!
WEDNESDAY: Eat!
THURSDAY: Play!
FRIDAY: Out!
WEEKEND: Relax!
Comments
Along with the stick, is the good ole' shoe box, or any size box. My two boys, 3 and 15 mo. love to play with boxes. They will put things in and out of them, all day long. If you get a big enough box, you can flatten it out, and slide down a grassy hill! FREE FUN!!!!!!
Hey, at 3 years old, you could get away with the stick as a gift. Put the money that you'd save into her college fund.
For our pre-schoolers, I was thinking about getting them a pack of post-it notes. Today they played with a pack of them for about 45 minutes.
When my kids were younger they enjoyed cardboard boxes more than the stuff that came in them. One year, days after Christmas, with a ridiculous amount of new toys from all the grandparents, they spent three hours rolling potatoes up and down the hall. A good rule of thumb for toys is, anything made back in the 50's. Tinkertoys and Lincoln Logs and good old fashioned blocks.
That list from the toy hall of fame is great ... sort of a reminder to me of all those traditional toys out there that we all grew up with and (at least I) completely forgot about ... like Lincoln Logs.
When we went to visit my sister, my daughter played with them for hours and when she wasn't playing with them she was asking to ... they are on my list this year for Christmas or her birthday in a couple of months - along with a stick ... and I guess Lincoln Logs are sort of like glorified sticks.
You know - I completely forgot about this site - always some great toy recommendations: http://toyportfolio.com