Timeless Toys

When I go out looking for toys for my son, I want to find things that will become treasures.  For his first birthday he received from family a handmade wooden slide, a rocking boat that can serve as stairs and a small wheel barrow. His second birthday he received a wooden train table with storage drawers for his cars and trains and a small wooden kitchen. This year I am probably going to get him a wooden wagon.

What do these toys have in common? They are timeless… he will continue to enjoy them well into elementary school; they are sturdy and wooden and can stand the test of time; they encourage creativity and community and he (or his friends) are the ones making the action- not the toy.

A couple months ago, I cleaned out our playroom and threw out a big bag of broken plastic toys… I felt really yucky about all the waist and the process re-affirmed my belief that wooden toys really are better.  I also like simple toys that are contained so that pieces can’t get lost or broken making the toy unusable. Toys that can be used in a variety of ways offer children the opportunity to have an active imagination.

What does a plastic light-blinking and noise making toy do different? For one, it breaks, runs out of batteries, irritates mom (or dad),  only one child can push buttons at a time, so there’s more fighting and most of the time it only has one function. Most of these toys are designed only for a specific age-range and are either thrown out or put in storage or some are sold to other families through consignment stores (best option).

We still have wooden animals from when I was a little girl; these toys survived my brother and me; now my son plays with them. Fallen tree limbs can easily be made into blocks with different shapes and textures– making them magically versatile. Other great homemade toys use  sticks, pine cones, leaves, acorns, bark, fallen trees or whatever materials are easily available to you.

Maybe us green moms can commit to looking for timeless toys for our children. Perhaps we can take time to make something for our children; or find stores that have handmade items; or just be resolved to simplify our children’s playrooms and stay away from plastic, blinking, noise-makers.

See you back here next week for some more tips for timeless toys.

Which were your favorite toys as a child? Can you remember making a toy with an adult? What was it? How’d it turn out?

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Shannon Baer lives in semi-rural Rhode Island with her husband, son and a flock of chickens. She is excited to be a new member of the Green Team here at 5 Minutes for Going Green. Shannon shares her joy of (re)connecting children and nature at her blog Backyard Mama.