Some toys are particularly good at developing motor skills and understanding value. Empty bottles make marvellous skittles. Four or five are made to stand in a line (fill them in part with stones or sand to prevent them from falling over). An extra bottle, or a ball of cloth will do well for a ball to bowl at them.
It is also very simple to sew basic bean bags with dry beans poured into two squares of old material. A variation is to sew a tail onto a bag an elongated triangle of cloth that stretches 30-49cm out from one side of the bag and contains no beans inside. Now it is a shooting star. Assign different values to the different parts of the shooting star. Catching the body of the bag awards you earns one point, but catching the very tip of the tail earns you four.
Babies love packing things in and out. Make a money fish instead of a piggy bank. Cut a slit into the side of a 3litre soda bottle, big enough to drop bottle top coins into. A little door in the side will do well for little fingers to retrieve the money. Drawing a face on the bottle adds a delightful dimension to the play and makes the toy more appealing. A bottle standing upright with the same kind of trap door at the bottom can also be used. Take the balls out of old roll-on deodorants (stepping on them quickly makes them pop out!). Your child can now drop the ball into the open mouth of the bottle.
You can easily make elementary puzzles for your 18mth -2 year old. Use two perfectly square boxes such as those used for Vicks or Prep. Use six pictures and cut each in half. Now stick each half onto a side of the two boxes. The little one must turn the boxes until they match the pictures to complete each image.
When he was a little younger, my son loved playing with a plastic bottle with some dry beans inside as a rattle. For my toddler I made a hole through the top and bottom through which I pulled a piece of string. She dragged her noise maker behind her for days
Christmas should be all about giving. It isnt a clever marketing manoeuvre by toy shops. The giving of gifts was there from the first Christmas, with gold, incense and myrrh. And even the Father Christmas figure or Saint Nick became the patron of Christmas because of his delight in giving generously, and anonymously, to those in need.
But what about kids in Zimbabwe? What will we give our children? We are a people of innovation and our children should benefit from that innovation this Christmas. Merry Christmas!
Post published in: Opinions