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Young children are eager to engage in creative play will often prefer simple games over manufactured toys.

Activities that require little or no “stuff”:

• Reading aloud
• Tire swings
• Hide and seek
• Kite-flying
• Hopscotch
• Tic tac toe
• Singing
• Playing catch (with beanbags for little ones)
• Playing cards
• Stargazing

Household items that can become safe toys:

• Empty cardboard boxes
• Extra pots and wooden spoons for homemade drum sets
• Toilet paper rolls and a ball of aluminum foil (or a rubber band ball) for a child-size bowling alley
• Canisters, paper towel rolls, and toilet paper rolls with slits cut into the tubes can be interlocked to build play castles.
• Common kitchen ingredients that can be made into homemade play dough.
• Objects that mimic what Mom and Dad are doing. For example: clean, empty food containers (such as rinsed-out milk cartons and oat canisters) and a spare mixing bowl and spoon, so the child can “cook” along with Mom and Dad in the kitchen.
• Clothes you no longer wear, including accessories like sunglasses and old purses, for playing dress-up.
• All kinds of items will become toys for curious children. As long as baby is safe and supervised, an hour-long fascination with a pile of laundry isn’t such a bad thing.

Enduring toys that use kid power instead of battery power:

• Non-toxic crayons and scrap paper (like junk mail and the backs of flyers)
• Wooden blocks (such as these made from reclaimed wood)
• Sturdy jigsaw puzzles
• Felt boards (Here’s how to make your own.)
• Toy cars and trucks
• Stuffed animals
• Nature

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