Most cost effective toys in your home

[kavalkada]

Posting here for traffic.

Last week I got a big delivery box and my kids (six year old and two year old) spent all week playing with empty box and with the help of pillows and blankets made a castle. Their room is full of toys they almost never play with, some of them very expensive and I had to save a lot to give them (hot wheels garage, I'm looking at you). So, what are the toys you do not regret having and what are those you could throw away in a minute and nobody would notice.

Most effective in our home:

1. board games (yesterday we played three games of ticket to ride, happy, happy mum)
2. bicycle
3. ball
4. paper, coloring books and crayons (my two year old loves them)
5. soft toys (for sleeping at night)
6. hidden pictures magazine
7. books
8. tablet (although I should have probably put that damn thing on the first place)

Least effective:

1. Hot wheels everything
2. LEGO - my son hates it, and we'll see if my daughter will be interested
3. puzzles - my son will do one only one if I ask him, but I like them, so...
4. dolls
5. hundreds pf plastic toys that are forgotten the moment we open them
6. NERF everything
7. arts and crafts

and everything else in our room.

Geomag
Trampoline
Water slide mat

Most played with as toddlers/preschoolers
Duplo, toy kitchen, balance bike, brio train tracks, magformers.

Biggest waste of money - massive wooden rocking horse. It took up so much space and was only used when other children came round on playdates.

ours is all mixed up. Sets don't stay together so they are creative with it.

Yes us too. It gets made up according to instructions, then dismantled and mixed. It’s more creative than I remember from my childhood as the variety of pieces lend themselves to so much.

DS 2.5 years old

Most played
Magnetic letters
Magnadoodle
Tea set
Kitchen
Plastic trolley
Duplo goes through phases of playing with it

Least played
Balance bike
Jigsaws
Wooden toaster

Most effective:
Lego & duplo! Played with LOADS by both kids.
Toy tea set
Water table in summer
Books
Pens/crayons etc & paper
Orchard toys games

Least used: cars/vehicles

To be honest though mine are quite good, as long as we rotate through things effectively, they go through phases of loving all of them.

Oh and bikes/scooters, balance bike especially was brilliant

My husband has a double-decker London bus. That was their favourite when they were kids. It’s still his.

It was the trampoline. Sadly they're too old now.

Yes yes to character specific sets being a waste of money. We've accumulated a couple of octonauts ones, a go jetter one etc as gifts and the kids are thrilled on the day but then they rarely get played with because there's not actually much to do with them. I've also gone off character based dress up outfits as I've noticed they just do very limited repeat scenarios copying whatever episode they've watched most recently, whereas with old school doctors or astronauts type ones they are more imaginative with them.

See it will really depend on the child. Lego for us is the most brilliant and long lasting thing. Yes we have had kits over the years, but mainly my 10 year old just likes building his own random stuff from bricks (including specialist bits that originally came from sets). My eldest on the other hand got loads of Lego friends kits. She only ever played with the minifigures having built the kit once, but then she was always obsessed with dolls/small world play.

The best value toy we ever had was a mega blocks train with alphabet blocks. Got it from Freecycle when my eldest daughter was 18 months, was still played with about 8 years later, only finally got rid of when my youngest was about 6.

For us, Zomblings have been the other enduring thing, both my younger two have tons of them and aged 10 and 12 will still sometimes get them out and make a town with them.

Oh and balance bikes followed by real bikes have always been constantly used in our house.

Hot wheels
marble run - please fuck off with the marble run people, every single one has been down the chazza 24 hours later

For us, Duplo and Happyland people, and Duplo bricks.
A battery-powered train set we were given (much more popular then the beautiful Brio set I bought [laugh]).
Tea set and toy food.
Card and board games and Magnatiles.
Baby doll (but other dolls don't really get played with).
A pull-back toy car.
Boom tennis set.
Bean bags.
Dolls house furniture (but not the gorgeous dollshouse itself!)
Indoor gymnastics bar.
Ikea folding gymnastics mats (make dens).
Pavement chalks.

With Lego, for us, it really depends on the set - the lovely Friends animal sets are gathering dust, but I got her a Lego prison and police set and that is always being played with.

I agree with a pp about not getting rid of stuff too early - the Duplo plane has just become a hit at age 5, having never been popular before!

Best
Thomas trackmaster
Trampoline
Sand pit

Worst
Mega blocks
Jigsaws

Haven't seen much mention of playdoh, but that is good for a half hour's play.

This is totally child dependant though. And age.

ds
wooden train set, was almosy the only toy he played with for about 4 years
playmobile farm
lego, of all sorts, that was the next 5-6 years
k'nex, again, played with loads

neither of my dds played with any of the above.

dd1
nothing. She does not do toys and has never done. She does people, whatever you are playing with, she will join you.

dd2
sylvanians
playmobile
lego friends (but she builds them and then keeps them madeup as sets)
Tinkerbell fairies

But the thing that they all played with, and so did every visiting child was the toy kicthen. Built of wood by dh, filled with great food and pans, real wooden spoons and mixing bowls. It was the best thing we ever spent bought.

Magnatiles

8 years after purchase they are still regularly played with

Oh and a box of assorted old cars, that got/gets loads of use, and home made playdough, with cookie cutters and rolling pins.

Sylvanians and trampoline a close second

Best:
Playmobil
Brio
Big boxes
A wooden double decker bus
A wooden trolley that used to have blocks in; Has been used for many many purposes over the years.
Soft toys. We have far too many but they are used very often

Worst:
Craft kits
Hamabeads
Balance bike (didn’t use enough to master it then outgrew)
Puzzles

Value for money - as in most played with -
Trampoline
Dressing up clothes (also handy for school random dress up days)
Scooters and bikes
Duplo and Lego
Dolls house

Only toy cars, jigsaws and play doh will definitely get played with here. Orchard Games - I can't stand them, don't know why I bought them. Boring AF. Lego is only good for inflicting foot injuries.

Water pistols are good value, and poster paint.

Lego is hugely loved here!

Two wheeled scooter is the best thing Ds (now 7 but had it a couple of years) .ever got

Best: A good quality outdoor climbing frame/swing set bought 20 years ago wasn't used every day or even every week but over the years it was probably the best value expensive item I bought. DS (21) is currently using it as a makeshift gym! And yes I did consider the weight limits when I chose it because I wanted to use the swing myself.

Also another vote for large cardboard boxes (these days I give them to my neighbour who teaches reception).

Worst: probably the football table had nowhere near enough use for the amount of space it took up, the ludicrous quantity of cuddly toys and the new lego (better to buy 2nd hand by the kilo)