ideas - toys for 20 month old

[worrymummy]

My DS is 20 months, very active and very verbal. He is of course fantastic in every way (yawn) but he doesn't seem interested in any of his toys at home. When we go anywhere he can occupy himself, loves drawing and lots of things but at home he doesn't really play and if he does it's not for long and he wants me to join in.
He likes helping with sweeping and cooking so I thought of getting him those sorts of toys. I don't really want to spend scarce resources on something which is going to be ignored!
Is this something other mums have noticed about home and have you come up with any brilliant solutions? If so please do let me know - thanks!

my ds is 20 months and he loves thomas the tank engine he has a little bag of track with a train in and he will play with it for ages on his own it was 9.99 from woolworths its from the take along thomas range

My DD is 20 months, her fave toys are :

Footballs / tennis balls that we roll / throw across the room and she likes to run after them

Cloth bags that she can put things in and carry

Building towers out of baked bean tins

Maazines / Books

She does have a load of fisher price toys as well but she seems to like the home objects!

17mo ds is just starting to like the brio type train track and trains, especially the powered ones (we have a whole heap of it from ds1).
Likes musical instruments, have a basket of various ones.
Starting to love books, will sit and look on his own for a little while now.
Just getting into a ELC happy land farm that MIL got him for xmas, and have a FP little people garage that he likes.
Mostly though he just likes being outside!

DD is 21 months. These days her favorites are books and three balls that open up and go into eachother, kind of like matryoshka dolls. She also has a "cooking" set and loves to pretend feeding herself and me.

For ds 2nd birthday we bought him a toy kitchen from ELC (came with accessories) and he hasn't stopped playing with it since. We gave him some of our old pans, wooden spoons and tea towel. He adores it.

Also favourite things are cars and cos he also likes drawing/making things I collect a bag of old kitchen rolls/toilet rolls, scrap paper (including leaflets that come through the door) and a child safety pair of scissors (only supervised though), old boxes etc for him to muck about with. Also I get things like tissue paper (if use it with a paintbrush and water can do 'magic' painting with a lot less mess than ordinary painting), pritt stick, feathers, from ELC which are not too expensive if you limit them.

I get lots of stickers as well (big box elc is about £5) and let him loose with them and some scrap paper, and crayons.

Duplo was a big hit (still is) - we got passed an old box and ds loves it.

Train set from Ikea (like the Brio stuff but a lot cheaper).

Other thing I do if I need peace is stick him in an empty bath (naked obv) and give him old bottles/jugs and some bath crayons. He turns the cold tap on and off and puts plug in and I sit down with a book. That keeps him amused for about an hour.

Oh (Sorry keep remembering things) would recommend the idea of a basket with ordinary household objects in. Search old threads for 'wnaky baskets' on here nad you'll get a good idea of them.

And definately 2nd the musical instruments (if you can handle the noise) - don't get the cymbals, I learnt the hard way.

Don't get toys - make a treasure basket. I'm sure htere's threats about them on here - in fact I think I contributed to one - but come back for more info if you need to. Truely, you'll never look back! And you'll never look at a tea straier or a bath plug on a chain or a set of allen keys in the same way again!

Oh I forgot the best one: I put DD on the balcony with a little toy bathtub (or even a bucket, really) and a couple of floaty bathtime toys. Hours of entertainment!

I found anything kitchen orientated was good, rolling pins, the big winding whisks with cogs he loved (don;t use it in the plastic bath though)
Pots/pans whilst i was cooking i put him at the table and gave him jugs/cup containers to fill with pasta, rice etc.

The aqua play set from mothercare was good to -can fill it with water or not if you want it inside.

We save all the empty bottles from showers/cosmentics especially the ones with lids -good motor skill developer -they can practise filling/emtying in even the smallest anount of water.

nice day (when they come again) outside with a bucket of water and a big paint brush - paint the walls.

that's a good idea! ta!

we've run his scooter/bike through puddles and looked at the prints. Looked at the dogs prints 'dexter's big, stanley's small' etc. Can do water prints with welly boots too.