The toy they actually played with

[AlleyCatty]

Hi, with Christmas on its merry way, I wondered if people might share what toys their children have that have proven worth the money?

We were given a Toot Toot pirate ship. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but my kids have had loads of use out of it. I’d definitely recommend it for young ones.

Wooden play food. Playmobil. Lego. Some of our Lego is still in good nick from early 80s, it's indestructible. Plahdoh sets.

DD loves a button tin as well. Big tin of old buttons and she makes up stories about them, arranges them in patterns etc.

Mine are adults now so can't link to specific products for most of them but the things that stick in my mind:

Plastic tea set and play food

Garage with the most important features being a ramp to push cars down and a lift with a handle to turn to transport cars up to the top

Toy farm with fences to move around to make pens and lots of animals

Wooden rocking crib for dolls / teddies

Good old Duplo bricks with board

Nerf Vortex was played with from receiving it (7 or 8, can't remember) into teens

Bop it Extreme still a source of family competition on occasions. A good one for difficult to buy for teens

Play food was more played with than anything else when DD's small.
It didn't matter that the velcro-ed birthday cake was bigger than the boxes of cereal.
So many tea parties and shopping games. They used to like me going to the shop and being a grumpy customer with a fake posh voice

Play tent
Dolls
Play dough
Stickers
Mega blocks
Pots and pans

DD will love that! Thank you; that’s a Christmas present sorted 🙂

We've had that same toot toot pirate ship and I agree, they loved it.
As they have got older, the big hits have been:
playmobile pirate ship, marble run, trampoline and lego.
& the most played with toy of all has been the Paw Patrol Tower :)

Playmobil
Schleich
Building blocks. Kids are now 6 & 9 and we have a wooden block castle on the playroom floor. They love building them then using the playmobil cannons fired from the playmobil castles to knock it down
Toy kitchen/play food. We had a talking teapot which they both loved
A cardboard igloo from Hobbycraft

My children loved the Duplo train set, we had enough track to make different layouts with bridges and loops going between rooms. I still have it at my house and am looking forward for when my 5 month old grand daughter is old enough to play with it.

Playmobile was also very popular - still have all that as well!

Cute ☺️

What?? No! She's the perfect age to play in the box. Dump her in it! Pull it around and pretend it's a car. Give her some crayons to scribble on it with. Tip it on its side and let her crawl in and out of it.

IKEA kitchen

Ice cream truck

Barbie house

Magnetic tiles

Wendy house - garden

Indoor tent

Trampoline for garden

DD had her dolls house for years. It was a dolls house, a hotel, Peppa pig's classroom, Dora the Explorers mission headquarters; eventually it was just a cupboard, but it gave her about6 years of imaginative lay.

My children are now in their 20s but from memory
Daughter ,Dr Kit,Polly pocket ,Lego ,crafty stuff
Son number 1,beanies as long as they were animals ,books
Son 2,playmobile ,Lego , brio train set
As they got older ,bikes and trampoline…lasted into their teens . Trampoline was about £150 but we certainly got our money’s worth!!

Brio, duplo, lego.... DC are now 24 and 22, but we still have these in the family, been lent to younger cousins but coming back to us (hopefully) for grandchildren.

Orchard toys games, followed by more grown up board games, and now pretty complicated strategy games. Was worth investing the time and effort into very simple games aged 3, as we all love spending the evening playing anything from Settlers of Catan to the much heavier weight Brass or Snowdonia, or one of 5 versions of Dominion, or any of the other 100 plus board games we own!

The vtech 4 in 1 alphabet train, a fold up slide, hot wheels cars, a whoopee cushion, slime, playdough, lego, the wooden car sets from aldi, marble run, a train that stacks dominos were all used loads. The latest hit is a karaoke machine. Biggest waste here was a playhouse, any ride on toys that werent electric(was was too lazy to pedal), a kitchen, anything musical.

My kids are grown now but Duplo, Orchard games, Thomas Tank Engine tracks/station.

Play food and trolleys.

Pop up tent - very big hit. They still constructed their own w blankets and stools and my kitchen broom.

Lots of arts and craft stuff,

Sea horses (?) I think they were called. Watch them come to life in water.

Books, books, books and more books. (Though none of them read for pleasure now).

American doll stuff. I still have a box of dolls in a box under bed. I got rid of all the clothing (so much accrued over years) and many of the dolls too. They are adamant they won’t be having children (and I really believe this to be case) but still despite everything that’s the only left in house.

It killed me to part with kids books especially all The Hairy McClary ones but as one DD pointed out, I needed space on shelves to be freed up and I hardly would be reading them again to myself.

Little Tykes play centre with slide that I put paddling pool into so they could splash into it. We were given this by American military returning to US.

Lots of other stuff; Polly Pocket, My Little Ponies, Betty (bloody) Spaghetti.

My washing baskets

So much other stuff over years. Four kids. One with very severe disabilities. Only grandchildren too. Car boot sales were good then.

Gave the salvageable stuff away.

I enjoyed those days so so much and yes they could be long tough days. But I wish I could do it again with them!

Sorry for long post.

Box of 2x4 Lego bricks (the one you picture when you think of Lego). They’re surprisingly sparse in modern sets. I bought mine at a Lego event but you can also get them second hand on sites like brick owl. They make a huge difference to the imaginative building possibilities.

At a very young age, I second the boxes!

Best ever toy was actually a kids keyboard I picked up for about £2 from a charity shop. That was used between 2 kids for almost a decade. I still haven't replaced the batteries!?

It's a bit of a lottery what will work out. Toys I've thought they'll love like the Toot Toot stuff and Happy land didn't get played with much. I would have loved them! The pirate ship looks great though!

Hot wheels cars and similar small cars and tracks plus a garage to play them on.

Toot toot drivers stuff and brio trains when little.

Now primary age, lego and dressing up clothes.

But, if I'm being honest, the Christmas presents which have had most hours of use in recent years have been tech - a kindle e-reader and an Alexa for music player/audible - both used daily and fantastic value for money.

Small model animals. Either playmobil type, tiny real looking ones or plush ones. DD1 is now a vet.

A small umbrella fold toy buggy was DD1’s go to toy for years.

Play food and some plates/cutlery for serving food in a pretend 'restaurant'. The more realistic the better- DS didn't like the brightly-coloured ones that look like toys and preferred proper plastic picnic ones that look more like the real deal. He also likes having 'real' items for his restaurant, like empty packs of sweeteners to make coffee/empty spice jars etc (which is free so I'm all for donating my empties to him). And real saucepans/utensils/pans purchased from charity shops.

My sister also bought him an amazing farm, it had a puzzle that you put together to make the sort of 'mat' that you put the rest of the farm on and these wooden rods that slot together to make farm buildings. You can adapt the layout of the buildings depending on what you want to make. I think this is the set:

amzn.eu/d/goeevcS

Oh and Hama beads! They recently had massive jars of the beads (not actual Hama but identical in size, shape and function) and bead boards in Lidl for a fiver, they might still have some in some branches. They're fiddly for very little ones but you can buy chunkier, bigger Hama beads that are easier to handle. House is full of his homemade coasters, it's his go-to when he needs to chill.