Toys for 8 year olds??

[Bethanyg25]

My Ds is 8, quite grown up for his age, but just doesn’t play with his toys anymore. If I let him he would sit on the tablet all day long!! (He gets 2 hours a day max) he just won’t play with toys. When he’s not on the tablet he talks about going on it, or talks about youtubers. we don’t even have the internet at home so I don’t know how he’s got so obsessed!! So I’m just interested to know what your 8/9 year old sits and plays with. He has totally covered his room in pretend displays of smart boards and a/c units, cardboard laptops and printers etc. He’s just totally obsessed with anything electronic. Really struggling.

I've got a 8 year old daughter who loves arts and crafts. She's also not into playing with toys!

Two hours a day, everyday is ridiculous. Far too much.

Mine (and other I've looked after) enjoyed:

Reading.
Puzzles.
Board games.
Football table.
Lego/Meccano.
Art/crafts (origami/painting/clay or saltdough/knitting were all popular)
Gardening.

Out of interest, what is he doing on the tablet that doesn't involve the internet? I thought all the games were online these days?

You could try and interest him in photography or making stop motion animation as a way to link the screen to something creative.

My DD is 7 but some of her classmates are 8. When they come over they play with Pokémon figures, Playmobil, Lego, spy stuff (invisible ink etc) but a lot of making things with paper and pens.

Lego, transformers and a spy kit are amongst toys of choice here.

Crafts
Microscope (with refilled slides from eBay)
Joke books
Foreign language CD set
Walkie talkies

*prefilled slides

Ds is 8 he plays with Lego and character figures.
There is an electrical circuit set that he may enjoy, my nephew got one for Xmas and my ds enjoyed playing with it.

Snap circuits. Great kits for learning electronics.

Or a raspberry pi or kano to channel the computer love into learning to code. You can get electronic kits to link up with raspberry pi to code a rover.

Gravitrax

3d printing pen (3d doodler start great for kids).

Loads of stuff!

Or Lego. Even my 12 year old still wants Lego.

@nuffsaidsam he goes on Microsoft word and makes PowerPoints etc and there are a couple of games he can play with no internet. Should be more clear that its only a weekend day he’d have 2 hours, during the week he would not have that long. He’s got all the Lego and board games and so on but I almost end up telling him off trying to get him to play as he just shows no interest and it frustrates me, which is obviously not fun for anyone and defeats the object. He does enjoy a book luckily.

Lego is a firm favourite. They also spend a lot of time drawing/writing stories/making comics.

My DD has got an easel with a blackboard on one side, a whiteboard and clip on the other and and I buy her flipchart paper and pens. She spends hours on there. Sometimes she does sums, sometimes she draws, sometimes she write stories, does registers, does pretend teaching etc. Best few quid we've ever spent.

I'm not sure what these are called but they are a favourite to

The easel is great he has one of these! He was using it constantly but the last couple of months it has been totally forgotten about as it lives in the conservatory and it’s bloody freezing in there at the moment, will get it out!! @playingforkittens great ideas thanks, love the 3D printing pen idea he’ll love that

Would he be into ‘silly’ games like stinky pig/pass the gas? My friend’s sons loved this when I got it for them (ages 10 and 7).

My 8 year old DD is into drawing and loves the Usborne how to draw series. She likes playmobil too and will role play with her sets for ages. And the trampoline has a roof on so gets used in all weathers!

A course of lessons? Climbing/skating/riding/tennis?

@tavannach he’s doing swimming, drumming and guitar which he enjoys and also attends cubs so all set on that front I think. @meltedicicle just ordered that book on prime I think he’ll like that. Thank you everyone for these lovely suggestions

Board games?

I have 2 (9&10) that barely play. If they are not allowed their electronics, they tend to read.

Snap circuits, joke kits, board games (monopoly, game of life) and Lego make an occasional appearance.

My dd1 wasn't in to toys much tbh, but ds and dd2 definitely have been. My dd2 (8yrs old) spends hours in her room playing - which is lovely, but sometimes that's all she wants to do!

We have a k'nex rollercoaster that recently came out again. It was quite intricate, but it also has a motor and so the rollercoaster shoots around the track - do you think something like that would interest him? Dd2 and Ds would play hot wheels together for ages - they enjoyed setting up the tracks in different ways - this is the kind of thing dd1 was never particularly interested in.

My Ds (12yrs) would now spend every hour on the Xbox, but we have had to set a limit to weekends only as it really does take over.

My 8yo is the same, playing with toys has never really been his thing. Given a choice he would be doing something active - swimming, bike riding, running around at the park.... But that's not always possible. I wish I could just chuck him outside and tell him to come back when he's hungry. Maybe in a couple of years.

In the meantime, he likes his marble run, drawing, making paper aeroplanes.

Try getting him into Scratch, it's a programming language for kids where they can make games or animations.

My 9yo plays football, thwacks about with sticks in the garden when bored, plays chess with her sister (she is in a school club where she learnt) reads. They like Pokemon card game, too. And Lego.
I find there's only one way to combat computer obsession and that's to limit screen time, and just ignore them for a while. Boredom is the mother of invention.....

My two loved Lego at that age but they are close in age and played together, if one was out they would pester me to play with them or watch tv

@Lovabug we actually have that somewhere from last Christmas, we tried putting it together but it’s just not my Fortay and he got really bored and left me doing it all by myself. Just didn’t have the patience! He is basically an only child which I think is a big part of the not playing problem. His sister is only a baby

Try getting him into Scratch, it's a programming language for kids where they can make games or animations.

This.