http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/01/the-5-best-toys-of-all-time/all/1
Its sort of tongue in cheek, but I do agree.
I like this link. I'm stealing it for my own nefarious purposes.
Good stuff.
I love catching young children using their imagination. It reminds me of a time when I was a young teenager, and I was hanging out by the pool with my younger step-brother a couple of his friends, they must have been 8 or so. They were playing as if one of them needed to be rescued and the other two were rescuing him from the water. There was a regular old green garden hose by the pool, and out of the blue I hear my step-brother shout "quick, grab the rope." I looked up and was simply so amused by the enthusiastic play and the use of imagination in pretending a garden hose was a rope to be used in "saving" their friend that I laughed.
My step-brother flashed me this nervous grin, as if he were slightly embarassed at being "caught," so to speak, in the act of using his imagination, but I wasn't making fun of him, not in the slightest. It was just one of those moments where I was a young teenager who had grown away from the type of imaginitive play that such an age carries with it, but wasn't that far away from it, and it was more appreciative than anything else.
That article just reminded me of that moment, and my own pre-pubescent youth, a world in which a tennis raquet could instantly become an electric guitar and transform me into Ace Frehley, or a trash can lid and a whiffle bat could turn me into a knight on a quest, or a couple of garden hoses could be placed side by side and become a roller coaster for marbles.
The box one is so true. When I was a kid I remember my parents buying new appliances like refrigerators and washing machines and my sister and I thought it was the GREATEST THING when my parents cut doors and windows out of the appliance boxes and made houses out of them for us to play in. Give a kid something like that now and he'll tell you to go screw yourself.
When I'm at the daycare I try and stay out of sight to see my kids in the wild. They always amaze me at the imagination they show.
Quote from: Ed, Ego and Superego on December 01, 2011, 06:56:31 PM
When I'm at the daycare I try and stay out of sight to see my kids in the wild. They always amaze me at the imagination they show.
I was keeping an eye on my special niece and nephew a few months back and they were playing on the exercise bars and swings, so I decided to haul my bum onto the slide. Their mom came running, saw me on the slide and called to her daughter "Look, look! Uncle Trevor's on the slide!" Her daughter looked at me and then at her mom and said "So, he's on the slide? Big deal." :teddyr:
This is all so true....when we were all kids we could play for hours using all of those. Of course,we would get in trouble for leaving so many mud pies on the front porch to "bake". :teddyr: