The essentials

It just dawned on me what some of the essential kids toys are, some of which I remember having, some of which I wish I'd had but didn't exist. Actually, only one thing. Just the 60x100 pocket microscope. I think if I'd had one of those, I would have been forced to deal with reality on a level where it's much less scientific, and perhaps more wonderous, to look at the long things that come out of the ant's head and wonder what the heck they're for.

But some of them, in no order of importance:

Paints and crayons and art supplies in general, but especially paints, where you learn to mix different colors, and may even eventually apply the knowledge of tempura paint to help you understand colloids and saturation. Or wish you had. Given enough art supplies and an environment with some direction and support, and children will almost never draw on different surfaces. And if they do, most of the time, it will at least be worth looking at, unlike the frustrated, almost animal scratchings of children given an implement of expression for the very first time. I also think art supplies in general begin to give children a tool for expression useful in codifying their own experience of the world, a means of greater expression just generally, and in the means it gives parents to get into their children's heads earlier.

Clay, and mud, and sand, and other three dimensionally manipulable objects. Ideally, they're colorful, and don't taste so good, or tolerably well enough,that you'd want to taste some now and again. That once becomes enough - not that you get sick and never want to play with the playdough or modeling clay or mud again, but that you like it better in your hands and feet, and not so much in the mouth.

Chalk. This isn't something that I rememer being big until shortly after I left college, when chalking campus became all the rave, and effective at getting message out. But never, certainly, as a child, or as a child's toy. But today, you can get different colors, and chalk outside all the time.

A safe neighborhood. This is pretty basic, but one worth mentioning. When children don't have an environment they feel safe running around and exploring, the world becomes a very scary place. I think to some degree that video games have replaced the roaming of children in new environments the way many of us did more freely when we were growing up. We got to do a little of both, but required more imagination and gads more time to play those text based games.

A slinky (with back up - because this toy is going to need to get broken many times before the breaking of the toy stops.) Slinky's are fun, and demonstrate some scientific principle that I've never remembered very well.

Colorful koosh ball. Again, kids love them. Colorful, you can toss it, it feels funny in the hand, it doesn't bounce away like other balls when you don't catch it. I know. I don't catch very well.

Durable, but accurately scaled Xylophone. What's more fun than banging on a xylophone really hard with a wooden rod? Mommy and Daddy not being driven crazy because the toy is out of tune. Even worse are cases where Mommy and Daddy think Junior is a musical genious, not recognizing that the toy is essentially worthless and broken from day one if it's not in tune.

Wooden tops.They're so frustrating, but so enormously satisfying when you get them to work, that they're like crack for developing complex hand-eye-muscular coordination.

Yo-yo. Again, more scientific principles, and one of the first toys you eventually learn you can take apart and tweak to your liking.

Gyroscope. How cools is it to watch a spinning top balance on a thread?

This is something I'm going to keep working on, because there are a lot more.

Comments

[Stephen Lindsley]

Thanks for this one, Ben. I, too, had a wonderful, safe environment to play in as a child, and lots of kids in the neighborhood. We did play with chalk -- mostly to draw hopscotch or 4-square boundaries. I had lots of toy weapons, too, and when I couldn't find them I would fashion a sub-machine gun out of wood scraps from my basement.

A short aside: I have two cousins who are now grown, but their parents are California granola types, so the first kid was never allowed to play with any violent toys or games. When the second one came along they were more relaxed and he was more willful, so they let him have the cap guns and stuff. As it turns out, the younger child became the more gentle of mind and spirit, while the older one joined the Marines. Go figure.

Other timeless toys: cars - Matchbox or otherwise; chemistry set; magnifying glass (great for frying ants); Legos (I'm still bummed that neither of my kids ever liked them); bikes - I spent the majority of my childhood on two wheels.

I still have a lot of my toys, including my G.I Joe and a Coleco handheld Pro Football II with passing action. Maybe I should arrange an adult playdate.

[Cait]

Furniture and blankets; aka, fort, castle, cave, tent, spaceship. An architecture of odd angles, serendipitous shelves, and countless windows. Joe and I built one in our apartment last year.