<p>I don’t have any grandchildren & probably will be a great while before I do- but I still like toys & games & remembering how much fun my kids had playing with simple props-
a child sized table & chair, a big box, a wrapping paper tube.
[The</a> 5 Best Toys of All Time | GeekDad | Wired.com](<a href=“http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/01/the-5-best-toys-of-all-time/]The”>The 5 Best Toys of All Time | WIRED)
What were your favorite toys?</p>
<p>In the early 60’s my parents bought a new fridge. My brother and I took the box into the back alley, grabbed a sheet and created a ‘fort’ that we, and our friends, hung out in all summer long reading comics and eating candy. It was the first time my big brother let me hang out with him, and it was a blast.</p>
<p>That reminds me of Roxaboxen a community children made out of boxes.
There is a Roxaboxen park in Yuma, Arizona
[Roxaboxen</a> Park : City Of Yuma](<a href=“http://www.yumaaz.gov/4761.htm]Roxaboxen”>http://www.yumaaz.gov/4761.htm)</p>
<p>Love that article Emerald! </p>
<p>To that I’ll add a snow shovel (for all the forts and sledding hills we made), the large cardboard blocks (which I know we’ve talked about here on CC before), and a simple inflatable ball - the kind we used for kickball, basketball, 4 square and MANY other games!</p>
<p>I remember taking one of those refrigerator boxes and we made a chapel out of it and all the kids in the neighborhood pretended to get married in it. 
We borrowed stuff from our parents drawers (ties, shawls, high heels) - the pictures are GREAT!</p>
<p>I don’t remember many toys, though I know I got a Barbie Dream House one year that was the envy of my friends. It was a glorified cardboard box, so definitely in the spirit of the preceding posts.</p>
<p>My kids’ favorite toys were Duplo blocks and, once they were a bit older, Playmobil sets of every description. Their favorites were the castle and related accessories. I haven’t gotten rid of any of these yet - there are 7 bins’ worth in the basement.</p>
<p>We were just recently cleaning out our attic. Toys I will never get rid of: Legos, Brio, Playmobile, our Little Tikes HUGE dollhouse and accessories and the many Fisher Price “Little People” playsets we have - I actually collected those playsets and we have so many varieties and all my kids and house guests have LOVED them!</p>
<p>When I was a kid, my dad cut down a gigantic willow tree. We (the neighborhood kids and I) played with the branches forever. We made wigwams, had stick fights and many other adventures with them. I am sure the branches were in the yard longer than my mother wanted them to be.</p>
<p>I like the GeekDad list.</p>
<p>Absolutely far and away the best toy my kids had was the sandbox and hose. In the winter they spent hours with Legos, blocks and Brio train sets. They also liked sticks and my oldest loved all those computer/electronic cords. (My friends were always convinced they were going to choke themselves with them, but they never did.)</p>
<p>I spent hours of my childhood playing “mud roads” in our back yard. Also liked Lego and stuffed animals. We also had moving boxes in our backyard that made great playhouses.</p>
<p>That is a GREAT list of toys. </p>
<p>Years ago, a very very very wealthy friend did a birthday party for one of her sons that was a huge success. She got ahold of maybe a dozen large appliance boxes, put those in the basement along with scissors, tape, markers, and similar supplies, and let the boys loose. Best.Party.Ever. We had one fridge box for awhile that went through all of the Calvin and Hobbes incarnations. D1 insisted in sleeping in it for a few nights. One of those nights, we had dinner guests. I’m not quite sure what they thought of that, or of us. :)</p>
<p>The middle-aged sons of a former neighbor reminisced about how they once got ahold of a large wood packing crate. They dug an enormous hole in the yard, put in the crate, somehow constructed a tunnel entryway, and buried the thing to make a backyard cave. Totally unsafe. Totally fabulous.</p>
<p>^Were you at our party? One year for a space themed party (when my son was five I think) we had the kids build a space station using dryer hose, cardboard boxes and lots of duct tape. They had such a good time!</p>
<p>I still love sticks and string except now I call it knitting.</p>
<p>[Tree</a> Sweaters - a set on Flickr](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/flipside2/sets/72157628280814471/]Tree”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/flipside2/sets/72157628280814471/)</p>
<p>like this ?</p>
<p>We had a huge elm tree at the back of our backyard. My dad bought a thick rope at a farm sale for $5, tied it to a sturdy branch high up in the tree, and put a big knot at the end. My sisters and I swung on the rope many times a day in nice weather, and all our friends loved it too. </p>
<p>We had little games we would play grabbing leaves off the smaller trees, jumping out of a nearby small tree while swinging on the rope, two swinging at a time, and so on. My dad said it was the best $5 he ever spent.</p>
<p>EK- Google yarn bombing and you can see a statue of Thomas Jefferson with leg warmers like those trees. Yes, I think we should use our sticks and string to protect our trees and keep them warm!</p>
<p>Great article – I’m going to share it with my son! My grandson, age 20 months, is a great fan of sticks. Recently we visited my parents’ home (great-grandparents to the toddler), and they unfortunately had spent money on some brightly colored battery-operated toys… but great-grandson just wanted to play with wooden spoons in the kitchen.</p>
<p>When my kids were little, we lived in a 900 square foot, WWII era bungalow built for shipyard workers in a lower middle class neighborhood, but one thing I did spurge on was toys. My D still has fond memories of her playmobile sets. I went to Lowes, bought some particle board, and had it cut down to 4’x4’. I then covered it with green felt yardage, and set up her playmobile circus there. There were elephants, both large and small, horses and their trainer, seals, ringmaster, big top with trapeze performers, band, snake charmer, gypsie trailer, clowns, audience members and bunches of other things. Man did she love that playset! We also had (still have actually, as it’s all up in the attic of our current house) a farm with barn, and farm animals, tractors, and farm family. We set that up on the same felt board, so that half the year, she’d play with the circus, and the other half, the farm. There’s also a small vacation cottage set. What’s so great about playmobile is how detailed all the sets are. My D remembers imagining herself extremely small, and wandering through the rooms of the cottage, sitting at the little table with the teeny tiny dishes and utensils, and eating with her playmobile figurines. Those sets occupied her for hours at a time. She also loved brio mech, a wooden tinker toy type building set with wooden tools to build it with. And of course, legos were a big hit as well.
Both my S and D loved those. The Brio train set, which I purchased in pieces and extension sets, eventually covered the floor in S’s room. This thread makes me want to go up into the attic to check on the condition of all those toys. I worry about the plastic playmobile pieces, as plastic has a tendency to discolor over time. I’m thinking the constant cycle of hot and cold, dryness and humidity, might have taken a toll. I’ve been envisioning grandchildren playing with those toys at grandmas and grandpa’s, but D has told me more than once that she has no intention of ever having children, and S is still trying to figure out what to do with his life, so it’ll probably be a while. </p>
<p>But, like a lot of others in the thread, the toy that generated a tremendous amount of excitement were the boxes that came with a washer/dryer pair we bought. I couldn’t get them out of those for several days. And I was more than ready to pitch them in a couple of weeks, as 900 sq.ft doesn’t accommodate boxes that size very well.:)</p>
<p>We bought my D the three-story Playmobile Victorian dollhouse and furniture for Christmas one year, with some added people and furniture the next year. My H and I spent all Christmas day putting the house together, and my D and her two older stepbrothers played with it a lot. The boys used to set up murder mysteries in the house for her to solve. (Clues, notes, drops of blood, a body hanging out the window…)</p>
<p>I didn’t have a dollhouse when I was a girl, and wanted one in the worst way, so it was a lot of fun for me too. My D said all she wanted to save of her childhood toys are her books and the dollhouse.</p>
<p>I salivated over that doll house, too, bookiemom. But, I never could figure out how to afford it, or where to store it along with all the other toys we were accumulating. It couldn’t go in the corner now being occupied by all the American Girl Samantha doll stuff—LOL!</p>
<p>Wow! Look at these incredible wooden toys I just stumbled upon on the web: <a href=“Smallable | The Family Concept Store | Fashion & Design”>Smallable | The Family Concept Store | Fashion & Design;
<p>Why do I want to buy these so badly?</p>
<p>Sticks, mud and Brio may have been OK for our kids, but this year they are asking for:</p>
<p>[Air</a> Swimmers Flying Shark with Remote Control - eXtreme Kite Shop - YouTube](<a href=“Air Swimmers Flying Shark with Remote Control - eXtreme Kite Shop - YouTube”>Air Swimmers Flying Shark with Remote Control - eXtreme Kite Shop - YouTube)</p>
<p>When my kids were little, we lived in a 900 square foot, WWII era bungalow built for shipyard workers in a lower middle class neighborhood,
That sounds like our house only it was built in 1901. ( & now our neighborhood is trendy 
)
We did get some Playmobile & Brio, but what I really splurged on was books.</p>