Seriously is there anything that they really like to play with? I have two little boys between 13-14 months and so far I haven't found anything that they really like to play with. It's more following me around and whining. I think I have a pretty good set up but maybe not for this age, what do you do with this age?

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Little People, big sized Mega Blocks, push toys, Leapfrog Move and Groove Table (I think that is what it is called), musical instruments, balls, cars and trucks.

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Your emotions
Your nerves

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My one year old's love to chase balls! I have a bin of those light weight kind that are in ball pits and the two 1-year olds and the 15-month old just love those things.

The Little People people; they put them head first in their mouths and crawl/toddle around

Anything they can pound, anything musical, the shopping carts~they pull themselves up and push them around, board books, mega blocks are the current favorites around here.

Mostly they just like to bug the older kids

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This is the hardest age group for toys. I pretty much just stick with the same toys they had as infants.

Single use infant toys
cloth books
thick chubby cars
blocks

I do not allow noise toys so no lights and sounds or battery operated toys. I don't use toys that DO anything. Whatever the toy does is done by the child. I don't use any toys where the child puts in a little tiny effort (like press a button) and the response is big (like a big noise, music, or the toys moves quickly, something pops up).

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boxes. seriously, boxes with stuff to put in and dump out.

boxes of different sizes for nesting and stacking - decorate them to make more attractive.

coffee cans - decorate the outside, cut an X in the lid, fill with different pieces of pretty fabric to put in and pull out.

balls - a big basket of balls of various sizes and textures

let me see what else I can think of.

I agree with nanny....I don't own one single battery operaed toy. Children need to use their imagination, not have a toy "imagine" for them. I believe in "passive toys and active children" rather than "active toys and passive children" if that makes any sense

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They like anything inside a cupboard, they like the containers that toys are stored in, they like shoes (especially other peoples). LOL! I have Little People and the like for them to play with but they aren't really interested. They like to play with things they aren't supposed to, in my experience! LOL. My little ones like chunky books. Also like to play with tupperware. Lame, but they just don't quite get it at this age yet, in my opinion!

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I don't do any "dumping" toys or activities. I've found that dumping is an activity like lights/sounds/batteriy toys... they do a very small action and get a huge response. It' takes them just a wrist movement to dump the toys but they get to see them falling to the floor, making the crash sound, and spraying all over. Unless you have a very small amount of things in the container they need too much supervision to get it put back into the container. I don't like activities that require adult involvement. 12-18 month olds need a lot of adult involvement to clean up what they have dumped.

I've also found that dumping toys can easily turn to fight toys. This is for all ages. Kids want that moment where they get to the thing and dump because it's such a high stimulation response for little effort. There's competition for who gets to it first or who gets to keep it.

I think that child development educators, trainers, specialist, etc. really over rate the value of dumping for small children. It's really a very very easy skill to learn and doesn't really need a lot of practice. A young child can learn in just a few times what happens when you dump something out. It's not a hard skill set to learn like picking up is. By the time my babies here are 9-10 months old they understand dumping.

The reason they keep it up is because of the high pay off for the low amount of work. That's okay for a few times with a few items but it is not something that I would want incorporated into their daily play. I REALLY try to stay away from toys that don't have an equal pay for the work have the clean up/sorting/putting away requires NO adult involvement (other than telling them to do it). I think a system where the toys response is equal to what the kid is putting out and the child is able to master the clean up without an adult is one of the most fundamental play rules/guidelines etc. that make my day care so successful.

Edited to say that I didn't mean you in the "child development educators, trainers, specialist" part of my post. I mean in general.

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I'd say for the age that the OP is talking about, yes, dumping would not be valuable.....I didn't notice the 13-14 month age range when I replied. For 6-9 month olds dumping is a great activity. They are learning about spatial relationships and cause and effect.

I know you didn't mean "me", but thanks for clarifying

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BOXES Those are actually good for any age kids. Why do we all spend a fortune on toys when boxes entertain them all for a much longer time!

Also, I've noticed that young toddlers really like things like paper. They like to tear it up. Water and sand are also pretty popular because of the sensory stimulation. Play-doh seems to be hit or miss.

They like to play with things that they're not supposed to play with, too Like the phone...

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One thing I know for sure is that the dumping activity is HUGE with the day care parents when their babies are 9 plus months old. This is one of the first games parents play with kids where the kid has high pitched squealing/laughing/hand flapping etc. It's the precursor to stacking "knock blocks" game that also ends up with the same reaction.

I know if they don't have it here that they will have it at home... over and over again until the parent gets bored with cleaning it up at least. The kid not getting the skill set derived from "dump" or "knock" down is the least of my worries.

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I think this is why this is such a key time to be very specific about what they play with and what they have access to. It's the "build a foundation of good play" time. They need to find their happiness in what they DO with age appropriate toys. They need to be able to do that play with little to no involvement of the adult and adult generated activities.

This is the time they start to get the idea of "go play toys" at my house. They don't have access to stuff that is "little effort = big result". They get month after month of their happiness being built on what THEY do. It's a struggle to get it thru to them that they make their own happiness BUT the pay day for it comes around two when you have kids who have moved past parallel play into interactive co-operative play. They learn very young here that it really PAYS to play nicely with your little friends because your little friends are the most exciting thing in the room.

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I have one of those old school bad Dad Little Tykes kitchens in my upstairs play room. It has three cabinets, microwave, sink, etc. It was one of the first toys I bought for my business and it stands today without a single flaw. They made toys to last back in the day.

So I put a lot of effort into getting a really good fake food collection. I bought matching plates, cups, saucers, and a TON of the high quality ... mostly little tykes.. fake food from the nineties.

We used to have the kids do the put back and sort for all the stuff that went with the kitchen. Every day we would have the older kids put everything back in a way that would make it all fit in and not avalanche down when the doors were opened. Had them put everything on the lower shelves so they had to work to bend down and put it in instead of stuffing everything into their eye level shelves.

The plates went together a certain way... the cups together... the silverware in one shelf... the food on two... etc.

Everyday at least twice we would do the big clean and sort and get everything "righted" so it was ready to go for the next play time.

Well it was a chore getting them to get it put back and I noticed over time that my Staff Assistant was spending about 10 minutes of coaching and redirecting each time she would have them clean it up and put it back. Day after day at least 20 minutes of staff time to clean it up.

Then I started to notice that when the kids came in the room every kid would bee-line to the kitchen. I always knew it was number one toy but I wasn't really paying attention to what was happening when it came to the kids.

When I really started watching the kids with it I realized that they were bounding to the kitchen for one reason: They wanted to do the dump. They wanted to be the first to the kitchen so they could dump out the shelves. They wanted to "undo" the organized stuff. Seek and destroy. Not only would they compete to get to each one of the shelves first but in minutes we would have the floor covered with fake food and dishes that nobody was really playing with. Once the dumping was over they would play with some of the stuff but not at anymore of a rate than the other toys in the room.

So we got a bin for the fake food and dishes and just allowed them to put away the dishes/food etc. in one big bin. Within a couple of days they pretty much stopped playing with the kitchen stuff. When they had to go thru the bin and find the ice cream, the fries, etc. they lost interest. They will play with it all a bit but it's not the number one toy anymore. What made it the number one toy was the ability to destroy it... the ability to use it in ways it is not intended.

When I bought my second kitchen I made sure I bought one with square shelves so that I could put bins inside the shelves. This way they can't swoop and dump. The Little Tykes shelves are more U shaped and you can't get a decent size bin in any of the shelves.

The kitchen deal taught me a good lesson regarding toys. If it takes twenty minutes of staff time a day to manage the toy you got the wrong toy. If twenty minutes of staff time can be swooshed away in two minutes you are doing it wrong. The children's clean up should not require adult involvement and the younger children should not be able to swiftly destroy or deconstruct the work of the older children.

I've counselled many struggling providers over the years and the dumping issues has been a pretty common issue. My solution is to just not allow it. It may not be developmentally appropriate to ban dumping but IMHO it's comes down to greater good. I think it's better for the group as a whole not to have to have an adult supervising a dump clean up or "working with" one to one a kid to insure they pick up what they have dumped.

When I buy toys one of my main considerations is "can they play with this by themselves and can they clean it up with no adult involvement?" If the answer is no then I am very picky about what I buy that does require adults to manage. I'm specific about what free access kids have to toys that can be dumped quickly but take much time for clean up.

The pay off for the child to be able to dump may be high but the cost to the group and to the work load of the adult is too high to have it be a day to day thing. We have tons of sorting toys and stuff like that that the kids can dump BUT they are NOT out in general play. They are special toys pulled out when we do an activity and everybody gets their chance to dump not just the babies. They never outgrow their wanting to dump. They learn it as older infants and they have the same desire to do it until they are school aged. The baby wanting to do it isn't any different to me than the two/three year olds wanting to do it.

I do think the whole thing is highly over rated in growth and development because it seems there is little recognition that the skill of dumping (not cleaning) is a very low level skill that even developmentally delayed babies get really quickly. It's not something that has to be practiced daily in their play. It can be done at home and not in the group setting. Cleaning it up is WAY more important of a skill than the dumping.

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nannyde, I really like this! So if you could pick 5 or so of your all time favorite toys what would they be? I just reopened in June and since I didn't know really what ages I was going to get right off I didn't buy tons of stuff so I am always looking. So much out there right now is just junk, I hate it.

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Yeah, that ^^

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I prefer the old school stuff. I have built my collections of toys from older toys and the key pieces in the older toys sets.

For the 1-2 kids I use cloth books, baby toys, and then these:

Duplo blocks: They come in sets but most of the pieces are useless because they are too small. I like the 8 pronged grids. They are usually about 2.50 per brick so pricey.

http://cgi.ebay.com/DUPLO-Lot-2x8-2-...item2c554e6bf3

Table Toys Play Table: With DUPLO sized grids: http://global.ebay.com/Lego_Compatib...629400988/item

These aren't made anymore but they used to come in tables with 13 inch legs and then they switched it to 19 inch. The 13 inch ones are better for the 1-2's. Look at the 4th pic in this listing. That's the top of the table. The kids need the duplo grids not the lego grids. The duplo blocks do not stay put on the tiny lego grids. I bought five of these when they were in production for parts and replacement tables and stored them in my garage. A new one comes up on Ebay every once in a while and usually sells around 300 bucks. Totally worth it BUT must have the duplo grids to be worth it.


Primo blocks: Again they come in sets and are too small. I like the 6-8-12 pronged grids. Most of the sets you find are almost all single ones so I have had to buy the bigger ones pretty much one by one. This set has some of the sixers but they used to make them up to 12 so I hunt for the bigger ones and by them one by one. I have bought many sets of these off of ebay just for the bigger ones and then sold off or given away the single and double ones. The collection we have now is about 1/3 singles, 1/3 doubles and then 1/3 6-12 grids. The big 12 grids are the piece you use for the base of what they are building. They can't build off of the smaller ones because they collapse. It's just hard to find the bigger grids because they don't make them anymore:


http://cgi.ebay.com/LEGO-LEGOS-DUPLO...item2557890660

These are the cars that go with the Primo's. These are great. http://cgi.ebay.com/Lego-Duplo-Primo...item415149801c

Little people chunky guys and matching chunky cars: These are from the nineties. http://cgi.ebay.com/FISHER-PRICE-CHU...item2c534c9fa4

These are the cars the chunky guys go into: http://cgi.ebay.com/Fisher-Price-Lit...item4150fb14d9

Little Tikes made a series of one handed grooved cars that I can't find pics of. I have maybe eight or so of them. They are one piece of thick plastic and wheels.

Little Tikes Kitchen: Best one ever made. Mine is 17 years old and is flawless. http://cgi.ebay.com/Little-Tikes-Chi...item3efc666050

I don't buy any new toys. I have found that the quality of toys has decreased so much. I would rather pay for the older stuff and have it last. I don't throw away five dollars of toys a year. Every piece I buy lives thru years of kids.

I don't have any idea what is on the market now. Maybe some of the ladies here can help you with what you can buy now in the stores.

The one to two toys are the hardest. It's way easier to find collections for the 2-5 group. I have huge collections of old school toys for them. The most recent things I have bought for the older kids are the Mellissa and Doug wooden fake food and kitchen. Don't buy their kitchen. It's a piece of CRAP. Biggest toy mistake I have ever made was this: http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Melissa-and-...item58866a489b

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I've found that kids this age love to play with ANYTHING! Maybe they're just tired of the same things and you can rotate the toys more often?

Some suggesstions:

A big bottle of soda/juice/water (tightly closed of course) to roll around on the floor.

I filled a big Poland Springs Water bottle with some sand and added bubbles. You can also just use water and add glitter and seguins. Just make sure it's tightly closed- maybe even seal with hot glue!

A SMALL tub of water (like 2 inches of water) with rubber duckies, plastic boats, pails, whatever---lots of fun! Just closely supervise with the water!

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i only have one 1yo and he LOVES to play with the pretend household center. His favorite is the kitchen set. It's just a small wooden kitchen set with a fridge, freezer, oven, built in microwave, stove top and sink. It also has it's own wooden phone. I have all of the dishes and pots & pans in a plastic container that they slide in and out of a cubby under the microwave like a drawer and the food just goes in the fridge & freezer. That's his favorite passtime. He also likes to use the small hoover (pretend), mop and broom set, the baby doll stuff (the boy doll) and the little people cars and trucks.

I think at this age they watch the other kiddos and want to play what they play but this kid wants to clean and cook and such. I'm thinking of buying one of those small real vacuumes and letting him have a go at it. Other than that he did love stacking shipping boxes. I went to the post office and took some of the smaller ones home and put them together. He seemed to like those ok and I just threw them in the recycler when they got thrashed. This was a good ides and the other kids liked it alss, plus it was free.

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[quote=nannyde;37617]



Little Tikes Kitchen: Best one ever made. Mine is 17 years old and is flawless. http://cgi.ebay.com/Little-Tikes-Chi...item3efc666050

I had this kitchen! Sold it at a garage sale for 25 or 50.00 when my daughter outgrew it because I didn't have any room for it in the daycare at the time. I COULD SHOOT MYSELF

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