Okay, so Big Traks and Cuisinare Rods aside, what did you spend hours playing with that weren't technically even toys? Carboard boxes, paper bags, milk crates, bottle caps, sticks and stones, mud? What did you do with them?
Some of my favorites included:
Those little plastic mesh boxes that strawberries come in. I would tie them to a string looped through the drawer pulls on my dresser and use them as elevators, or cut doors in them and they would become buildings. Also made cool shoe covers when my feet were small enough.
The giant plastic eggs that L'EGGS pantyhose used to come in. Cut a little triangle out of one edge, and they become cool space-age igloo houses for bugs.
A large magnifying glass - in combination with steady sunlight, of course. Hours of fun burning holes in leaves and paper, scorching designs on pieces of wood, and making carpenter ants pop (ants were the only bugs I would do this to, some kind of little-kid moral code I suppose).
And last but not least, the bugs. Pillbugs (aka roly-polys), ant lions, grasshoppers, cicadas, ants. I would play with bugs for hours on end. (This avid interest led to my childhood desire to be an entomologist whwen I grew up.)
What were your non-toy playthings? |
