My kids had plenty of electronic toys as they were growing up, so I'm not going to say we didn't benefit from them or that we didn't have fun with technology. We actually loved it. Both of my kids learned to read easily, partly because of the Reading Blaster PC software. (Do they still make that?) And a toy called My First Sony was a primitive electronic drawing toy for the T.V. that my son
loved.
I have to say, though, that the simple toys--the building toys, easels, puzzles, wooden trains--- have always been my favorites. (Well, and books--but I guess those aren't really toys.)
We loved our easel, and it had a prominent place in the kitchen. Here's my daughter at three years old. She was so proud of her lion drawing and had to pretend to
be the lion drawing.
(The pictures in this post are old ones, scanned from film prints.)
When my son was little, I discovered that you can actually
draw with an Etch-A-Sketch. (My own Etch-A-Sketch drawings as a child were straight lines and boxes. And squiggly lines that went nowhere...) This baseball player is the only sketch I can ever remember doing on an Etch-A-Sketch. That's Tony LaRussa on the screen (for any baseball fans out there.) It made my son happy. (And that made
me happy.)
There seems to be a drawing theme throughout much of our play. Which reminds me of the time my son was three and asked me if he could draw on the little parsons table in his room. "Sure," I said, thinking he was going to draw on a piece of
paper on the table. My expression was pure shock when I walked into his room and saw the tiny table covered with crayon drawings. He popped out with, "But you
said I could draw on the table!"
I wish I had a picture of the many Dixie cup creations that once covered the basement floor. My son and daughter would stack Dixie cups into towers and forts and castles. I do
have pictures of another favorite toy, the building bricks. (Check out my husband's "lawn mowing shirt." It kind of looks cute with the hardhat though, doesn't it?)
Many, many puzzles...
Thanks for visiting my playtime memories. (We still like to play together and now that there's some sunshine again (thank goodness), we're usually in the back playing catch or wiffle-ball, taking pictures, making something, or walking the dog.)
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."
George Bernard Shaw
Enjoy your time together.
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