Toys in the House

At that age they just love sensory exploration. My daughter used to love an empty tissue box that I'd fill with different toys or a couple of bright scarves (or bandanas or mittens- whatever I had handy) for her to pull out or I'd put baby food jar lids in and she could shake, rattle and dump to her heart's delight.

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Basically everything that is not a danger hazard (cutting. chocking, burning, toxic...)
One-year old just love copying mummy, the love stacking things, piling them, banging them, trowing them from the high chair and see how they fell...
So:
- cups, plastic pots, pans, wooden spoons
- empty boxes
- shoe laces (short enough so they can't go round their neck)
- brushes (nail brush, dish brush)

At this age, my son favorite (over any toy) was an empty water bottle!
Still today, at 2 1/2, he likes to play bowling, meaning arranging 6-9 empty, clean yogurt jars on the floor and roll a rolled pair of socks over them and knocked them off!

You can create maracas by having sand/small stones in a empty small bottle (glue the cap) or into 2 jars of yogurt glued together.
To play textures, you can have small stones, sand, cotton balls, foil paper... into socks and he can play with them and try to recognize what's inside.

When folding the laundry, socks also make great puppets.
Hide a small object (not too small to avoid chocking) somewhere and let him find it (again a empty yogurt jar, for example). Its easily hidden behind a chair feet, below a pillow or blanket, behind curtains...

Little ones also like to collect "treasures" from the park that you can play with, invent stories from, or later use for art projects: leaves, feathers, small stones, wood sticks, snail shells, dry fruits, pine cones.

Have fun!

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Do you mean that you don't have any toys in your house, but you need something to occupy a 1yr old? I know pots and pans and big plastic bowls with some wooden spoons and stuff is always fun. If you're brave and don't mind getting stuff wet...you can add a strainer and a little bit of water to the mix! =0)

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My daughter loces water bottles, plastic food containers (like the containers Puffs come in), oatmeal containers, plastic baby food containers, coasters- pretty much anything she can get her hands on. She likes to put small items in the containers and shake them. She also loves to practice taking the tops on and off. I have heard tupperware and pots and pans are great too.

When we go to my MIL's house, my kids would pull out all of her tupperware containers and play with them for hours. Also, they would go into her untensil drawer and pull out all her (kid safe) untensils and play...they don't know exactly what to do with them but they were always intrigued. They would also keep empty bottles without labels on them with the lids for the kids and my kids still seek them out to play with em'!

Tupperware or pots and pans

Hi, G.:

How about pots and pans! D.