What Is Your Kid's Favorite Non-toy?

Boxes. Both of my boys LOVE boxes...they are forts, presents, hiding places...love them. They are 8 and 5 and they just got out two boxes a couple of weeks ago and played for HOURS with them.
L.

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When they were little...DVD cases!

All my kids could sit for what seemed like FOREVER pulling all the DVD's off the shelf and tossing them all around!

~Every day and every night I would pick them all back up and line them all back where they went...hubby asked me once why I just don't leave them during the day? I told him b/c it is the cheapest and long lasting entertainment we had...silly man! :)

Now that they are all a little older it is empty cardboard boxes and laundry baskets? Seriously infinite fun!

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tupperware drawer - they used to unload it onto the floor and play with the containers.

my button box - when my grandma and aunt stopped sewing, they passed down all their buttons to me, two boxes full. My kids liked to dump them all out on my bed and sort them, by color, size, pick out the pretty or shiny ones, mix them up.

laundry basket- one day my kids paraded out wearing baggy t-shirts, big boxers on their heads, socks on their hands, all pulled from the DIRTY laundry basket.

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My kids are 8 and 6, and they are still like that, especially my daughter, who is very creative. Her latest thing is to grab straws and wooden coffee stirrers from a coffee shop; she will put three coffee stirrers inside one end of a straw and make a sword out of it. Then of course she makes one for her brother and they pretend to sword fight and I have to take them away.
:-) But I love the creativity they exhibit while playing with stuff you normally wouldn't consider toys.

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The vacuum cleaner (on or off, and loves to take the dustbin out of it)...the wii remote, the phone, a tube of nipple cream (yup!), a Valentine's card (it's getting pretty tattered), and a mirror.

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I'm with Laura . . . my two sons would play in a big box for HOURS!

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Anything MINE!! Especially my cell phone!!

"COUPONS!!" My son likes to have the subscription card that falls out of magazines and says they are his coupons! I am a couponer and he is learning to save his coupons! So stinkin' cute!

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My son is 3 and also likes everything that is not a toy. He loves to collect junk. When we are out he always goes to pick up garbage (straws, cups, etc.) and sticks and rocks. Also, we can't leave anything lying around because he will take it especially if he knows it is something he shouldn't have then it becomes all the more valuable.

Littles are fascinated with everything – it's all new to them. If they see their parents interacting with stuff, all the better. They want in on that. My daughter and grandson have loved bottles, water, paper, boxes of all sizes, plastic storage dishes and a wooden spoon, some dry pasta, a silky scarf, a piece of curly ribbon, a big chunk of styrofoam, sofa pillows, anything that can be thrown.

These all stimulate imagination and interaction in unlimited ways, and I do think formed plastic toys are almost a waste on kids under a year or so. They are designed for a specific kind of interaction, and this can be limiting (though most toddlers won't limit themselves too much).

My kids (2 and 6) like to play with our old cell phones, old home phones, diaper boxes, Tupperware type containers, my old purses, an old travel alarm clock, an old laptop, kitchen utensils (spatulas, spoons, whisks, etc), pretty much any grown up type items! They always seem to prefer the real thing to the toys. Like, my kids always knew the difference between the real remote control and the toy ones! Lol And the real stuff is always better! :-)

lol my daughter loves opening drawers and emptying all the contents on the floor.. she especially loves taking all her clothes out one by one and throwing them on the floor.

My 3 year old son likes everything that isn't a toy! He loves to play "cleaning" with our broom and vacuum. Or cook with my handheld mixer (not plugged in of course). All of my cooking stuff I find in the playroom. Sometimes when he's underfoot I find myself saying, "You have a roomful of your stuff. This is my stuff and I need it!" but it is awfully cute.

My DD loves to play with the TV remotes and the portible phone. I think its only because she is not suppose to or is not allowed to that she is interested though. She also loves to get the mail with me and then tear apart all the junk mail. She always goes to the back door and grabs Daddys BBQing shoes LOL. She always wants to go straight for the cats water dish and her food if she gets a headstart into the kitchen. Silly girl really just wants to play with everything that she is told NO to.

My 8 and 10yr old girls have rooms FULL of dolls, toys, books, anything they could possibly want. Today, they spent HOURS making dioramas out of shoe boxes...just for fun. My son, who HAS to do a diorama for a school project is bitching and moaning about it, but my girls? Nope, empty shoe boxes are a WORLD of opportunity for them.

my 6MODD likes playing with empty water bottles the best! My other two (@4 and 10) have always LOVED empty boxes - the bigger the better :D

Babies usually yearn for simplicity and interesting things to discover. Pots/pans, large cooking spoons, cardboard, boxes, empty milk jug, mom's shoes, paper towel rolls, pipe cleaners... all much more fun to my kids than any plastic, over prices store bought toy that is likely to break and run out of batteries.

Also, studies have shown that many toys like that actually tend to inhibit children's imagnation. For instance, a plastic microphone can only be that... but a paper towel roll can be a microphone/rocket ship/kaleidoscope/binoculars/shark/sword/tall building....

My DD is 3.5 yo - her favorites include a magnifying glass, a tape measure, the calculator, and Scotch tape. She's constantly collecting rocks outside. If we go out for breakfast, she loves stacking the little packets of creamer and jelly. She also loves cardboard paper towel and toilet paper rolls - she pretends they are telescopes or binoculars. When she was 18 months, she loved stacking the premeasured plastic cups of drink mix (like Crystal Lite) and moving magnets around on anything they would stick to.

My 3 boys are 10, 8, and 4 - they all STILL prefer the boxes that most things come in. They use them for forts, building cat towers and houses (for out cats), making costumes or shields or something....they have used them for sledding in the snow, surfing down hills covered with pinestraw, etc. For all the hard things about packing up and moving every few years - the boys ALWAYS look forward to what kind of fort they will be able to make with the boxes once the moving truck unloads them. The older they get, the more elaborate and HUGE the forts get. Boxes are, and have been the #1 "toy" of all of mine since the were old enough to moved around....before boxes - when they were still immobile except rolling and scooching...they all liked magazines or news papers.

You may also find that as she gets older and you want to take her somewhere "fun" - she may not understand why you don't think a park with just a few pic nic tables and a trail around it is "fun". That has happened with us as well:)

Enjoy watching her "find" her own toys and as long as they aren't dangerous to her, why spend your hard earned money on things that will collect dust?

T.

When my oldest was a toddler, she loved gift bows.

My youngest son could be entertained for hours in his stroller with a water bottle, cap and small amount of water in it. Honest.
When we were kids every thing could be made into a toy. lol
C.

When my youngest was a little toddler his fave non toy was an old kleenex box with colorful scarves he could pull out and stuff back in, that and the remote control.
My daughter ( now 10) is still all about art supplies...spending money on more toys that get stuffed in corners, drawers, closets are a waste, but I can buy her craft goodies and they always go to good use.
We would take old oatmeal containers seal them with jingle bells inside and put pictures of family members with clear contact paper over them...all the kids loved that when they were little.

My iPhone! Haha my 2yr old loves to touch the screen and slide the pictures back and forth and watch videos her big sister made and her favorite Barney episodes on you tube. I don't let her use it too much but it definitely saves the day sometimes when she's about to have a melt down at a restaurant. But she is the same way she loves to play with non-toys that look like they wouldn't even be entertaining! Lol

From past experience-their father!

Beans inside a gladware container. Best free toy ever.

My hubby always yells at me for letting my DD play with grocery sacks. Like you, I am always RIGHT THERE when she plays with it. I don't allow her to put it in her mouth, but she LOVES crinkling them. She also likes to go into our cereal cupboard and play with the pudding cups. (I will probably have to move those when she figures out how to open them...)

Haha...that sounds so much like my son. He loves junk mail, coupons, bowls, spoons, boxes, shoes, old makeup mirrors, DVD cases, receipts. Oh my goodness, you should see the kid when we hand him a reciept at the store!!

Cute question, it made me smile!

My DD loves open boxes and the laundry baskets. She's 4 now and will still steal my baskets and just sit in them with her blanket and a plushie. She loves drumming on things anything she can whack with a wooden spoon she'll just wail away at.

Where do I begin. Lol. Pots and pans, hair brush, his sisters headphones, he loves turning the television off and on, pulling the card out of the cable box, his stroller, the vaccum cleaner( unplugged of course). I can go on and on. He does plays with his toys as well and explores with books. He's definately a handful.

Spoons, now that she is told to open the draw she is always taking my spoons and plastic containers. Then is a tube from another toy that she use it as it was a telescope and look around with it as she says: Ahoy pirate!
Then is also the towels or blankest for play ghost.
Oh and everything from her sister, it doesn't matter what but for some reason what ever her sister has in their room for the toddler seem to be such a treasure, lol.

My daughter and niece both loved cardboard boxes and bubble wrap... when they were school age. If the box was big enough they made a "house" out of it. I cut windows and doors and they used crayons and markers to decorate it.

As for choking hazards... I let my dd play with beads when she was around 3 years old... I was "right there" and she ended up with a bead up her nose and an ER visit. I had no idea she even put the bead in her nose until the next day when she told me by pointing to her nose and saying "out".