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Top 10 Best Toys You Already Have in Your Home
A Savvy Mom | August 18th, 2008 - 9:00 AM
Sometimes, the only thing better than a really cheap activity is a totally free activity. We here at the Savvy Source have identified our favorite 27 items that are already in our houses that function as toys or games and narrowed it down to our 10 favorite most fun!
All but one of these items can be found in anyone’s home, so you can refer to this list when striving to entertain your child in a child-free home.
1. Cardboard box: really big or kinda small, can be used as a playhouse for the kid or for stuffed animals and dolls. Have fun decorating it with stickers and paint.
2. Paintbrush: use to paint sidewalk with water from hose or bucket.
3. Sheet + Table = readymade fort. May require more sheets and blankets than you remember from when you were little.
4. Electrical tape: use it to make a hopscotch board inside or to create race tracks for toy cars and the like. If you don’t want to commit your carpet to the plan, maybe you can dig up more cardboard.
5. Handbroom and dustpan: sweep up bits and bobs from under my dining room table. As long as I call it “doing work” then Holden is game. Bonus that it helps me out!
6. Bubble wrap: great for kids when they need to “get the jumpies out”
7. DIY jug band: Find some empty milk containers and wooden spoons to get started. Add in metal spoons, pots, pans, and other homemade instruments to round out your sound.
8. Egg cartons or muffin tins: play sorting games with these containers you already have on hand. Sort by size or color. Sort for speed.
9. Salad spinner: Kids dig it. Julian likes to put small cars in his.
10. Kitchen sink: Get out all the suds, safe dishes (i.e., not the good crystal), and action figures for some good clean potching.
What’s your go-to toy that wasn’t ever meant to be a toy? Can you guess our other 17 favorite household objets d’toys? Let us know.
hmmm can, my girls love to get into my makeup, my hair products, my heels, and most recently my old dresses…
saving some of my black tie dresses for the girls is a great way to recycle dresses that I will never wear again - there really isn’t much you can do with a gown
empty water bottle as chew toy
keys as rattle
colander in the tub
couch cushions as gymnastics mats
- I give her a bowl of ice cubes to put a couple in each plant - the plants get watered and she doesn’t spill water.
- I also give her a spray bottle of water and a kitchen towel to let her ‘clean’ beside me which she loves. of course, she also loves to ‘clean’ the cats with the spray bottle which they don’t appreciate so much.
- watering cans to water things outside
- calculator as cell phone
- i give her my magazines when i’m done and let her tear out the pages, ball them up and toss them into a paper bag which then just goes in the recycle bin when she’s done.
Hi there MomSpeak, I wrote this article. How do I get credit for it? thanks!
A laundry basket or an old suitcase(zipper or latches disabled)make for a great mock car with an old tupperware lid for a steering wheel.
Paper towel tubes make great telescopes as well as empty t.p. rolls and an old remote control with batteries removed, fun to push buttons.
My 4 yr old son loves cleaning. Some favs: dust buster, feather duster, vacuum. He also loves to help clean the hardwood floors, I let him spray while I mop. He even has his own set of rubber gloves.