What do they play with?

[cam&kat's_mom]

Beside their imagination wha tkinds of things do your gifted children play with. DS (almost 4) is showing signs and suspected to be gifted (according to his Dr's previous pre-k teacher, and just about everyoen we run in to (Dh's family esp points this out as Dh is gifted and DS is a carbon copy of him... apparently) (although it's not a label I care for) adn basicaly only plays with limited things. His imagination being teh main one (Which is great!!! ) but it's not easy to shop for an imagination ! LOL
He loves dinosaurs, trains and his computer. and that's about it. I'm lookign for open ended stuff for gifts for him and ideas to give other peole so they stop buying him crap that he doesn't use.
Is it just mine tha tdoesn't seem to play with much? anyone else this way? if not what DO they play with? favorites? thanks

[mamajody]

My DD plays with her farm animals, dinosaurs, reptiles, playdough, playfood/tea set, and dress up stuff independently. She also reads a ton. With My DH she will build with blocks or draw very intricate pictures, and she will play interactive games where DH has to be a cahracter for her to talk to. With me she likes reading, painting, story telling and animal or puppet play. Mostly though, it is her imagination without props.

[~*SugarMama*~]

DD is not one to play with much more than her imagination. She loves making things hold conversations back and forth but she is not really into the "busy" play of most kids her age.

[momtokay]

we go through tons of art supplies here. i also try to request "experience" gifts (trip to the theater, a museum, etc.) since neither of my girls are much into toys either.

[jkpmomtoboys]

My ds1 never really played with toys when he was little. He made forts; he created things out of trash. For the first 4 years of his life, my house looked like a trash heap. I never could figure it out. Now that he's older, Legos and books and blocks are pretty much what he plays with...

[frogguruami]

art supplies, legos, magnetix, the internet, graphic design software

[teachma]

Originally Posted by jkpmomtoboys

My ds1 never really played with toys when he was little. He made forts; he created things out of trash. For the first 4 years of his life, my house looked like a trash heap. I never could figure it out.

Yep, totally the same for us. Mine, who will be six tomorrow, would often string twine around the entire downstairs of the house and call it a "human spider web" or play with other strange scraps of items we'd tossed. He also loved to sharpen colored pencils for about a year, and sort the shavings, combine them in different cups and bags. He loved sorting anything sortable, actually, but not toys. He played with NO toys, and now only plays with his 2 year old sister's toys, on her terms. She, on the other hand, LOVES all toys!! Dolls, art supplies, stuffed animals, cars and trains...my son's Matchbox cars, purchased by well-intentioned family and friends, are finally getting some use!

[LeftField]

My youngest is less of a toy person than my oldest. I mean, he plays all day long, but he mostly uses things as props in a pretend scenario.

My oldest was always very mechanically inclined. So, for him, we have two big tubs of Duplo, one tub of regular Lego, a tub of K'Nex, various Lego kits, some Mechano, big wooden blocks, etc. My little one will use the Duplo and Lego sometimes. Duplo (the chunky Legos with 4 - 12 pegs) are so open-ended. We prefer the tub over the kits. Get something with wheels. My mother bought the Thomas and Friends train kit for Duplo but neither of my kids took to it. It only had a few pieces and you can't do anything with it but make the same train.

Both my kids love pattern blocks. We have a tub of painted, wooden pattern blocks: triangles, hexagons, trapezoids, parallelograms, and squares. Both my kids loved these from age 2 and up. You can get puzzle sheets, but they are probably more fun to use in your own way. Without the puzzle sheets, kids can still make designs or specific pictures. They can stack them up. They are wonderful. I think we bought ours at ETA Cuisinaire, but there are various types. I think Rainbow Resources sells them too.

We don't seem to get these out as much as we could, but we have connecting math rods. You can make "trains" out of those too.

We have some Waldorf playstands and they are extremely popular. They are a bit expensive and they do take up space. If I had it to do over, I'd only buy one instead of a whole set. They are great for kids who like to do a lot of fantasy play. My kids have used theirs as a house, a restaurant, a bus, a museum, a toy store, a spaceship...You can get some big playsilks or sheets of fabric to drape over them to make a roof and doors.

Puzzles are very popular in our house. We have tons. I will only buy Ravensburger now, for quality reasons. Also, I discovered that we loathe floor puzzles because the child has to crawl across the puzzle to solve it and that disturbs the pieces. There are some gorgeous Thomas the Tank Engine puzzles out there. But beware of buying too many in one piece count. Also, buy a piece count that is slightly harder than you think your child can handle because it lasts longer and there's less of a boredom issue. Also, check the complexity of the picture over the piece count, because some high level piece counts have easier pictures than lower ones. We had a set of 12 piece Melissa and Doug jigsaws that were harder (per piece) than some 35 piece puzzles we have.

Art supplies are always good...paint, clay, good thick paper, watercolors, popsicle sticks, etc.

HTH!

[cam&kat's_mom]

Thank you all so much!! You just helped out tremendously, and gave soem great ideas.. (And i don't feel so badly that he builds "contraptions" all over my house and plays for hours with them(mostly string, blankets and cardbard!)
I totally forgot about puzzles. He used ot love tehm but has fizzled. At 3 he was doing those 100 piece ones (that are aged liek ages 8+) so maybe time for some more of those to respark his interest in a quiet activity. Also I really have to invest in quality art stuff. Liek teh clay> I know he'd love to jsut explore wiht it... see with a little help most of my xmas list is all done! Thanks again!

[ferretfan]

i dont know if dd is gifted..yet but i'd like to throw tangrams out there as a recommendation. my cousin is gifted and we would both play for hours with a set each

[eilonwy]

My kids play with anything and everything, but BeanBean prefers real objects, and BooBah prefers things which can be stacked precariously and then climbed on.

Right now, he's in a "taking things apart" phase. Anything with screws that can be removed, you know? He loves to talk about them as he does it. "Hey, this thing has Phillips and flatheads, check it out, mom!" :

[Serenity]

mine mostly uses imagination, not much for toys but he spends a lot of time with animal figures, books, musical instruments (shakers, drums, mostly percussion), and dress up clothes.

[meemee]

another child with no interest in toys ever. except when they are at a friends house. i have even stopped accepting my friends offer to bring her fav. toy at their house home. she wont play with it at home.

her favourites for the past two years that i can think of are

- rocks, rocks and MORE rocks.
- pinecones
- tealite candles
- my beads - not childrens.
- extra large rubber bands
- my rejected make up as body paint
- paper bags (not as art)
- any kind of sticks
- rubber tweezers
- ice tongs
- anything miniature
- cool pens, boxes and flashlites that are hard to figure out.
- mud and sand (prefered to playdough)
- baking soda and vinegar and anything that can be experimented for hours in the bathtub
- anything that makes sound like fart
- hoolahoop
- capes
- art supplies that are messy and can be applied on teh body only. anything neater and it looses its appeal.

and of course her ecllectic collection of treasures.

[teachma]

Originally Posted by meemee

and of course her ecllectic collection of treasures.

Oh, yeah...the treasures! My son's treasures for the last two years have consisted mostly of the scraps from classroom art projects. He literally scurries around on the floor as the children complete their work, gathers the left-over bits of art supplies fom the projects, and stuffs them into the smallest compartment of his backpack. At home, he then sorts them into carefully assigned Ziploc bags which he contains in a circular Tupperware thingy. He regularly takes out his treasures from the Tupperware but never from the Ziplocs. His K teacher once apologized to me for allowing him to bring home all that cr*p! I said, "you have to be kidding. There's no stopping him, and he's been doing it since he was three years old at preschool!" He considers it his "collections."

[jkpmomtoboys]

Originally Posted by meemee

and of course her ecllectic collection of treasures.

OMG the treasures! Do not get me started on the treasures! There are "treasures" all over his room...can I throw out this scrap of paper? No, no, that's important! How about this bit of fluff! No, I can't EVER throw that out...