Top Three Toys to Make
While these might not be the most exciting tutorials in Toymaking Magic, I guarantee you that they will be the most satisfying to make!
Why? Because there is nothing more satisfying than seeing your children enjoy the toys that you made for them day after day, year after year.
I have been making toys for my boys for five years and there are 3 particular toys that they have played with endlessly at every age:
Bean Bags
One of the first toys I ever made for my kids (when they were 2 and 5 years old) was Bean Bags. Now at 7 and 10 years old, they still use them regularly! For things that I never would have imagined!
Heavy Rice Bags
They use Heavy Rice Bags almost as often as the bean bags! Again, they use them for all sorts of things that they were never intended for. Things that aren’t Waldorfy at all – like for propping up Hot Wheels race tracks. It cracks me up! I first got the idea to make these for Circle Time to carry around on their backs like turtles. I promise, you don’t even need to make suggestions about how to play with them! They will come up with all sorts of fun ideas!
Playsilks
Playsilks can be used for everything from fort building to costumes! They never lose their charm! While bean bags and heavy rice bags are not toys you can actually buy, playsilks are easy to purchase already dyed, so I’ll let you decide if you feel it’s worth your while to dye them yourself. But in my mind playsilks are a MUST-HAVE toy! The more the merrier, but don’t feel pressure to buy a whole bunch all at once. They are definitely pricey. I will say though that we started with only one and my son didn’t feel inspired to do anything with it until we had a couple more. THEN he started having a bunch of ideas.
What these three toys have in common is that they are all open-ended and inspire creative and imaginative play.
They give a child a sense of wonder and power as they discover they can transform the simplest of objects into things that are useful and creative!
Elevate your child’s play with these three simple, magical toys!
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Beans bags are so versatile! We love ours!
And the heavy rice bags I made were made originally for heating bags, but the kids often use them as toys, too!
That’s great to hear that the bean bags and heavy rice bags get lots of play in your home too!!
We dyed 6inx20in silks as party favors for my daughter’s dance themed birthday party. We dyed them pink, purple, and light blue using Jessica’s silk food coloring tutorial!
The kids danced choreography with them to the song “Colors of the Wind”!
They were a BIG hit!
LOVE this idea Leah! What a great party favor. That must have been so sweet to watch them dancing to Colors of the Wind…