Do Kids Still Play with Wooden Toys?
These hand-carved wooden toys are lovely, although probably not on sale in the U.S. (They're made by an Italian group called "To Be Us.") But they made me wonder if any of you guys have bought these sort of nostalgic pieces for your kids, like wooden cars or blocks, and whether or not your kids actually play with them. I can't help but read descriptions that mention the Lebanese cedar and mahogany wheels and think these sorts of toys are made for the parents, not the kids.
But I don't have kids at hand to observe. Do kids actually like these sort of toys still? To the exclusion of more detailed, accurate representations? What are your kids' favorite toys anyway?
TO BE US A MATTER OF TOYS [Notcot]
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thomas the train is wood
We bought a load of wooden toys for my daughter, lots of Brio ( http://brio.knex.com/ )and some local hand crafted stuff. I was aware that there was a great deal of nostalgia attached alongside a reluctance to buy loads of horrible plastic crap. However, she loved them and still plays with the brio train set occasionally (she's now 10 and mostly a sylvanian families nut, so the trains go well with it)
I have found that kids go mad with desire for the latest plastic fantastic but that the enthusiasm wains fairly quickly when the limitations are reached, with the more old fashioned wooden toys there seems to be a greater imaginative interaction that lasts longer, like the wooden articulated digger for ezample, I mean, grown ups want to play with that!
I'm all for simpler toys made from materials I'm happy for my 2 year old to suck on, these cheap plastics have all kinds of nasty attached. imvho naturally ;-)
I have a son who is perfectly happy to play with wooden toys. I don't think it's the material that matters to kids, though some kids might ignore the taupe on brown color scheme of these toys. But every kid I know, if you handed them these cars, would play with them. Whether they'd be a favorite, and whether these toys would be considered good child development tools by an expert, are very different questions. But the kids under 2 I know would play with a boring brown cardboard box for a while if I acted like it was a really fun toy.
dollar store, baby. i got him a fire engine, a few race cars, and he's in heaven. 3 and a half years old. wooden blocks and some paint. what more does he need?
of course, he does adore his hot wheels, too.
Edward got a wooden pirate ship for Christmas, complete with crew of four pirates, and he loves it. For a long time his big brother Jack's favourite toy was a wooden Brio type train set.
my boys play with wooden blocks almost equal to their Lego brand plastic...especially when building domino-style Rube Golberg contraptions
Young Abraham's chief toys are of wood -- a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it is hardened by charring in the fire, and sharpened to a fine point. With this stake he holds a heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coal cellar for breaking the lumps. To me, a child's preparations for play of any kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Cory and Xeni was to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet.
My nephews had a blast building and racing wooden cars. I don't know if they play with them much anymore though. Especially not the oldest - he's about to turn 19.
I'm a woodworker by avocation - mostly large furniture pieces. I decided to use my scrap cutoffs to make wooden cars, trains, trucks, etc. for my small grandchildren. They loved them! They loved them so much I tried an experiment and just made different shaped and sized pieces from the scrap, not even fashioning them into anything recognizable. Same reaction - delight! Kids will use their imaginations to turn anything into something that amuses, challenges and intrigues them.
My son (2) loves both his wooden trains and track, which are by far his favorite. He also loves his matchbox cars too. Wood toys seem to hold a fascination longer then some of the electronic ones (minus the talking, moving hotwheels track). The bigger wood toys seem just more durable and easier for him to hold. Dumping and pulling/pushing are what matter most with them. He does have a few comparable size plastic trains that "play" with the wooden ones just fine. He's named them all as to which Thomas character they are, so it being an "official" Thomas and friends toy, doesn't seem to matter (which is good, because their $$$).
I run into a lot of Waldorf snobs who insist on wooden toys, and I like them for my own reasons, but have witnessed that it doesnt seem to get in the way of his imagination if it's a disney plastic train or a wooden dollar store train, he likes them all.
westy48 - Where ever did you find a wooden pirate ship and pirates? I've got to know! Such a thing sounds like it should be featured on Boing Boing
An uncle, a great uncle, and a grandfather all make or made wooden toys. The great uncle was a part of a group of retirees that made wooden toys then donated them to charity - an excellent cause. The uncle sells wooden cars online. We always had wood toys to play with, and they came in a very close second only to Lego.
My kids have some wooden blocks (just primary shapes) and Lincoln Logs. My 3 yr old plays with the wooden blocks quite a lot. The 3, 6 & 12 yr olds all play with the Lincoln Logs.
Talking about nostalgia toys: for all of my kids, Legos are their favorite toys (if you exclude video games). They play with those things (and fight over them, and throw them at each other) all the time.
We do have a few wooden cars and the like, and none of the kids seem to care for them at all.
Favorite toys in our house are Legos, Lincoln Logs, costumes, and of course video games. Almost all their other toys are just clutter :-(
I'm 21 years old now, my brother is 17. Our mom bought us a set of wooden blocks when we were little that we had hours and hours of endless fun with. They didn't get boxed up and put in the attic until we were well into our teens.
The blocks nearly always formed the basic framework for whatever other toys we were playing with... forts for the GI Joes, secret bases for the superhero action figures, roads and cities and garages for the toy cars and trucks, houses for my dolls, etc. As we got older and our play styles matured, other toys fell out of favor but we always seemed to find new uses for the wooden blocks.
I hope that by the time my brother and I get around to having kids of our own we'll be able to buy a similar set, or there's going to be a huge argument over who gets to give the set we have to their children.
I used to do the ordering for a toy store that served a fairly affluent, educated, and leftist section of NH and VT. Plain wooden toys sold as well as or better than the flashier new stuff, and during the holidays, we had a hard time keeping them in stock.
my 8 month old son really likes to chew/gum on the wooden cars his grandfather got for him. Of course, he likes to to chew on a lot of things, so I don't know if that's much of an endorsement.
I think the key is this: kids will play with what they are given. Until they can watch TV ads and then they NEED new stuff.
Doug&Melissa is a company that makes a ton of wooden toys. They're pretty impressive and they have some stuff that I like to play with too. They're super creative and have an original take on some old designs.
There are several companies in the US that still manufacture Wooden Toys. I lived in Kane, PA for a while and the Holgate Toy company is located there. You can purchase a wooden version of the trolley from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood from them, as well as many other classic wooden toys.
Holgate was established in 1789 and no, that date is NOT a typo, so apparently kids have been playing with wooden toys for Hundreds of Years...
http://www.holgatetoy.com/
heres a large list of some other wooden toy manufacturers/importers..
http://www.toydirectory.com/L1_131.htm
The wooden toys our 6 year old has always used gets as much use as non-wooden toys and they are inter-mixed. Playmobil guys on a wood block castle for example.
Our place of worship uses wooden and other natural materials to tell our stories. The impact on the kids is amazing. They seem to connect better with the stories.
Lincoln logs and tinker toys.
I made these wooden puzzles for my niece and nephew for christmas. They enjoyed playing with them. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougp/sets/72157603623216321/
hate to be the one to say but my three year old kind of chuckles when i try to get her to play with blocks or any wooden toy. she has tryed in the past but after five minutes or so they get swept under the couch.
There's a cafe/coffeehouse in my neighborhood where I like to work: well lit, big windows, reliable wifi, good coffee.
They've installed a wooden train set on a low table, and it reliably attracts all the small children there to play with the trains while the adults (who tend to prefer the two-seat tables near the fireplace) are in the other part of the cafe.
I often look to see what the kids are doing, because I am amused by the sight of a Brio train being attacked by a plastic pirate ship crewed by Lego armored knights riding horses.
I guess it's probably a matter of how inundated your kids are with technological stimulation. If they aren't playing with the latest edutainment devices or watching TV incessantly, wooden toys probably sustain their attention and get the imaginative juices flowing better.
My son (6) saw a small wooden toy catapult and wanted it soooo bad and he loves it. He in turn bought his younger brother (1) a wooden toy car.
My daughter (3) plays almost exclusively with wooden Tinker toys. She wakes us up in the morning by dumping the whole bucket of them on our bedroom floor.
I second the props for Doug & Melissa.
We have mainly wooden toys for our kids. They love them. For that matter they love the plastic toys too.
I keep telling my wife that we should get them acorns, pecans, rocks and sticks next year for christmas, as they play with that stuff for hours on end too.
Kids are good at making anything play (including hammers).
I was shopping for wooden toys for my niece not long ago and some of the nicest I've seen are from Maple Landmark Woodcraft. Many are more than just slabs of wood (the school bus top comes off and you can take the passengers out). I also liked that they were available painted or plain.
They also have Tangrams, Soma blocks, and other adult stuff. I feel like I should be getting paid for this comment by this point so I'll just stop.
In the UK in certain middle class circles wooden toys are all the rage and are exceedingly popular AND expensive. It seems to be a backlash against all the garish, poorly made plastic toys that eat batteries.
When my daughter was younger, we got her several sets of these:
http://www.constructiontoys.com/store/hab-mb25.php
She played with them CONSTANTLY. More, even than legos or tinkertoys, and even now, at 15, still drags them out occasionally to make elaborate, livingroom occupying structures.
I like to think it's part of the reason she's a founding member of the robotics club at school and why she's considered one of the better mechanics in the group.
I ask you: what kid could resist these amazing wood robots by Take-G?
Regards,
Dug North
Some of the best toys I had were wooden blocks and a train and a helicopter my dad made for me. If/When I have kids, I'll be making toys for them with my own two hands.
I'm not a parent, and don't speak Japanese, but holy crap check these out:
http://hitspaper.com/?eid=546
When my son was 4 I bought him a beautiful wooden car-carrier truck from a guy at a local art fair. It was about a metre long and insanely detailed, with smoke stacks and wipers and so on. It even came with six different models of cars on the trailer. It was his favourite toy for about 4 years and was so solid he could sit on it and ride it about. I hate to sound cliche but they just don't make em like that anymore...
Born in 1990 and when I was growing up we had cars just like those and little figurines. When My brother was born eight years later though everything was plastic.
But I also grew up in the ultra hippie-liberal Olympia, Wa.