Christmas is coming up, and in our house we prefer quality over quantity when it comes to presents. Rather than overloading our kids with lots of toys that they never play with, we'd rather spend more on something they use all the time.
Our IKEA kitchen has been a great success, and we were thinking that a market stall might make another good, imaginative investment that the kids would play with again and again.
So, parents of EF, what are the toys that your kids returned to again and again? Ideally for kids aged 3-4.
At that age the young'uns loved puppets, loved creating their own worlds, loved putting on shows. So we gave Kasperli puppets - all sorts of figures, from simple cloth puppets when they were very young to the more intricate wooden puppets and marionettes when they were older. (Mom and Dad provided the puppet theater, which grew in complexity as the years went on.)
In ZH there is Pastorini, a higher-end toy store that carries quite a range of puppets, some pretty much works of art. But you don't have to go to that expense - one can find great puppets in all price ranges - even kits to make puppets, something the young folks also loved to do, from about age 5 on.
I second the Magnatiles. We actually just bought a second set for Christmas even though they are expensive.
We have a 3 year old and 5 year old and they never seem to get tired of these. Even better than that, they can build these independently which means you have a little bit of time before they start whining "come play with me"... At least that's how it works at our house.
I'm currently loving our son's Hape Quadrilla Marble Run. Not cheap, and taken him a while to start playing with it, but now he's building his own setup without wanting to follow instructions.
If anyone knows where I can get some more parts cheap I'd love to know...
I'll second Quadrilla. It gets taken out at least once a week and has for the last few years (it was originally a present for one child but we got an additional set for another child when he was three).
Our Ikea kitchen has great play value too. They quite like playing with fake food and produce and a cash register that we got once too.
The Duplo/Lego,: magnatiles, Kapla and Brio train set are the toys I have kept for the grandchildren. Of everything we had they and the kitchen were the ones that saw the most use.
The kitchen and fake food was always a firm favourite with the youngest who at almost 16 has his sights set on a culinary career.
Actually I forgot the Bosch toy chainsaw. For some reason (it is quite realistic and noisy) that was the most sought after toy when kids came around to play.
The bog standard Lego bricks are much better than the various different 'special' models. The kids can use their imagination to build whatever they want even if they bear no resemblance to the desired building from an adult perspective.
I can recommend Brio Train, Lego Duplo and Kapla for a 3-year old as well as extra material for the kitchen (we had the IKEA kitchen). All are good quality toys that last for several years. The Troll is almost 7, yet he still plays with his Kapla a lot. The Duple have been switched for proper Lego and the Brio Train is replaced with a Märklin, but we keep them in the basement for when we have younger guests. Same with the kitchen, he kept the fake food in his room and we bring the kitchen up when we need it.
For older kids, Geomag are also fun and last a while.
The marble run on the other hand never got much interest. We bought a Cuboro set a coupe of years back, he uses the cubes to build structures together with the Kapla, but he's never actually built a run.
Several years? You mean several decades! Our Brio train is now with the fourth group of children and going strong. Together with the farm which Mr. Longbyt made for our youngsters, it did the rounds of other relatives children and both are now back here for the grandchildren. Another success story was the doll's house - another Mr. Longbyt creation. Some of the furniture was given by Mr. Longbyt's mother, other things were made by the children themselves. These things form a link through the generations which often, when we live abroad, gets lost.
On your advice as well as many favorable reviews online, I pulled the trigger on a set of 100 magnatiles. I hope that they're as good as everyone says they are because they're expensive!