Remember playing outside galloping across a field? Remember yesterday’s toys of fun and imagination? That’s what today’s creativity prompt is about. Old and forgotten toys from childhood. Only these toys aren’t forgotten. If you’re ever in Havana, Cuba you will still see children playing with them.
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When I was growing up, there were no electronic games or toys. The only toys I remember using any electricity were an Easy Bake Oven and a Lite Brite. Everything else was push or pull by ourselves. Or just completely made up. We used to imagine that the entire second floor of our house was an airplane. One bedroom was the cockpit and one bedroom was for the passengers.
Remember when a toy didn’t have to be a fancy electronic gizmo? Remember when your imagination (and possibly some imaginary friends) allowed you to play for hours with a hobby horse? That’s what your creativity prompt is about today. Where will it take you? Here is previous post creativity prompt about using your imagination to play: Imagination in a Playground of Rusty Cars.
I hope you have fun with this creativity prompt. Perhaps reliving your own childhood memories?
Old toys and imagination … definitely lacking in this sparkly new world of ours!
I know. Sometimes I’m amazed at the wonderful, electronic toys of today. At other times, so sad because I don’t think they use their imagination quite as much as we did.
I miss seeing kids use boxes and junk…
I know. Remember when the box was more fun to play with than the toy inside?
Oh yes!!!
We played with a box full of empty wrappers and it was the best shop game EVER!!
Yes! Now that is imagination.
We had this amazing buzzy bee that made a hell of a noise on wooden floors, every parents nightmare and every child’s heaven 🙂 Yes, we also had the horse head and I am sure my brothers ran around playing cowboys and indians!
I think driving parents crazy with our playing was a mandatory part of childhood!
I’m afraid that imagination is going to be a thing of the past as our technology age grows….Sob.
Then we MUST change that. Even scientists and inventors need imagination. Are we in an imaginary crisis?
Yes. We are! Let’s put our thinking caps on and do something about it!
Exactly. We can think of something. Anything really!
Crumbs, I was only talking yesterday about sweets from the years of yore. Penny chews that were actually a penny, well know chocolate bars that were actually bigger and more than a mouthful instead of less costs more; odd thing about THAT is the obesity crisis wasn’t looming because we all went outdoors and were active; no screens or internet, 3 TV channels, music scratching away on an uneven record deck, phones were stuck to the wall by a cord and often in the most drafty place in the house. How times change.
Board games (nifty wordplay there methinks as, sunny outside or bored game? No contest).
Proper blast form the past post Jennifer; thoroughly enjoyed the nostalgia and my own ramble 🙂
When I was a child, my walk to and from elementary school took us past a penny candy store. Oh, the joy when we had a nickel or a quarter and could fill a small, brown paper bag with candy!
Lol, yes…we had a corner shop that did that AND they supplied them in brown paper bags. Very biodegradable and no plastic. It’s when I look back at things like that, that I wonder when commercial money chasing turned away from established “old” ways and entered this lust for money selling anything and everything with no regard for health or environment. Ooh there’s a post in that lol
You are so right. I remember when you could only get certain fruits and veggies in the grocery store depending on the season. Now you can get anything at any time.
Very true, and that’s where the world began to go wrong. Gosh, I could have a proper rant and rave soap box on that one lol
Go right ahead! Lol.
etch-a-sketch, slinkies and kick the can!
I loved slinkies.
I was shocked recently to read that young children (8 or 9) would not go to the toilet because they wanted to play their games on their XBox or whatever it is. We used to have two tin cans and string and pretend it was a telephone – we had great fun! What happened to those days (and why do I sound like my MUM LOL).
Haha. We’ve turned into our moms! Kick the can, Wiffle ball games and just running around the neighborhood until it was time to come home and eat. I even made a game out of raking leaves by creating house floor plans with the leaves. Back in those days, there was nothing on the TV in the afternoons except soap operas. It was so much better to be running around outside.
Just like cas, the box can be a greater adventure than the fancy toy. IMAGINATION HAS NO RESTRICTIONS X
You are so right. Boxes are so much fun and can be made into so many different things. Real and imagined!
My kids 3, 5,10 and 13 have most of the older toys you link to and all the new technology. A lot of their favorites are the same ones I played with in the 80s – Barbies, board games, hot wheels and cards. And of course they like their iPads and game systems too. They play with cardboard boxes that now arrive frequently thanks to online shopping.
I don’t see a lack of creativity or imagination in them at all. And in a way today’s technology provides more opportunities to express and share their creativity, even though there are also negatives to technology as well.
My son used to love cardboard boxes. I think the lack of creativity in today’s world is complex (and there is a lack.) Part of it is a parent who uses those electronics as a babysitter and so the kids are on them all the time. The other reason why there is a lack of creativity is that children are overscheduled now. They aren’t allowed enough time to play like we had when we were younger. No time to imagine what that cardboard box has become because the box is thrown out while they are being shuttled back and forth from one activity to the next.
How fun! My kids love their wooden toys. They have such great imaginations. The toys don’t always have to create a narrative.
You’re right! It’s up to the kids to create the narrative.