toy – mrs. jigg

I recently purchased two sets of barn and jungle animals from a mom-and-pop store in Tsuen Wan. From the outside, they looked like the plastic toys used in zoo/farm/safari “pretend play” activities that I’ve been seeing all over Instagram, so I was pretty excited to open them when I got home. The moment I ripped off the packaging, however, I was overcame by a terrible chemical odor. Luckily I was able to toss everything out before the Dumpling knew of their existence. (I normally buy toys behind her back and always examine everything behind closed doors before letting her to play.)

After this debacle, I decided to phase out most of our plastic toys because I’m tired of researching whether something is BPA, PVC, or [insert whatever chemical name]-free. Even if the Dumpling is past the phase of putting everything in her mouth, anything that’s radiating a chemical odor cannot be good.

My goal is to slowly replace the Dumpling’s toy box with quality wooden toys. Although the market is smaller and more expensive compared to its plastic counterpart, I’m only looking to purchase a few sets—specifically those that are multi-functional, offer replay value, and, if possible, have resale value as well. (I purchased two used sets that are in great condition; one of the sellers disclosed that she bought it used from someone else!)

Our household has always enforced a strict toy rotation system where the Dumpling is only allowed two boxes of toys—I cannot stand the clutter, so it forces me to be more thoughtful of my purchases and makes the Dumpling’s responsibility of cleaning up more manageable (and therefore, she’s more likely to do it). Most importantly, it challenges both of us to think of playing with existing toys in new, creative ways. This ensures that everything in our toy box gets play time; those that don’t get replaced with “new” ones until they find their way back in rotation or get stored away once she outgrows them.

These are the wooden toys currently in our collection and the creative ways we play with them to ensure that we get the most mileage!

Wooden Threading Beads

The Dumpling currently has zero interest in learning to lace, so we have been using the beads as stacking blocks and puzzles.

IMG_4625(Edited).jpg — Play Idea 1: Use the beads as building blocks. I like the design of this set because of the flat surfaces (some beads are curved all around).

Play Idea 2: Create a pattern matching puzzle. I printed various pattern arrangements and tasked the Dumpling with finding the pieces to match. While I used Photoshop to create the puzzle cards, you can just take pictures of your own arrangements and print them out as 4″ x 6″ photographs (they’re perfect flashcard size for little hands).

Play Idea 3: Create a block puzzle. I cut a picture into squares to the size of the block and taped them on. (Warning: The tape could ruin the paint!) The level of difficulty can be adjusted by customizing the number of blocks used—we started with four. Technically, I can also create up to six puzzles with a different picture on each face, but I kept it to one since we’re still on easy-mode. (Picture of animals from Freekpik.)

Wooden Animal Shape Sorter Pull Along Truck

This is the Dumpling’s favorite at the moment because the animal pieces are so cute!

IMG_4622(Edited) — Play Idea 1: Set up a “farm” and “safari” pretend play with other toy sets. (Yay, I finally did one!).

IMG_4617(Edited) — Play Idea 2: Create [more] shape puzzles by tracing the animal outlines onto a piece of paper.

IMG_4620(Edited) — Play Idea 3: Form an animal tower. Stacking the pieces is actually very hard because of their shape and weight! The Dumpling could only get to second row before knocking everything down in aggravation.

Wooden Magnetic Animal Puzzles

This was my first impulse wooden toy purchase, and in hindsight, probably my least favorite because there’s not much to do beyond solving the puzzle. It took the Dumpling a full afternoon to learn that she needed to flip all the pieces to face the same side, but she can now assemble everything in minutes. I guess that’s the problem with puzzles: they cease to be fun once the challenge is gone.

Play Idea 1: Create Frankenstein animals. While I like the silliness of the game, the Dumpling isn’t amused and “fixes” it every time.

Thats it for now, but I’m still looking to add two or three more sets. In the meantime, I will continue sharing new ways we play with our old toys…including the plastic ones I tend to keep in my next post!

The magna doodle started out as a relatively benign toy in our household. Its purpose was to introduce the Dumpling to drawing without giving me the anxiety of having to scrub crayons off the walls. Although the most I could get out of her were a bunch of scribbles, I would also take turns doodling to keep her engaged. I turned my sketches into a game where I would ask her to name or pick out the correct animal, object, or letter on the board. The ever changing artwork and the interaction kept her interested and bringing me the magna doodle has become part of her daily play.

Everything changed one day when jigg sketched a “rabbit”. I commented that it looked nothing like what it’s supposed to be and drew my version next to his. He obviously disagreed, so we turned to the Dumpling for the tie breaker. I showed her the board and asked her to find the rabbit. Without hesitation, she pointed to mine.

jigg cried foul and claimed that I had more practice. There was only one thing left to do whenever we have a trivial disagreement – we took our case to Facebook. I posted the below picture and asked our friends to decide: who drew the better bunny? The consensus was that jigg’s looked like a rat.

Then came the rematch and then another. What started out as an educational exercise for the Dumpling somehow morphed into an ongoing doodle war between jigg and me. The rules are simple: jigg and I each have half the board to draw the same animal that we take turns selecting (the Dumpling currently can correctly identify 30+ animals, so we have a sizable pool to pick from). We then present our work and ask her to point out the animal. Whichever one she selects first is the winner.

As the Dumpling assessed our work, it was interesting for jigg and me to analyze her thought process. At 20 months, she is able to pick up certain physical traits unique to specific animals even if they’re poorly drawn: cats have pointy ears and whiskers; crabs have claws; fish have fins; etc. Although her speech is still limited (we were told that speech development for children growing up in bilingual households take a bit longer), she displays her understanding by identifying an animal in one of three ways depending on what is easier for her to vocalize – by its English or Chinese name, or the sound the animal makes. It’s assuring to know that she can connect the same thing in multiple forms. For example, she understands that “moo”, “cow,” and “ngau” (Chinese for cow) are associated with cow, but she can only say “moo” and “ngau”.

The Dumpling also turned out to be a fair and honest judge in our doodle wars. Sometimes she would just stare and stare and wouldn’t be able to find the animal she was supposed to be looking for. In that case, it means that jigg and my drawings both suck.

To be honest, my art skills are probably slightly better than average at best. Even though jigg is currently ahead in the doodle wars, it makes me happy when my daughter picks mine. That means she [sometimes] “gets me”.

Tag: toy

Inside My Two Year Old’s Toy Box: Quality Over Quantity (Part 1)

The Doodle Wars