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In the interests of not reinventing the wheel, to save money/time (and in a spin off to another thread) I want to pick your brains! Especially those further along the path than me!

What resources, books, toys or games (not so much curriculum) did you find that your child returned to again and again. They can be commercial or homemade, intended as learning materials or 're-purposed'. Please include a rough age guide for when they got into it and dropped it too, if you can.

For us so far it has been:

* Duplo - from very young, still hasn't outgrown it at 4 but would probably be into lego if his little brother wouldn't eat it.

* Paint - from about 1 year. Messy but brilliant

* The sandpit/box - From 6 months, still loving it at 4. I have an idea from a book for an engineers wall to add to it that will probably buy it quite a bit of time.

Anyone else?

Great idea, GeoMamma, I'll so look forward to reading what everyone says!

-For us (my boys are 9, 7, and 5), number one, hands down, has been a great set of field guides to our area (trees, rocks, birds, insects, etc.); they are in at least twice-weekly use, and have been since my eldest was 2. Some of the best money I ever spent! Also some magnifying glasses/binoculars to go with them.

-Chess is the game that never palls here; I expect they will still be playing as adults. Also lots of decks of cards and a Hoyle's.

-I splurged on a really big, really good atlas when Harpo was about 3; that has been a pretty constant source of delight, too, especially for him--less so for the other two.

-for Groucho and Chico, good-quality drawing pencils and nice paper, from age 2 or 3 on--I don't anticipate them getting bored with drawing any time soon.

-for Groucho, especially, good hand tools and a supply of scrap softwood; he loves woodworking (no power tools, obviously, and lots of safety equipment and supervision--good from about age 5 here).

-someone gave us an old Singer 99 (a 3/4 size machine); I gave it a motorectomy and converted it to hand-cranked operation, which is much safer than an electric machine for little kids. They all love to sew (puppets, props for plays, pencil cases, shorts, PJ bottoms, hats, mitts, knapsacks, etc.)--good from 5 or 6, with some supervision at first.

-the garden--a never-ending source of education, from the fun of watching seeds sprout, to discussing weeds and finding pests, talking about earthworms, learning about hybridization (and planning some of their own--they've discovered Carol Deppe's fabulous book), to looking forward to building their own roadside stand to sell produce when they're teens--the garden has been a big deal to all of my kids, from when they were first toddling around.

peace
minnie

Great idea!

- boardgames: chess, checkers, card games, backgammon

- cranium's cadoo

- piano with easy instructions already there and child can work through it when in the mood

- I second the garden. Great source of learning and activities. Planning, and did I say learning already?

- doodle/drawing book

Well you know lego features in our house extensively and has for around 3 years :lol
I have a feeling Scrabble will be a long term feature of our household.
Stockmar crayons. Brilliant and they last forever.

Tom the train wooden railroad tracks have made it through almost 8 years of many boys and are still on the floor at least once a week.

I'll put in my vote for the garden, stuff to dig with and stuff to build with. We live in the country and fort building happens constantly!

Weirdly enough - we save all kinds of packaging - cardboard, plastic bottles, toilet and paper towel tubes, egg cartons etc.
Along with tape and glue these make great building materials.

Once old enough - digital camera

So many of these are things we have, and yes, use all the time! We haven't got into board games much yet, but I can see them coming up so it's good to have some ideas.

minniemarx - I know the actual one you use are probably not good for my area, but what sort of things do you look for in a guide to make it good for the children to use?

Well, let's see, GeoMamma--good-quality pictures, for sure--and the kids prefer the guides where the pictures are next to the individual descriptions (in some guides, there's a big colour section in the middle, and the whole rest of the book is text, with references to the illustrations, so there's a whole lot of flipping back and forth--that doesn't work well for kids, nor for me either, actually!).

For the most part, they prefer books with drawings or paintings to those with photographs, which I think is interesting. I'm not sure why that is.

Font size and leading are important, too--it's too hard for them to read if the print is too small or the lines of type are too close together.

It's nice to have a decent binding, so the book will stay flat when it's open, without pages trying to fall out.

They prefer smallish ones, so that the books are not too heavy in their packs when we're hiking. We sort of pick what kind of excursion we're having on any given day (birds and tidepools, or trees and animal tracks, etc.), and just take two or three books with us, so that they don't get too weighed down.

mm

PS Breakaway4--how could I have forgotten cardboard? Where the rest of us see garbage, Groucho sees raw materials! Sounds like you have some of those kids, too!! It's fun, isn't it?

Oh yes, not much makes it into the recycling bin in our house before having several lives as some kind of crafty creation!