Imagination-Stimulating Gifts for Children

SugarSpun

I've started thinking about this more and more. My small one's getting a box of musical instruments for Christmas this year, but in a couple of years - and considering my friends are also producing kids - what then?

So I'm making a list of ideas of things to give kids for Christmas that are not mass-produced, not overwhelmingly made of plastic, a little bit different and good for the imagination. Please add your thoughts and your own ideas

Music box: maracas, rice shakers, drum, triangle, recorder, bells ... much of it can be found in pound shops and the like. Parents may hate you a little bit.

Art box: set of drawers (poundland have some, but I was thinking the Ikea small wooden ones) with blank paper in the big bottom shelf and ink pads, pens, crayons, pencils, sharpener etc in the higher ones.

Spy kit: camouflage backpack containing binoculars, torch, notebook etc. Pound shops often have spy kits, or dealextreme.com has all the stuff for cheap.

Ant farm: fascinating and horrible, probably needs parents' permission

Wormery: ditto

Baking set: mixng bowl, apron, wooden spoon, cookie cutters, cake cases, dry cake/cookie mix, little cookbook (can also be HM)

White T-shirt and fabric pens/transfer paper

Collection of foreign coins/notes: my nephews are getting one hundred trillion dollar bills from Zimbabwe this year, I bought them from a charity who puts the cost of them (more than they're worth, ten was about £6) back into the country

Spice rack: get Skittles, Smarties or jelly beans and organise them in individual jars by colour

Dressing up box: A few pounds in a charity shop or car boot sale will buy a couple of hats, a dress/coat and a few other bits and you can supplement with pound shop masks

HM chemistry set: print out experiments you can do at home (cola/mentos rocket, volcano etc) and put in a folder. Add safety goggles and some of the ingredients.

redmel1621

Books...

A good one for older children, is an encyclopeadia. We got one two years ago for our boys and they love it:)

Obviously these are mass produced but I think a lot of people neglect to buy kids any books these days!

cazscoob

paint a piece of board with blackboard paint and decorate to suit, chunky chalk is very cheap and provides lots of fun! it can even be used outside on sunny days and quickly washed away

aless02

Chalk & blackboard is brilliant...I used to play with mine for hours .

With your kits idea...a craft kit. To make something simple like a pillow or you can even buy an already-made cross-stitch kit.

Sami_Bee

I think a traditional wooden clothes peg/pin is an essential craft item, my sister and I had a whole village of peg dolls that we made in school holidays.

Home Bargains and B&M stock a range of traditional toys that we have all of, includes a metal humming spinning top, a cup & ball, a pop gun and a jacob's ladder.

I'm currently thinking we NEED a proper kaleidoscope, haven't seen one but haven't looked hard for one.

A good recipe to put in your cook book could be play dough or salt dough, hopefully you'd get a lovely salt dough prezzie from them for your next special occasion

oh and chunky beads and a few laces are a great developmental toy, you could send smaller fancier beads for older girls to make jewellery out of too.