Tuesday, December 9, 2008

gift guide part 3B: gifts for babies and toddlers

  • Wooden blocks
  • Wooden airplane or trucks
  • Small silverware set
  • Flashlight
  • Wooden pounding bench
  • Handmade books -- We have some that my mom made for me when I was a baby. She used white tagboard, cut it into pages (about 5" X 7"), glued pictures on each page, covered them with contact paper, punched holes on the left edges, and tied them into books with pretty ribbon. Do these with photos for far-away baby relatives, or cut up an art museum catalog to expose babies to masterpieces. When Sebastian was a baby, my mom and brother made him a book called "Sebastian's Pictures of the World." It's a three-ring binder with page protectors designed for trading cards, but instead of cards they cut out beautiful photographs from magazines. He used to look at it for hours.
  • Beanbags -- This is another project that you can do yourself. Just stitch up some squares of fabric and stuff them with beans.
  • Nuts and bolts -- Nice big ones that can't be swallowed
  • Telephone -- Another great opportunity to recycle
  • Transistor radio -- They love turning the knobs and watching the dial move and hearing the stations and volume change.
  • A roll of toilet paper and/or a roll of tape
  • A box of junk mail or a newspaper
  • Step-stool
  • Radio Flyer makes a baby bike with four wheels
  • Natural teether -- thread empty wooden spools onto a leather thong and tie the ends of the thong together to make a circle.
  • Sorter -- Cut a 1/4" or 1/2" wide slit in the top of a coffee can lid. Reinforce the slit with masking or duct tape (this also makes the edges safer). Put a few metal juice can lids in the can, replace the lid, and you've got a great gift. To make it prettier, you can cover the can with contact paper or fabric. I made this for my kids when they were little, and they loved it.
  • Empty boxes -- I kept telling everyone that this was what my toddlers wanted for Christmas. Unfortunately, no one ever believed me. I don't know what would delight a toddler more than empty boxes of assorted sizes -- the ones with lids are even more of a treat!

4 comments:

sf said...

I will put a link to this on my blog - it's comprehensive!

Dante said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
sf said...

That was actually me trying to comment (again), until I realized Dante hadn't signed out, so it was I who deleted the post I wrote, not Dante.

Anyway.

In the previous comment which I made, I meant, "it's GOING to be comprehensive". Especially when you add about how a handful of rusty nails on a big ol' magnet make such "a great toy for a little boy".

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing gift's idea.


Happy blogging,

Toddler Gifts