Your 10 best toy purchases - and your 10 that were a waste of money

Best
Trampoline
Lego
Books
Stationary
Schleich toys
A few cuddly toys

A waste
The rest.

Best...
Art supplies, we have a whole room with everything you could ever want and if the kids don't use it then I will so no chance of wastage. It is our most popular room.
Loose parts; recyclables, blocks, rocks, shells, gems, odds and ends, anything that can be manipulated and rearranged in an open ended fashion. We were also gifted speilgaben which fits into that category in our house and gets a lot of use.
Light table. Brilliant. Mirrors go well with one or with anything.
Trampoline.
Lego, wooden train set, wooden marble run - classics.
Animal figurines (and pokemon). Very popular.
Dress ups.
Doll house.
Instruments.
Board games.
Books.

Waste
Can't really think of anything we have currently but we had a junk when they were babies. Gifts. Your typical loud, flashy plastic with an expected singular use.

Best:

Schleich horses
Plastic dinosaurs
Playdoh
Crayons and scrap paper
Huge dinosaur jigsaw (those big Australian Geographic ones - about 1.5x1.2m, about 40 pieces)
Cheap wooden train set
Swingset
Sandpit
Little people anything
A toy gibbon with arms that velcro, like it's holding hands / legs


Worst:

Basically every other soft toy ... they only are used to pad out the beds for no apparent reason
Bike (doesn't get used much)
Anything with batteries
Anything not sturdy ...

Best:
Barbie
Art and craft table with supplies
Tekkno trikes
Trampoline
Swing set
Baby and pram
Balls
Bubble solution and wand
Kinetic sand
Drawing easel

Worst:
Cheap toys from like bargain shops
Cheap paints and textas
Soft toys - we dont buy any due to dd allergies but people love giving them!
Blow up ball pit
Blow up jumping castle
Zuzu pets
12volt car - dd doesnt mind the 6vt but the 12 is too jolty
Rollerblades
Sand pit

some of my answers have changed over time, and child. DS got more out of DDs balance bike, even when the seat was too high for him he would push it up and down hills around the yard. At 4, dd was given a bike with training wheels and she is on it many times a day. Similarly, puzzles were put away bc i was the only one doing them but now DD will happily sit there and play puzzles for an hour or so.

BEST:
Large coloured scarves & op shop dress ups (these have been played with more often and for longer than any other toy in the house)
Belville theme Lego - especially the fairytale sets
All things duplo/lego
Good quality textas, pencils, paints etc and paper
Playdough toys - especially the foodie ones
Wooden toy kitchen, ikea pots & pans, and felt food.
Jar of large multicoloured buttons
Scooter
musical instruments (tabla, tone bells, xylophone, harmonica, etc - but steer clear of the recorders/whistles if you value your sanity)
Magnadoodle
Plastic camping set in a backpack (pretend camp stove, compass, shovel, torch, etc) - this still gets played with
Doctor's bag (op shop handbag with toy doctor set inside)
Small (real) tea cups and saucers
Boxed games: UNO!!! plus also cluedo, jenga, snap cards, connect-4, battleship


WORST
Those books with the effing jigsaw pages! I hate them with a passion
Wooden doll-house family and furniture
The $2 shop craft packs that consist of ****ty textas, unshiny glitter that gets spilt in the carpet, and coloured feathers that turn up randomly around the house for the next 10 years
Most tv/movie merchandise toys (the exception was the disney princess doll with black undies that did karate kicks and arm chops!)
pretend cleaning tools
Dolls that were the fad of the moment
Beanie kids
Risk: the game to play if you want your family to hate each other.

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BEST:
Large coloured scarves & op shop dress ups (these have been played with more often and for longer than any other toy in the house)

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Best. Idea. Ever.

Now I know what DS1 is getting to go with his birthday gift :D

And I have an old little suitcase they can live in :D

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BEST:
Large coloured scarves & op shop dress ups (these have been played with more often and for longer than any other toy in the house)
Belville theme Lego - especially the fairytale sets
All things duplo/lego
Good quality textas, pencils, paints etc and paper
Playdough toys - especially the foodie ones
Wooden toy kitchen, ikea pots & pans, and felt food.
Jar of large multicoloured buttons
Scooter
musical instruments (tabla, tone bells, xylophone, harmonica, etc - but steer clear of the recorders/whistles if you value your sanity)
Magnadoodle
Plastic camping set in a backpack (pretend camp stove, compass, shovel, torch, etc) - this still gets played with
Doctor's bag (op shop handbag with toy doctor set inside)
Small (real) tea cups and saucers
Boxed games: UNO!!! plus also cluedo, jenga, snap cards, connect-4, battleship


WORST
Those books with the effing jigsaw pages! I hate them with a passion
Wooden doll-house family and furniture
The $2 shop craft packs that consist of ****ty textas, unshiny glitter that gets spilt in the carpet, and coloured feathers that turn up randomly around the house for the next 10 years
Most tv/movie merchandise toys (the exception was the disney princess doll with black undies that did karate kicks and arm chops!)
pretend cleaning tools
Dolls that were the fad of the moment
Beanie kids
Risk: the game to play if you want your family to hate each other.

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Ohhh I love RISK - I can still remember the smell of my RISK game - I think it has changed over the years but mine was before they changed to figures and were just little plastic three pronged things - and they had a very distinctive smell.

I am with you on books with puzzle pages though - dumbest invention ever.

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Most tv/movie merchandise toys (the exception was the disney princess doll with black undies that did karate kicks and arm chops)

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Fairly sure this is Xena, not a disney one. Love Xena. But not being gifted the dolls age 20. (Still boxed, need to check ebay...)

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Fairly sure this is Xena, not a disney one. Love Xena. But not being gifted the dolls age 20. (Still boxed, need to check ebay...)

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No, it was one of the princesses out of the Shrek movie where (SPOILER ALERT) the princesses kick butt.