Homemade Toys

I thought I'd start a thread for everyone to add any simple ideas for homemade toys....

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Get an empty 125ml bottle. Fill it with water, add glitter & 3 or 4 coloured pebbles. Cut a kitchen sponge into fish shapes (or any other shape) and add them - it's best to cut the sponge in half as well otherwise it will be too thick. Superglue the lid on.

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Get another 125ml bottle. Add a few large beads or bells - these are for the rattley noise. Add in some coloured feathers, ribbon, small pom-poms (anything brightly coloured. Superglue the lid on.

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Get a mesh laundry bag & fill it with coloured cellaphane & coloured foil papers. It makes a nice crunchy sound & if bub chews on the bag it won't hurt their gums at all. (If you like, you can use empty potato chip packets for the same effect.)

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This one is hard to explain so bare with me!!!
Get an empty ice cream container & cut a hole in the bottle big enough for little hands to fit in. Cut out a seperate ice cream container lid (you need 2) so it fits inside the container, but won't come through the hole in the bottom. Get a bunch of kids handkerchiefs (maybe 7 or 8) and knot them together in a row (you know like clowns have?!). Put a hole in the ice cream lid you cut out & thread one of the hankies through and tie a knot in it. Put them all in the ice cream container & put the lid on (the lid side is now the bottom). So what you'll have is something like a tissue box. Apparently babies like to pull tissues out of the box & this way they can, but they won't come entirely out because the other lid inside the box stops them. Hope that makes sense!! If you want, you can use brightly coloured contact to fancy up the container.

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Another ice cream container one... Get a tennis ball & a ping pong ball. Cut hole in the lid of the ice cream container big enough for the balls to fit it in & that's it!! It's a simple version of the shape sorting toys you can buy.

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hi sarah

great idea unfortunately i don't have much to add, my extent of home made toys is to open up the tuppaware cupboard or saucepan cupboard.

must admit lani loves it and it gives me a good excuse to clean the cupboard up as i always seem to be packing them away and finding things i forgot i even had lol.

A small plastic jar or bottle filled with rice is also another great and cheap rattle that babies/small children love. You can also add a couple of drops of food colouring so when the baby/child shakes it for the first time it changes colour. Our playgroup kids even the young had a blast doing that.

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a couple small lengths of dowel or even a couple of rulers with a piece of string/ribbon attached to one end. At the other end of the ribbon tie or hot glue on a magnet, then all you need is coloured card cut into fish and each fish to have a paper clip on it. The kids love to "Go Fishing"


Love

I forgot about those ones Michelle. I remember my mum had a cupboard for us when we were little with old tupperware, saucepans, wooden spoons & we'd make heaps of noise!!

Here's a couple:

1. Fill an empty plastic milk container or coke bottle with some dry rice or pasta and superglue the lid on. Very ordinary looking toy, but they love the noise!

2. Recycle milo tins or formula tins by decorating them with pretty pictures, numbers, letters etc and put dry rice or pasta in them and superglue the lids on. The tins will roll along the floor as baby pushes it and also make a nice noise!

- Often I have bought Avent products like teats or cups that come encased in a clear hard plastic case. I have used one of these cases and put a heap of coloured rattly things inside, such as an old beaded bracelet, little bells, curling ribbons etc. I then taped around the entire outside of the case with wide clear tape to seal it up. Makes a great shaker, and looks interesting too!

- (This next one is for adults to use to entertain their kids... )
Get an old wire coathanger and snip off a 20cm length. Use pliers to curl around the top end of the wire into a circular shape, and leave enough wire at the bottom for your hand to hold... should look roughly like the shape of the letter P without that sharp corner. Then make a mix of dish washing detergent and water, I think its about 3 parts water to 1 part detergent (experiment if necessary). You can now blow lots of bubbles for your child... gauranteed to get smiles and squeals :D

- Someone has suggested before in another thread to use empty forumla tins as drums I think? you could always decorate the outside with contact or coloured paper too...

I use old formula containers as drums/ piggy banks...I usually wrap them up with wrapping paper and sometimes Matilda has fun unwrapping them #-o

We have wooden spoons that Matilda bangs on her formula tins.

We have made the rattles with baby food jars with the lids glued on with rice or pasta inside. I like the water idea though...

Magazines are really good for entertaining them, Matilda looks through them and rips them apart.

Matilda has an old phone & calculater which she loves walking around with and pretending she's on the phone. :D