Twenty Toys You Don't Have To Buy (I).
Copyright 1999, all rights reserved.
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Fed up with forking out for the latest piece of over-hyped plastic? Answer 'What can we do now Mum?' by making toys from items you will already have around the house.
1)- Shops. Save all your empty grocery cartons for a week or so and you'll soon have a shop any aspiring grocer would be proud of. Gluing down the flaps makes cereal boxes, jelly packets etc. look unopened. Clothes, shoes, and toys can all be used as 'stock'. Paper bags and real or play money add to the fun.
2)- Paper balls. When the kids keep arguing suggest that they throw something at each other! Paper balls are easily scrunched up from torn out magazine pages to make 'ammunition'. When it's time to tidy up, stand the waste paper basket in the middle of the room and see who can throw the most in. A rolled up magazine makes a good 'bat' too.
3)- Doctors/Nurses. A roll of white toilet tissue makes this game much more fun as Dads, Grans, teddies or dolls are mummified before your eyes. Plastic medicine spoons and cardboard box hospital beds for toys are extra props that make the game last longer.
4)- Tubes. Cardboard tubes from kitchen roll or foil make instant telescopes for sailors or pirates, or tunnels to roll marbles through. Babies love to watch things disappear then reappear out of the bottom. Don't leave them alone with the cardboard tube though as they will probably suck it.
