mommy-rambling
Aug. 14th, 2004 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojGood day yesterday. Busy, though. Didn't do much during the morning, but around lunchtime we got ambitious. Worked on the 4 Alls medieval diorama - the boys made knights out of plasticine - did some paper games, then went out.
I was really, really disturbed to read the other day that Toys "R" Us May Leave the Toy Business. Not that I'm a big fan of Toys'R'Us, but it's sobering to think that they're being beaten out by Wal-Mart in large part because kids just don't buy toys any more; they want video games. No wonder childhood obesity has doubled in the last twenty years. I believe the figure is 20% of children are now medically obese, or something alarming like that. And I see it in my neighbourhood - not that the kids are obese, but that they don't play anything but video games, and it seems to me their imagination and social skills are correspondingly stunted.
Anyway, that's been on my mind in the last few days. Also on my mind has been the fact that Justin can't seem to play any board games without intense fear of losing.
Happily, both worries were eased somewhat by our trip to our local PlayValue store. I'd never gone, but Monique, a homeschooling mom I know, said that perhaps something from PlayValue's "cooperative games" section might help bring Justin into board games. So off we went. And I fell in love.
It's nice in there. There's loads of toys, hands-on stuff for kids to try, and it's all geared mostly towards imagination and learning and cooperation. Notsomuch with the violence and gimicks. Lots of Lego, Brio and Playmobil. A whole shelf full of cooperative board games with no hacking and killing.
Oh, and notsomuch with the gender divide, either. At Toys'R'Us, they practically label the different areas Boys Only and Girls Only in flashing neon. Walk into the girls' aisles and you're assaulted by pink and frills and pictures of little girls putting on makeup and doing their nails. Walk into the boys' aisles and you're being shot at from all angles.
PlayValue? The Lego and Brio were in roughly the same area of the store, and there were many shoot-em-up Lego toys (ie, Bionicles). But there were also roadbuilding toys among the shoot-em-ups, and science sets, and books, and some crafty-type toys. In another part of the store there were more crafts, some toy makeup and some dolls, interspersed among more board games and costumes for both genders and toy animals. You had to stop and think for a minute before you realized you were in their version of the Girl Land.
Very nice. And the kids loved it. We'll have to go again.
On with my day. We're having people over for a BBQ tonight, so I guess I better start cleaning. Not that there's much to do - we've been out of the house a lot so it's stayed reasonably respectable.
I was really, really disturbed to read the other day that Toys "R" Us May Leave the Toy Business. Not that I'm a big fan of Toys'R'Us, but it's sobering to think that they're being beaten out by Wal-Mart in large part because kids just don't buy toys any more; they want video games. No wonder childhood obesity has doubled in the last twenty years. I believe the figure is 20% of children are now medically obese, or something alarming like that. And I see it in my neighbourhood - not that the kids are obese, but that they don't play anything but video games, and it seems to me their imagination and social skills are correspondingly stunted.
Anyway, that's been on my mind in the last few days. Also on my mind has been the fact that Justin can't seem to play any board games without intense fear of losing.
Happily, both worries were eased somewhat by our trip to our local PlayValue store. I'd never gone, but Monique, a homeschooling mom I know, said that perhaps something from PlayValue's "cooperative games" section might help bring Justin into board games. So off we went. And I fell in love.
It's nice in there. There's loads of toys, hands-on stuff for kids to try, and it's all geared mostly towards imagination and learning and cooperation. Notsomuch with the violence and gimicks. Lots of Lego, Brio and Playmobil. A whole shelf full of cooperative board games with no hacking and killing.
Oh, and notsomuch with the gender divide, either. At Toys'R'Us, they practically label the different areas Boys Only and Girls Only in flashing neon. Walk into the girls' aisles and you're assaulted by pink and frills and pictures of little girls putting on makeup and doing their nails. Walk into the boys' aisles and you're being shot at from all angles.
PlayValue? The Lego and Brio were in roughly the same area of the store, and there were many shoot-em-up Lego toys (ie, Bionicles). But there were also roadbuilding toys among the shoot-em-ups, and science sets, and books, and some crafty-type toys. In another part of the store there were more crafts, some toy makeup and some dolls, interspersed among more board games and costumes for both genders and toy animals. You had to stop and think for a minute before you realized you were in their version of the Girl Land.
Very nice. And the kids loved it. We'll have to go again.
On with my day. We're having people over for a BBQ tonight, so I guess I better start cleaning. Not that there's much to do - we've been out of the house a lot so it's stayed reasonably respectable.
