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The set of toys I spent the most time playing with was a big bag of wooden blocks my grandfather gave me when I was very small. They are well designed, with a g
by mrob 10mo ago
The set of toys I spent the most time playing with was a big bag of wooden blocks my grandfather gave me when I was very small. They are well designed, with a good selection of different shapes, e.g. it has cylinders and arches and thin planks as well as cuboids. They got a lot of use because they're so flexible in combining with other toys, e.g. you can build roads and garages for toy cars, or obstacle courses for rolling marbles. The edges and corners are rounded and the wood tough enough that clean-up was just dropping them back into the bag.
I've since given them to a nephew and I'm happy to see he gets just as much entertainment out of them as I did. Plain wooden blocks can represent almost anything. There are no batteries or moving parts to fail. Mine got a little bit of surface wear but they still work just as well as they did when they were new and small children don't care about perfect appearance. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up getting passed down to another generation and continue to provide the same entertainment. I highly recommend this kind of simple toy for young children.
- itishappy 10mo ago100% agree. Box of blocks cannot be beat. My sister and I used the hell out of ours: we built towers, cantilevers, mazes, Rube Goldberg devices, houses for rodents, vehicles, elaborate locks, catapults, you name it. They're still in the same condition as day 1, ready for our children. Bonus: You can roll a lot more down those long rubber racetracks than just cars. Bonus 2: Why did these go away? https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/chubs-baby-wipes-stackable-blocks-lot-1807071469 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/chubs-baby-wipes-stac...
- vunderba 10mo agoSame. We had a kids’ play table (low to the ground and rectangular) that we’d prop up with a few blocks under one end to give it a slight incline. We’d spend hours covering the surface with blocks in different positions to simulate a pinball table. Then we’d take a large marble and use two long triangular blocks as flippers to “play” on it. Tilting was NOT advised.
- andyjohnson0 10mo ago> I highly recommend this kind of simple toy for young children. As a parent I very much agree. And for grown-up children too. On my desk I have a small tin containing small wooden blocks and planks, arches, etc. I get lots of play value from them - when my thinking is blocked, or if I just want to fool around and not think at all. I'm in my mid fifties. And over at my climbing club's off-grid climbing hut we have a big box of over-sized, home made jenga blocks. Pretty-much everyone plays with them: not only jenga, but also just building structures or giant domino runs or whatever. We all need to play sometimes.
- kleinishere 10mo agoEncountered these miniature wood marble runs in Switzerland. Still on my “wish list.” Sounds like you may enjoy them, too. https://cuboro.ch/en/ https://cuboro.ch/en/
- rawgabbit 10mo agoVery cool. I live in the US though. How can I order it?
- jjulius 10mo agoLooks like their site links to a good number of US stores that sell them, many mom/pop. While there may not be a store close enough to you, perhaps there's one that would ship to you.
- fragmede 10mo agohttps://a.co/d/24vvgsO https://a.co/d/24vvgsO
- jjulius 10mo agoSupport mom/pop/local shops when possible. https://cuboro.ch/en/where-to-buy/ https://cuboro.ch/en/where-to-buy/
- 10mo ago
- MrBuddyCasino 10mo agoPlus, wooden blocks look a lot nicer than plastic stuff. I try to avoid plastic items because they inevitably ruin a room’s aesthetic.
- gattr 10mo agoI had such blocks as well. For a recent take on this, I can recommend Kapla, typically come in a large (a couple 100s) box of skinny rectangular cuboids. I had fun doing, ahem, preliminary testing, before gifting them to my niece.
- marcinignac 10mo agoI got set for my son after noticing he loves stacking Jenga blocks and generic Kapla gets 10x more usage than Lego. Can it be that the moment Lego moved from mostly bricks to custom single use shapes for every kit the joy of combining them died? My kids build car, Dino, Harry Potter set once and then gather dust. Bridges, castles, towers and roads from Kapla get rebuild every day.
- nuancebydefault 10mo agoWhen I was young there were fewer types of shapes but a lot of new sets contained a lot of such specialized shapes. I rather played with the lego i found in the attic.
- badc0ffee 10mo agoMy kid builds the specialized sets, and also makes houses and other structures out of basic brick pieces. But he rarely combines the two like I remember doing. I remember having an airplane and an airport. I built them once, played with them for a while, and then broke them down to add to the pool of bricks which I built into other things.
- ssl-3 10mo agoWooden blocks were great. At one point way back then, my dad made something in the workshop that improved them tremendously: Wooden boards. These were small, thin, very flat boards of oak -- about 3/16" thick and 3/4" wide. Their lengths varied in 2" increments, and the length of each board was written on it. With boards added in, the blocks got a lot more interesting. Fastening was still limited to gravity, but things like cantilevers started happening.
- yial 10mo agoI have a love of wooden blocks. I’ve seen some sets that are blocks with random flat surfaces but still balanced. However, I notice that many antique block sets seem far superior to newer sets. (I’m sure someone must make an amazing new set, I see some suggestions in the comments). Having made some wooden block sets from scratch, what I am always amazed about with a good set is balance / size of pieces, coupled with variety and quantity. The balance being a vitally important part that seems to be overlooked in “bad” sets.
- joannabregan 10mo agoI also played wooden blocks for hours as a kid but I've tried getting them for my kids and they're not interested. And I suspect it's because the product is worse than the set we had from the 80s.
- natch 10mo agoI did my first programming with those wooden blocks. I would build structures deliberately designed to gradually self destruct through a long sequence of actions. A cylinder rolls down a ramp and displaces a support that tips a tower that hits a lever that tips another ramp… endless fun.
- xnx 10mo agoSimilar story for me but the blocks were just a few scraps of construction wood. Infinite possibilities even with a few short blocks of 2x4 and angle cut pieces.
- SergeAx 10mo agoAre you referring to the "Builder DI-1"[0] from the USSR? I had it in my childhood, too. [0] https://postimg.cc/phNBBTtS https://postimg.cc/phNBBTtS
- mrob 10mo agoNo, mine had plain cylinders without the decorative lathe work, and it came in a canvas bag not a wooden box. But the selection of shapes is similar.
- MartinMond 10mo agoYou might like https://www.matador.at/ https://www.matador.at/
- te_chris 10mo agoAllow me to introduce my favourite toy from my childhood that I have been lucky enough to be able to buy for my son recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/auckland/comments/eymcks/do_you_know_where_i_can_find_this_kiwi_wooden_toy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/auckland/comments/eymcks/do_you_kno... It’s called the Humdinger set. Made by an eccentric guy in NZ with no online presence beyond resultantly keeping an email address. Stumbled across him randomly at a market when we visited last and had to triple take - “is this THE Humdinger” type thing. My mum confirmed it was the real deal, so we bought it on the spot. Son loves it. Connectable wooden stuff ftw
- shevy-java 10mo agoInteresting that you mention it. Now I recall we also had wooden blocks, they were rectangular. I played with them a lot to build simple things. Kind of before I transitioned into LEGO. But those wooden blocks really were great - simple, durable and one could do quite a lot with them. I think I also built houses for my cat back then. Quite amazing how wood is so dominating - price-wise nothing beats it. And LEGO is now so expensive that I wouldn't buy it due to that outrageous prices alone.
- Rendello 10mo agoI used to use these and a big table to simulate Stalingrad and other WWII battles. Popsicle sticks laid together as half-destroyed floorboards, and of course I had a lot of army guys to position around.
- theshrike79 10mo agoSame here, my kids favourite toy was a set of wooden blocks their grandfather made from just simple 2" by 2" stock and sanded them. Cubes of different sizes they could build anything out of. And because they were just untreated wood, they could be painted and decorated etc.