{"id":6881,"date":"2012-04-24T07:36:40","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T12:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=6881"},"modified":"2016-08-14T13:37:11","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T18:37:11","slug":"off-label-ideas-for-your-favourite-fisher-price-toys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2012\/04\/24\/off-label-ideas-for-your-favourite-fisher-price-toys\/","title":{"rendered":"Off-label ideas for your favourite Fisher-Price toys"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span> don’t know why my kids like to play with me. I am not a creative sort of person when it comes to play, especially imaginary play. I like board games because there are rules and processes to be followed (oh, I have been badly damaged by my 20-year civil service career, haven’t I?) and I am happy to supply glue and feathers and beads and let them have at it. But I am just not good at imaginary play. I’m a photographer, not an actor! And the reason I had three kids in the first place is so they’d play with EACH OTHER and leave me out of it. <\/p>\n

So whenever Lucas wants me to be grumpy Gordon while he is chipper Thomas winning approval from Sir Topham Hat, I divert us to safer ground. As in, to save my sanity. Since you know I’ve been blogging for Fisher-Price Canada lately, I thought it would be fun to share some off-label uses for our favourite Fisher-Price toys. Fun, and sanity saving, too!<\/p>\n

1. Hot and cold Little People<\/strong>
\nI started doing this one when the big boys were wee, and they’ve always loved it. It’s kind of like an Easter Egg hunt without the sugar rush. We gather up a big pile of Little People (because they’re the perfect size for hiding in places that are not too challenging to find) and the boys leave the room while I “hide” them. Then they take turns looking for them while I giggle and give clues like, “Oooo, getting warmer. Feel that tropical sun, you are so warm now. Uh oh, but of a cool breeze, you might be going in the wrong direction!” The kids can do this for hours, and I can spend large stretches of this game on the couch clutching my coffee. Win-win!<\/p>\n

2. Kid-Tough Digital Camera <\/a>scavenger hunt<\/strong>
\nI like this one – go figure! Choose a theme – blue or round or leaves or dandelions or whatever, and try to find and take a picture of 10 things that have that quality. Or set a time limit: how many can you photograph in 10 minutes? Beware of obscure kid-generated themes here, though. We don’t have a lot of “things that growl” in our house (once mom and dad have had their first coffee, anyway.) And “things polar bears eat” was a bit of a challenge.<\/p>\n

\"257:365<\/a><\/p>\n

3. What animal am I?<\/strong>
\nWe have a jumbled set of animals from the Little People Musical Zoo <\/a>and the Animal Sounds Zoo<\/a>. Lucas has to cover his eyes while I choose one, and hide it in my hands or behind my back, and Lucas asks questions to try to figure out which animal it is. “Does this animal have fur?” or “Where does this animal usually live?” We play this in the car sometimes, too, but having the actual animal in his hand tends to keep him focussed on which animal he chose. I’ve otherwise found myself trying to guess an animal that has fur and scales and eats leaves and fish and has both spots and stripes. <\/p>\n

4. Pictionary on the Kid-Tough Magnetic Doodler<\/a><\/strong>
\nIt is a sad but true fact that Lucas can now draw figures that are both more accurate and recognizable than those that I am capable of drawing. “That doesn’t look like a bird, Mommy! That looks like a squashed mushroom.” (I like this game less and less as their artistic ability outstrips mine.) I stand a better chance at the 3D version of this game where we try to guess what the other is building with Trio building blocks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Okay, so that’s a few ideas – can you think of any more? Croquet using Corn Popper mallets, maybe? <\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am part of the Fisher-Price Play Panel and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog, however, are always my own. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don’t know why my kids like to play with me. I am not a creative sort of person when it comes to play, especially imaginary play. I like board games because there are rules and processes to be followed (oh, I have been badly damaged by my 20-year civil service career, haven’t I?) and … Continue reading “Off-label ideas for your favourite Fisher-Price toys”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-product-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6881"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6886,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881\/revisions\/6886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}