Does anyone else NOT buy their children an educational toy/item

because they know the child will likely outgrow it within a day or two?

Seriously. My mom bought my 4 year old four 24 piece puzzles. Within the day, he had put each one together about 4-5 times. The second day he played with them a couple times, and the third day, he touched one puzzle. Now, I got them out to show him again, he put one together in about 3 minutes, and then told me he didn't want to do anymore. So, I have these puzzles that are a waste of money, literally.



Then, my mom brought some Kumon workbooks for 4-5-6 year olds. He had them all done within a week. And wanted more.



She got him a shapes and colors book. He read it through the first time, told her all the shapes and colors, and then got down to go play with his Buzz Lightyear toy, which is the only thing out of all she brought that he still plays with.



My 3 year old got this sorting game. Tons of pieces to sort by size, color, shape, width, and type of picture. She loved it. For a week. Maybe. Maybe less. Then, she found it completely boring. She got a dry-erase trace the letters thing that she also loved. For about 2 days. She already knows her letters and their sounds and can write many of them without tracing.



They got a matching game. They really liked that. It lasted longer than some of the other toys. Took them about 2 weeks to outgrow that one.



They got a book about telling time, which showed what time certain things happened. Took about 3 minutes for my 4 year old to figure out how to tell time by looking at the hour hand, and about 4 times through the book to have the book memorized to the point where he didn't have to look at the clock to tell you the right answer.



I keep telling my mom not to buy toys for them for this reason. But, the problem is, she comes, visits, they still love the toys, she leaves, and toys are no longer fun anymore.



I've thought about different ideas to add to workboxes or activity areas or things like that, but it seems like my options are pretty much limited to items that fall into one of the following categories: items that would make too much of a mess without constant supervision, and would make me frustrated and less happy about teaching; workbooks that are either too easy and they would have finished in a day or less, or those that are so hard they need me there for constant supervision; items that would take 3-4 times as long for me to prepare as it would for them to do; items that they would enjoy, but I would continuously have to be coming up with/purchasing/changing on a daily basis, with little reusable power to them; or items that are really expensive, and those of us with CDO would worry and fret over every little piece to make sure it isn't lost.



Seriously, I don't by my kids toys. I really don't. I can't tell you the last time I bought any of them really a toy. Maybe a couple of years ago, I got some math manipulatives. And Leapfrog letters a little before that. But, toys, nope. They simply don't hold my kids interest for very long. Games, I buy even more infrequently.



Another issue that complicates the whole game/toy issue is that our house is small. We have no special school room. No special toy room or play room. We *often* have other children over. Foster children, children from church, visitors, cousin sets (I call them cousin sets, because they never come over just one at a time. It's Ruben's family with their 6 children, or Saul's family with their 3 children, or Maria's family with her 3 children, or Michael's family with their 5 children, etc., and to complicate things, the vast majority of their cousins are 6 and under) who want to play, touch, look at, dig through, explore the little bit of area we have in our house, and since they are family, I have a hard time declaring things such as pom poms off limits. I mean, seriously. But, that also means that things get lost, broken, destroyed, misplaced, scribbled on, slobbered over, etc. much more easily. And, letting them go outside and play is only an option during the summer. Yes, I try to watch them, but if you have ever been in a family with 4 children, and then had your sister's 3 children over and playing, and their cousins come over and play and you now have an 11, 10, 7, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, and under 1 year old all in the same house at the same time, sometimes sacrificing a few toys is worth it. And then, if your brother-in-law from 2 blocks down hears about it and wants to come over and visit and bring his 5, 2, and baby along. . . .



Anyways, suffice it to say that I see all these cute little threads about workboxes and activity trays and all these other things and I keep thinking to myself over and over again, that sounds great in theory. Really, it does. But, the amount of work that would go into upkeeping something like that is terrifying. Not to mention the amount of money that would go into it to keep it new enough on a daily basis so they wouldn't grow completely bored with it, is enough to make me consider the cost of $3,000 per year per child preschool a bargain, and let them deal with the missing toys.


So, I've been thinking what else I can do with them to keep them busy, and am trying to come up with new ideas.