Here is one of many articles that The Creativity
Institute has reviewed and reprinted on nurturing creativity in
children and on educational toys. Infants, toddlers, preschoolers
and school age children can all benefit from the right educational
toys at the right ages, to help them learn how to make creative
choices.
What Toys Did Caveman Kids Play With To Pass
The Time
by: Peter Legrove
Back in the days, when home was a cave stuck
on the face of a cliff.
Kids, babies, cubs, kittens or whatever you
like to call the offspring, all have one thing in common. They
love to play. So I think we can safely assume that caveman kids
played. But with what did they play with.
What amused the minds of our ancestor's kids.
When they were lying around the fire after a hard day learning
about staying alive. We are still trying to work out the minor
details of the past lives of children of prehistory, but we can
dream.
Anyway, were the first jigsaw puzzles just
leaves that had been ripped up into little pieces so the little
ones could put them back together. Was this a teaching aid so
the kids could learn which plants were safe to eat. We will possible
never know but it is good to ponder.
Back in prehistory, before houses and cars
and TVs, video games and all the modern gadgets that we have nowadays.
What toys did caveman kids play with, when daddy was out hunting
the mighty mammoth or giant sloth. And mommy was gathering vegetables
and herbs and grasses and whatever else they ate back then.
Anyway many artifacts have been dug up, mostly
bone and rock carving of people and wild animals. Beautiful carvings,
something to be really proud of. Don't you think that maybe, just
maybe, it might have been made by a dotting daddy for his little
son.
In the future when future man digs up what
we leave behind, what conclusions will they come to. Looking at
some of the dinosaur toys available, would they conclude that
these beasts actually walked among the skyscrapers.
In the 25th century if you dug up an old car
toy that hadn't rusted away, how would you explain it.
Would you say it was some sort of God that
we worshiped, or was it a decorative item we used to show power.
It could have been a model of the king's chariot.
But do we stop to think, that it may have been
something for our kids to play with. While we were out making
more money to buy even more things for our kids to play with.
We have war games with tiny toy soldiers and
cowboy and Indian sets. What is to stop the tiny carved human
figures from prehistory being toys to teach the kids the best
way to hunt down a mammoth or rhino or deer.
If we made some replica models of some of the
artifacts, and gave them to our kids to play with in the sand
pit. We might see them reenacting a mammoth hunt or chasing a
wild deer into the ground.
Some of the most valuable artifacts would suddenly
be delegated from God status to kid status.
I like to look at what we do now and them dream
about what could have happened in the caveman days.
Nowadays in any toyshop there is a shelf of
toy plastic animals. Anything we see in the wild or on the farm
or in the home is there in little packets.
Did the caveman kids also have collections
of toys. Now, our kids even have toy cavemen to play with, so
what did caveman kids play with.
I can remember "Fred Flintstone"
on TV but did Pebbles and BamBam have any toys. All I can remember
is BamBam running around with this big club. Now you can buy big
air-filled clubs and hammers that don't hurt when they hit you
on the head.
But back to reality, kids love to play and
caveman kids would also have played, but with what.
Toy bows and arrows and toy spears. Like kids
today who love anything to do with war. Would all the spear points
belong to daddy's toolbox or would the smaller ones belong to
the son.
They must have had something to play with,
but with what.
Maybe in the future someone scratching around
in a long forgotten cave will unearth the Barbie prototype. Or
the lovely bird carved from a long dead mammoth tusk just might
have been from mummy to daughter.
And not some elegantly carved offering to an
unknown God.
Article by copyright © Peter Legrove 2006,
at www.animalsdinosaursandbugs.com
About The Author
Peter Legrove:
Toyman, Peter Puzzler, I love toys and puzzles
and animals and dinosaurs and bugs. I have kids of my own so I
am always on the lookout for the latest and greatest in toys
This article is copyright © Peter Legrove
2006 at http://www.animalsdinosaursandbugs.com
Our website specializes in toys, puzzles
and games that have an animal, dinosaur or insect theme.
plegrove@gmail.com
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