Just a little reminder that delivery is now free when you spend over £35. Get all your traditional toys in one place and get them delivered to your door!
A couple of weeks ago I posted the instructions for the card game Pairs on Wheels . Another popular traditional family card game is Farmyard Donkey. Again, this game is fairly straight forward but a great way to keep children occupied and get them thinking. The card game consists of 17 pairs and the "Donkey Card". Firstly, shuffle the cards then deal them in a clockwise direction to each player. All players then look at their cards and take out all their pairs, the player to the left of the dealer arranges their remaining cards in their hand like a fan. The back of the cards are shown to the player on the left who then picks a card. If this card makes a pair then the cards are put in the middle of the table with the other pairs. If the player isn't able to make a pair then they keep the card and continue the game by offering their cards to the next player. When a player eventually loses all their cards they are 'saved' and stop playing. At the end of the gam...
I received a lovely letter this morning from the year 1 pupils at Highters Heath Community School in Birmingham, that are currently studying toys from the past. When I opened the letter, it contained many letters mainly asking how a spinning top works, and does the spinning top contain a spring? In an attempt to settle these curious minds, let me tell you a little bit about the history of the spinning top, and then how a spinning top works. The History of the Spinning Top The spinning top has been in existence for thousands of years. Like many traditional toys, such as marbles, the earliest spinning tops are made from clay, and were discovered in the Middle East as early as 3500 BC, although it is likely that children would have been spinning small rocks or acorns long before. Later wooden spinning tops emerged in around 2000 BC, and early spinning tops made from bone have been found in Europe. These spinning tops would have been much simpler than many tops found in old fashi...
David Sproxton and Peter Lord met at school and started their animation projects in their spare time. In 1972 they were asked by the BBC to produce something for the show 'Vision On'. They made a short piece which used cell animation and featured a Superman character known as Aardman. It was from this that Aardman Animations was founded. It wasn't until 1976 that the legendary clay character, Morph first appeared on TV in a series called 'Take Hart', which was the follow up to Vision On. 'Take Hart' was an British children's television show about art, presented by Tony Hart. The show would demonstrate projects that the viewers could do themselves at home as well as large scale artworks on the TV studio floor. During the show Morph would pop up out of Tony's wooden pencil box and appear in a one minute 'short' which was related to the show. The character proved to be such a success that in 1981 the BBC decided to commission ...
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