I like love lists.
And I love vintage children’s toys.
So here is a list of toys that utterly mesmerized me when I was a child – and that I have bought for my own children. Kitschy or spooky as they may seem, these are the toys that I remember – the ones that made childhood enchanting:
1. Mexican Jumping Beans
Okay, I know these are moth larvae in the beans but they still fascinate me. In fact, as I’m writing this I can hear ours jumping around in their little glass box.
2. “Magic Hand” Piggy Bank
The green hand that lives in the box and emerges to snatch a coin from someone’s fingers never ceases to captivate me. I love the way it goes thump-thump-thump, too.
3. Ouija Board
This was, and still is, my all-time favorite toy to play with. We would spend hours asking the spirits questions at slumber party seances – and recently, Ella used it to contact my father (who she strangely believes lives inside the Ouija board). She kept repeating, “Are you grandfather Derek? Are you grandfather Derek?” and after I made her get off the board to go to bed, she looked up at me and – out of the blue – began singing the theme song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. My father’s favorite movie. I nearly fainted. If you had to choose one song that would conjure up the image of my father, it would always be Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We had not watched the movie or spoken of it in well over a year. I concluded, as Ella had, that the ghost of my father may in fact inhabit our Ouija board!
4.Guatemalan Worry Dolls
Sometimes when my father would come home from a business trip he’d have a small toy in his pocket to give us – once it was a tiny yellow box of itty-bitty Guatemalan Worry Dolls. I was fascinated by them – you were supposed to whisper your worries to these dolls, and the dolls would magically take the worry away.
5. Matrushkas – Russian Stacking Dolls
My grandmother was from Russia and introduced me to borscht, piroshki, and an endless fascination with nested matrushka dolls. As a child I could play with these beautiful things forever.
6. Kalaidoscopes
Even though I’m all grown up now, looking into a kalaidoscope instantly transports me into a state of childish wonder, every time I look through one. I should probably look into them more often!
7. Magic 8-Ball
A fortune-telling toy. I used it all the time to ask advice. Go ahead, ask the Magic 8-Ball a question here (you know you want to!)
8. Mood Rings
My mood always correlated to whatever color “hyper” was. I always lost the color key within a day of getting a mood ring, and it never occurred to me to wonder why every color key was always different.
9. Ball Hopper
This used to be my preferred mode of transport – I hopped all over the wild blue yonder, and this was a toy I used until I was way too old for it. (-:
10. Operation Skill Game
Who doesn’t love trying to get the funny bone out and all the excitement of getting “buzzed”? This is a great game.
11.Kazoos
12. EZ Bake Oven
I was in love with my EZ Bake oven – the green one. You can’t get them like this nowadays – these ovens could make real cakes and had real miniature pans. I think I loved mine.
13. Sea Monkeys
Sea Monkeys don't really wear lipstick or play tennis, but I sure imagined they did when I was a kid.
14. Wooly Willy Magnetic Face
15. Ballerina Jewelry Box
That twirling ballerina – another childhood memory I won’t forget. I didn’t care much for jewelry but I think I stared at my little ballerina for hours, and hours.
You’ve hit quite a few of my favorites too: ballerina box, wooly willy, ez bake, kazoos, operation (which my kids hated & I wanted to play all the time!), mood ring, magic 8 ball. But my absolute favorite is worry dolls — I gave my daughter some when she was little and then before she left for college, she gave me some so I wouldn’t worry so much about her!
Julia, maybe I should do a “giveaway” and give away Matrushka dolls … although this wouldn’t work because every one of ours is missing a top-half or some bottom halves and most of them are missing the critical teeny baby piece too. Argh. (-:
The Easy Bake Oven – one of my all time favorites as a kid!
I don’t know anyone who had an EZ Bake oven as a kid and doesn’t still pine nostalgically for it – that’s the sign of a great toy isn’t it?
My son plays with my worry dolls all the time! Guess that is why we are so carefree around my house!
we play with ‘em in our house too and they are too adorable. I always wonder how it’s possible to make such tiny dolls.
Oh my gosh! What a great list of fun things from my childhood too! I loved most of these toys, especially the Easy Bake Oven and the Mexican Jumping Beans!!! Thanks for this ultra cool list!
Sounds like you had a pretty cool childhood with all those retro-toys too. (-:
I am so impressed you were able to remember all of the coolest toys of childhood! I loved all of these. I remember being so sad and confused when my Mexican jumping bean just stopped jumping one day. And the ouiji board always scared the heck out of me at sleepovers
I love this list!!
Thanks Kim – you know what’s weird is I never intentionally bought these same toys for my kids – it just happened accidentally, but then when I wrote this post I realized I’d bought all of them (except for the EZ bake which is not available in it’s old form easily).
I totally wanted an Easy Bake Oven when I was little. My kids have much cooler toys than I did, but the classics never die.
Oh this list takes me back! I loved my ballerina jewelry box and my easy back oven. I pretty certain my Kazoos drived my parents batty!! I vividly remember hopping up and down our street on a red ball hopper! So fun!
Thank you for the trip down memory lane!
I never knew all of that info about Mexican jumping beans! How interesting! I’ve got some Guatemalan worry dolls in my classroom. And I used to have a ballerina jewelry box just like that one! Thanks for bringing back the memories!
Elizabeth – if I remember, I will bring you some “live” Mexican jumping beans.
PS: Do you want to adopt our super-easy, low-maintenance African frogs for your classroom? – Hip and Hop? Let me know. (-:
Thanks for the offer, but I’m pretty sure beans are the only things I’d be comfortable having hop around the classroom… =)
Never have I seen a Mexican Jumping bean…cool and a bit icky but mostly cool. I had that exact same jewelry box and easy bake oven I’m sure of it! And now I must go out and purchase Matrushkas, a kazoo, sea monkeys and a kaleidoscope for my boys! However, the Ouija board will NEVER come into my house – way too many creepy things happened when I used that as a teenager. Yikes.
FUN, fun list Ado!
I know what you mean about the Ouija board – that thing spooks me out too and I’m a grownup. (-: Sea Monkeys – a word of caution – there comes a time when you kind of don’t know what to do with them any more but they’re living creatures so you can’t just throw them out. We always end up giving ours away – to a classroom or friend who wants them. (-:
Great list! My thing was spirograph, (all the coolest babysitters had it) and a thing called a lemon twist, you put it around your ankle and twirled it around and jumped over it. they bring it back in some other form every few years. have you see those?
Spirograph! YES YES YES! That was the bestest!
I’ve seen the lemon twist thingamajigs in their modern incarnations (-:
Catharine I can totally picture you working the lemon twist when you were a kid. (-:
I LOVE it! Would you believe, with the exception of the easy bake oven, I had every one of those toys? Well….the magic hand bank my father kept on his bar for folks gullible enough to give him money! FUN list!
I love vintage toys! Thanks for sharing and posting!