Kids toys and games from your youth

[FZJ]

Gday,
Not sure if anyone has brought this up before.Everyone says kids have too much computer time etc these days,I limit my kids exposure to that stuff.
But what do you remember as a kid growing up that you had to make or do?We had so much time running around the sand dunes,making bonfires,building karts and just making stuff out of...stuff..
I can start off with this that i used to make and that my kids spend ages playing with.
Magic jumping beans.

Here is a how to video

jumpingbean.wmv	Small | Large

Its just a 1/2inch ball bearing or sinker in an aluminium foil "bean "or casing like a peanut.It seems to take on a life of its own and the kids love it.they spend ages racing them down hills.I embellish the story a bit and  tell them the old tin I use to make them is said to have come from an old wizard.If they get damaged put them in the tin ,tap 3 times ,shake and they are like new.Cheap fun.

[xcvator]

making boats from milk bottle tops and sailing them down the gutter after rain 

[muzza01]

Playing cricket with myself. I got pretty good at as I won nearly all of the time. I was outside pretty much during daylight hours. I still have all of my Tonks trucks. One is 40 years old and the others nearly the same.

[Tjupurula]

I used the same "toys" that my grandfather and father had, and my sons ans now grandsons are using them.  They consisted of a small boomerang and spear for target practise, and a coolamon (carrying dish) to carry them around with.  They have lasted at least 5 generations that I know of, so compared to a lot of bought toys, they are doing well.
I did make my sons a go-cart, using old pram wheels and the wood from an old pallet, the only thing that has ever needed changing are the wheels, oh, and quite a few bandages from the occasional spills.
Regards
Tjupurula

[HEM19X]

Playing cricket with myself. I got pretty good at as I won nearly all of the time. I was outside pretty much during daylight hours. I still have all of my Tonks trucks. One is 40 years old and the others nearly the same.

Used to throw a golf ball at a set of concrete steps next to the house & try to hit with a cricket bat, got pretty good but busted a few windows. That plus a round skim board in the shallows, spent hours on these activities. Only when inside when it was too dark to be outside.

[gclan]

Not so much a game or toy, but two ropes tied between two trees. My sister and I spent hours pretending we were tightrope walkers in the circus. Got pretty good at it too.

We(Dad) also made a trapeze swing under the house, and I built myself a set of stilts, not that I needed compensating for anything... 


Karen

[Draggin]

As a kid, when I wasn't swimming and hitting the white water rapids in an inner tube, I pretty much spent my waking hours on a push bike. One of the "olden day" ones. One gear ratio only and pedal backwards to apply the brakes and no suspension. I did a lot of hunting and foraging with all my PNG pikinini mates too - I had an awesome childhood.

[TheTaylors]

Good old elastics - hours and hours of fun.

I also remember spending weeks at school, every recess and lunchtime, making cubbies.... which consisted of sweeping up the leaves/pine needles etc into lines to form walls, creating rooms, houses etc. Made natural furniture and everything.... loved it, can still picture it as clear as yesterday.

[Mallory Black]

matchbox cars.. had a bucket full of them

[muzza01]

matchbox cars.. had a bucket full of them

Me too. I wish I still had them. They were all lete 60s and early 70s muscle cars.

[edz]

As for toys and things they werre fairly scarce at our place... remember that my matchbox cars were exactly that....Matchboxes stuck onto the top of a cigarete packets with the bottom cut out in the shape of wheels ...Recon I didnt get a store bought matchbox car till I was about 6 or 7 even then I ever had a few ..
Had a couple of old milo tins full of plastic soldiers though and loved to collect the plastic kits from the breakfast cereal boxes..wish I still had those kits, especially as they would be almost impossible to find these days .

[Tjupurula]

No exactly a toy, but there is one thing from my very young days.  There was a paperback magazine that regularl came out called "Look and Learn", I wonder how many other Swaggers remember that one and similar.
Tjupurula

[DannyG]

I had matchbox cars and used to smash them up with a hammer and sit them under my parents cars tyres so they got smashed when they drove off!

I used to collect empty bottles and cash them in and bought my first car when I was 9 years old, it was a VW fastback, me and a slightly older mate went halves in it. We spent all our spare time working on it until I drove it through our timber fence that bordered my parents property.

My first electronic device besides getting a colour tv at our home was a digital watch lol

But most of my childhood we were so poor I mainly just played with myself

[Mallory Black]

Danny Danny Danny, how could you

a lot my matchbox cars were "salvaged" items with broken wheels and such so I could have my very own matchbox cars wrecking yard, cars stacked 3 high and all that.

Anyone old enough to remember wrecking yards where you were allowed to walk around and kind of browse?

during cracker season we would tape little skyrockets to them...... and have rocket car races.

[berlitza]

Back in the days when Guy Fawkes Night allowed you to legally to blow sh!t up, kids didn't wear bike helmets it wasn't frowned upon getting wrapped over the back of the head with a wooden spoon and my beloved green machine and scooter didnt have brakes, Green Machines and tonka trucks, those where the days,
oh and setting fire to the little green soldiers  for a war reinactment

[fishfinder]

I had matchbox cars and used to smash them up with a hammer and sit them under my parents cars tyres so they got smashed when they drove off!

I used to collect empty bottles and cash them in and bought my first car when I was 9 years old, it was a VW fastback, me and a slightly older mate went halves in it. We spent all our spare time working on it until I drove it through our timber fence that bordered my parents property.

My first electronic device besides getting a colour tv at our home was a digital watch lol

But most of my childhood we were so poor I mainly just played with myself

I use to tape soda siphon bulbs to them give the bulb a tap with hammer and nail for added horsepower

[fishfinder]

Toy from youth and still play with it I always have it with me every now and then i put my hands in my pocket to see if it is still there but seriously it would be best if I don't post a photo of it

[berlitza]

Toy from youth and still play with it I always have it with me every now and then i put my hands in my pocket to see if it is still there but seriously it would be best if I don't post a photo of it

lmao, ya just reminded me of that song 'my ding-a-ling' although i didn't know ding-a-lings where small enough to fit into pockets though

[fishfinder]

lmao, ya just reminded me of that song 'my ding-a-ling' although i didn't know ding-a-lings where small enough to fit into pockets though

he is called wilbert not ding a ling

[DannyG]

he is called wilbert not ding a ling

[Squalo]

In the late seventies I was growing up in the Snowy Mountains (Cabramurra) and we could go bushwalking by ourselves all we liked - so that's what we did. Building cubbys and hideyholes everywhere, and if you went down to the ravines around the town there was flowing water all year round and we built some stupendous dams out of rocks and mud.

In the eighties we were back in Sydney as high school from Cabramurra involved a to Tumbarumba. So it was billy carts, BMX bikes, street cricket etc.

The 'toy' that stands out from my childhood (say 12-14 years old) was the peg gun... we made them out of rubber bands, wooden clothes pegs and bits of timber. Get a 2"x1" x two or three foot long bit of wood, and drive a nail into the end. At the other end on the flat you nail a wooden clothes peg. The projectile is the spring from another peg, with a rubber band or three attached. Hook the rubber band over the nail, stretch it back and use the peg to hold the 'barrel' of the spring, then aim and 'press the trigger'.

Some of these were so powerful that they'd (theoretically) punch clean through the neighbour's fibro garage walls... I still don't know how we didn't lose eyes while playing with these things.

[oldmate]

The 'toy' that stands out from my childhood (say 12-14 years old) was the peg gun... we made them out of rubber bands, wooden clothes pegs and bits of timber. Get a 2"x1" x two or three foot long bit of wood, and drive a nail into the end. At the other end on the flat you nail a wooden clothes peg. The projectile is the spring from another peg, with a rubber band or three attached. Hook the rubber band over the nail, stretch it back and use the peg to hold the 'barrel' of the spring, then aim and 'press the trigger'.

Some of these were so powerful that they'd (theoretically) punch clean through the neighbour's fibro garage walls... I still don't know how we didn't lose eyes while playing with these things.

I remember making these also. You wouldn't be able to now with the cheap plastic pegs around

[Mace]

My most prized toy as a kid was an early model Scalextric Slot Car set.  The one with the Vanwall and a BRM.
Keeping the braided copper contacts clean used to be a pita.

Wish I still had them, although I do have some slightly newer ones - but no track.

[tossie]

In the late seventies I was growing up in the Snowy Mountains (Cabramurra) and we could go bushwalking by ourselves all we liked - so that's what we did. Building cubbys and hideyholes everywhere, and if you went down to the ravines around the town there was flowing water all year round and we built some stupendous dams out of rocks and mud.

In the eighties we were back in Sydney as high school from Cabramurra involved a to Tumbarumba. So it was billy carts, BMX bikes, street cricket etc.

The 'toy' that stands out from my childhood (say 12-14 years old) was the peg gun... we made them out of rubber bands, wooden clothes pegs and bits of timber. Get a 2"x1" x two or three foot long bit of wood, and drive a nail into the end. At the other end on the flat you nail a wooden clothes peg. The projectile is the spring from another peg, with a rubber band or three attached. Hook the rubber band over the nail, stretch it back and use the peg to hold the 'barrel' of the spring, then aim and 'press the trigger'.

Some of these were so powerful that they'd (theoretically) punch clean through the neighbour's fibro garage walls... I still don't know how we didn't lose eyes while playing with these things.

Yep they were a huge part of my childhood. I lived across the road from a cypress mill so I had an endless supply of rifle stocks. I can still feel the pain of being hit by these things! Big red rubber bands were the best. You can still buy the right pegs if you look hard enough.

Cheers Tossie

[chester ver2.0]

About once every 2 years the Coca Cola Yo Yo team would come to my school and you could guess what every kid was playing with the next day