Creating a Treasure Basket

an old wooden clothes peg... the one piece ones that we used to make figures out of! - an metal tea strainer?

alas helshea I don't have any dolly pegs, and haven't seen them in the shops for yonks, and I use tea bags, and more ideas.

pots and pans, plastic colander, container with pennies in it.. securely fastened of course. soft hair brush, glove, jelly mould.

am not sure about everyday stuff for Granchildren......its all very well Mums giving them household stuff to play with but when you are a new Grandma it suddenly seems very scary again.
One thing my daughter did.....she made her own taggy play cloth, these are those expensive bits of material with little tags sewn on all around the edges...they are not cheap. She gets two pieces of clean T shirt material about 10 -12 inches square and cuts out assorted care labels from clothing. Then makes a 'sandwich' with the squares of material with the care labels sticking out the edges. She goes around edge with sewing machine several times to makes sure all is sewn together very securely - you dont want anything to come off in tiny hands and go into mouths! Bits of different ribbon doubled over in small loops also works and if done neatly can make a very acceptable pressie.

hi hilda, know what you mean about being cautious, I am too wary sometimes. My granddaughter loved her taggy too, bought at the NEC baby show, now she likes saucepan lids, and wooden spoons. I have collect some items, just need to find a basket to put them in.

Grandmacwtch, you can get wooden "dolly" pegs at craft shops - I get them from The Works bookshop (in most towns) and dress them with felt and scraps of this and that, to make my grandson's favourite characters of the moment - soldiers, pirates, batman and robin, noggin the nog, etc.

Empty cotton reels would be good for threading, rolling, etc for a little one.

Do Google Treasure Basket. All you need to know. Started by Elinor Goldschmidt. I teach my students all about it and have provided one for my grandaughter when she was younger. Very successful.

I work with pre school children and their parents and use Treasure Baskets every day. They are filled with natural objects which can be found in your own home. Wooden items such as pastry brushes, Fir cones, wooden handled paint brushes and nail brushes etc are all good. Also items like larger smooth shells, silky scarfs, small metal tins and boxes, larger smooth stones and wooden musical instruments. Obviously "treasures" have to be large enough not to be swallowed and children must always be supervised.

My great-grandson loves to bang on Victoria sponge cake tins with old wooden clothes pegs. These are really old, quite big ones that were sold 'at the door' by travelling gypsies many years ago (We call the resulting racket 'bing-bang-bong'.....!)

When my eldest son was little he loved going to Nana's to play with the 'plinka plonka'. Nana had given him a spare small chopping board to play with, Grandad added a couple of elastic bands stretched over it and hey presto....one guitar! Much quieter than the home-made drum kit of pans and lids.