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Thought-Provoking Gifts For Young Kids?
An anonymous reader writes "Societal norms and my sibling's procreative endeavors have put me in the position of having to buy gifts twice a year for young children. What makes them happy are unremarkable bits of plastic. They already have innumerable unremarkable bits of plastic (from their parents and grandparents). My preference would be to get them gifts that challenge them to think creatively (or at least to think), which they'll be able to pick up and enjoy even after they outgrow their train/truck/homemaking fetishes. Beyond the Rubik's Cube, what thinky toys from your childhood are still in production? What new thinky toys have you discovered that work for the 5–10 age range?"
My 4yr old nephew loves books. In part because it means with spent time with him, at first it was to read to him; but last time I was tired and had him"read" it to me, I was marvelously funny to get his vaguely relevant ad-lib intermixed with lines he remembered verbatim. I'll do that again !
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
On top of Lego, K'NEX are pretty amazing pieces of construction material. As a kid, I started training with the basic sets, then got into the "master" sets.
I bought myself a K'NEX set called "The big ball factory," and some other sets of spare parts. My computer geek / engineer colleagues came over one night for a few to many beers. Everyone had a plan one how to improve the damn thing. There were four folks working in parallel on different sections at once, and showed no intention of stopping, and lost all track of time . . . just like what happens when you do hard core coding.
My girlfriend quipped to the other girlfriends, that if the beer didn't run out, she would have to chase them all out with a broom. Most of the girlfriends found the behavior "cute", especially since with every improvement, one of the guys would run to his girlfriend, and say, "Look, Romy, at that thing that I just built!"
When the folks were leaving, one of the chicks said, "I'm glad that these toys are in your apartment, and not in mine."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Try being the "fun uncle" instead of the "odd uncle who's always trying to make them into something they're not."
I did that "fun uncle" thing, and showed my nephew what you could make out of ammonia and iodine crystals (nitrogen triiodide, NI3) and postassium percholrate, aluminum powder and sulfur.
How did that story end? He is applying to grad school to get his Ph.D. in chemical engineering. He got an 800 on his math GRE, so things look good.
He lives on another continent than I, but the last time I visited for Christmas, he gave me a book titled, "Backyard Ballistics."
I never got the chance to show him how folks at Princeton's eating clubs peppered other eating clubs with water ballons launched from funnelators (giant sling-shots, made with surgical tubing). Some folks that I don't know, and don't know me planned to launch a few at George Bush, Senior, when he visited the campus in 1984. Those folks that I didn't know changed their minds, when Secret Service folks showed up on the rooftops of the eating club.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
When I was a kid, my dad would often tell me that if I do well in school, he would pay for my college, and if I don't, he would buy me a giant shovel, the kind they use on the farm to move cow manure for my 18th birthday. He would also take me to my grandfather's farm every now and then, just so that I'd see those shovels getting used.
I never got the shovel. I choose the path which implied a six figure income instead. So one could say that even though the shovel never materialized, it was pretty thought provoking.