Spring Is in the Air! Time to Stock up on Outdoor Toys--Part I

Sidewalk chalk is one of the cheapest, least aggressive ways to entertain a group of children outside. It's great for solitary creative artwork but also for groups of kids. I often see a gaggle of children, maybe 3 to 7 of them, happily coloring side by side. While good-old sidewalk chalk does the job just fine, Crayola recently updated the activity with 3-D glasses. My daughter played with them over the weekend and loved it. She adores decorating our driveway and the glasses, literally, added another dimension to her play. She looked at everything through those glasses. While it is a novelty and not all of the children she was coloring with appreciated the uniqueness, it occupied everyone for at least a few minutes. I like to buy the giant tubs/boxes of chalk and Crayola seems to make the sturdiest pieces of chalk. They all break, but Crayola ones have a brighter color to them, a wider range of colors, a more crayon-like shape, and take longer to break.

I have yet to meet a child who doesn't love bubbles. Even little babies are fascinated by them. Whether the child is blowing the bubbles, chasing them, or popping them, it's an easy, safe, affordable, clean way to pass an afternoon. There are very simple homemade recipes for "making" bubbles (warm water and dish soap) and there are some very cheap bottles of bubbles as well. But I find the kids have the least amount of trouble when the bubbles are a little thicker such as the Gazillion Bubbles formula. I also find that for the younger ones, a bubble wand can be frustrating. For my son, whose three, I purchased a Transformers Bumblebee bubble "launcher." It's basically a little yellow Bumblebee action figure with an arm that works as a bubble wand. One side gets dipped into a cup of bubbles, the other side is shaped like a whistle and my son blows into it. We have another similar one with a Finding Nemo theme that I bought when my daughter was younger.

My daughter is all about pink things. So when I saw that Crayola makes "Washable Colored Bubbles" I picked up a bottle at Wal-Mart. I have to say that I'm not impressed. The bubbles don't blow as easily and there's a thick dye that sort of drips everywhere. If mom/dad will be the one blowing the bubbles, then this might be a nice novelty item. But otherwise, even with the "washable"-ness of this product, it can be messy.

Kites are also a harbinger of spring activities. They often require much more supervision than the other items in this article but can be a ton of fun on a windy day in a big open field. I'm not a fan of the really cheap ones. They break before you even use them and often don't fly well. But I don't advise spending a fortune either. Kites get stuck in trees, fly away, or get broken all the time. They are flimsy things that get pushed in the wind... and now you're trusting them to young children. It's not a good combination. I think, at most, I would pay $20 for a kite. There are some decent ones, especially on sale, that are colorful, well-built, and fun.