Toys timeline

Today, the children brought in both old and new toys from home. We had opportunity to look at all of the toys initially without being given any additional information about them. The children discussed which ones they thought were the oldest and the newest based on looks alone.

Discussions included:

'I think that the swing is the oldest because it has wood on it and wood was in the olden days.'
'Sometimes things that are made out of wood are new.'

'I think the rabbit teddy is very old because there's bits of black string and a bit of the head is coming off. It's a little bit rough.'

'I think the doll looks old because new dresses don't look like that.'

'Wool has been around a long time because sheep have.'

'I think the Hatchimal is new because it looks shiny and doesn't have any marks or dust on it.'

'I think the helicopter looks new because I saw him press a button and it spun around and if it was old it might not have. It looks shiny.'

The children then shared the stories behind the toys that they had brought in to help us decide where they would fit on our timeline. 

Armed with the information and our observations, we created a timeline of toys from oldest to newest. We labelled our timeline with 5 loose time-frames:

- Oldest - Around 100 years ago

- Grandparents' toys

- Parents' toys

- Toys from when we were younger

- Newest - Christmas 2019