I remember most of these too. I also had a "mamma doll", & a "Betsy doll" I too had a metal doll house. I had the metal skates (and a key)that would attach to our skates. I made a skate board in high school wood shop. I loved the Beach Boys so I made mine Walnut with surfer stripes on it in maple. I loved that board. We played hide n seek forever, and Mother may I too. Red light green light we played in Germany and red rover red rover, Does anyone remember red rover? I had a yellow Schwinn Varsity 10 speed. But first I had a black 3 speed. I cried when I saw I got a black bike, my sisters was blue and little brothers was red.
Play dough
pick up stiks
lots of paper and colored pencils
crayons and coloring books
John Denver & the Beach Boys

Those were the days my friend....la la la la

I remember Red Rover. We used to play it in grade school.
Also Four Square - I loved it!
We also played Mother, May I and Simon Says.

And we loved jumping rope. We spent so many recesses doing that. I envied the girls who had the long, heavy ropes. I remember my third grade boyfriend wanted to jump rope with the girls. I wanted to keep him to myself and just teeter totter or swing. :D

Marbles were popular when I was in grade school, too. I had my special marble bag and favorite shooters.
We went through a phase where everyone played Cat's Cradle with twine.

We also played jacks and pick-up sticks. I had our old pick-up sticks for years, in fact, I just found the original container upstairs a few weeks ago. Unfortunately it was empty. I think my DGD's found them and dumped them out, then didn't pick up the sticks. :(

Hula hoops were popular for a while. Now they're back. My DGD's jump through them on the trampoline.

I'd forgotten about paint-by-number kits until someone mentioned them. I think everyone in our family tried them. I never finished any that I started.

We used to play a lot of Old Maid and Authors. Also checkers, Chinese checkers, and Life. We never played Monopoly, but I'm not sure why. I'd also forgotten about Tiddly Winks and Cootie. I don't think we had a Mr. Potato Head, but we enjoyed playing Cootie.

I also remember paddle balls, yo-yo's, and slinkys. Oh, and what were those things called - viewfinders? That doesn't sound right. I think I've got one of those old time toy catalogs; I'll have to look it up.

I loved paper dolls. I had a huge collection of them, probably because they were cheap. We rarely got toys except at Christmas or birthdays, but paper dolls were an exception. I was so patient and loved cutting out the clothes.

I loved to read. I remember the Christmas I received my first Bobbsey Twins book. After that I was often given Bobbsey Twins books for Christmas or birthdays or I saved my own money to buy them. I ended up with the entire collection and still have them. When I was a little older I became fascinated with Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. And Trixie Belden. And a series about kids who lived on or near Lookout Mountain and rode horses. It seems like that series was a little darker than the others. I also really liked Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, and what was the other nurse series? Something Barton?

We made lots of potholders with those metal weaving thingies, too. We were SO proud of them.

Oh, and what about Oujia (sp?) boards? We had an old one that belonged to either my mom or aunt. It was a big hit at slumber parties.

This thread is bringing back a lot of good memories!

View Masters.... Was it Nurse _____ Barton Books? I had forgotten all of those others too!!!
That little machine that made the rubber insects? Came out about the same time as an easy bake oven....
Betsy Wetsy...
Chinese jumprope
Twister
Mouse Trap
Silly Putty
Silly Sand
Barrel of Monkeys
Magic 8 Ball
Wheel-O
Mystery Date
Incredible Edibles

amma I think you are meaning CreepyCrawlers. We had tha too. Also Operation game
Twister
I did lots of paint by number

Oh my I remember alot of these. I had all the Dawn dolls. Remember them? Kinda like a Barbie, just smaller.

chinese checkers and spinning tops.

i don't remember brand name toys. i was before t.v., so toys weren't shoved at you.

Funny you posted this. Last year I gave my siblings the following things from our childhood:

Fizzies
Sinclair Brontosaurus soap or plastic dinosaur
SenSen
Fuzzy Wuzzys (Animal shaped soap that grew "fur" when you took it out of the package)

Creepy Crawlers!! My brother had one of those, I used to make the craziest colour combos for those bugs but the baking part usually stank up the house!

WOW, memory lane! Thanks everybody. I've enjoyed all of you. As a coal miner's daughter, we didn't have a lot but we loved to do for people and share. I remember meeting a little girl who lost her mom to cancer. I must have been six years old. I took one of my barretts and gave it to her for Christmas. We didn't think of it as something old or used, it was ours and we gave something from self. It meant something special to this giver. To have been given someone's possession has a tremendous impact. Whatchat think?

Sure do! I always had a Cootie or two in my house, even when my boys were little!
Remember a marble game called "Kerplunk"? Was kind of a cross between pickup sticks, marbles, and a plastic tube....noisy son of a gun, but fun!

You know it is fun to remember these toys. I remember tiny tears, Toni dolls, barbies and all of the things you guys have mentioned. I love to sit down and play with lincoln logs and tinker toys with my boys (14 and 11) and even my friends kids.

Nobody mentioned the Sears Roebuck catalogue. We were allowed
to cut out anything we wanted. I remember cutting out watches and
rings, and Mom would tape them on me. Same with beautiful paper pins
taped to my clothes.

Remember the doctor and nurses kits? Snoozie doll? Paper dolls?

I thought Cootie was an ANT?
Stilts were my favorite. anyone remember tether ball? Being very tall I rocked that game! We have an old record player at our cabin and 100;s of 45's and LP's so much fun to sit and play old songs. Even my girls love to hear the "old time music" We even found a Beatles Album unopened with the cellophane intact and posters inside. Wonder what it's worth today.
Thanks for the memories...................

Oh GAIGAI I still love SEN SENs Hard to find anymore!

Oh the excitement when the Sears Christmas catalogue came in the mail!!! We would pour over it for days and days LMBO My kids did too, but by then there was also the Toys R Us catalogue LOL

Yes, sometimes a gift that is most treasured is a small gift, given soley from the heart, Mrspete!!! Thank you for telling us this touching memory 8) 8) 8)

Yes!!! Creepy Crawlers!!! I had the flower maker...but preferred the bugs LOL They would stick quite well to the windows in our house, Mom was not pleased at all of the bugs crawling around on the glass :roll: "What are the neighbors going to say/think???" Dad thought it was hilarious LMBO

Fizzies!!! :mrgreen: We would get in trouble for putting the tablets into our mouths instead of in a glass of water LOL
I don't remember SenSen's....What are those?

Cootie was an ant..your right!
sen-sen was a black strong tasting licorace? (SP) wasn't the package like the size of a match box?

i buy alot of the old time candies and genearl cleaners at
www.vermontcountrystore.com

i bought some old games a few years ago for my brother for Christmas..
my grandma worked at the sears catalog store in wyandotte,mi.
i grew up wearing catalog rejects..(returns!)
the sears catalog was a favorite!

I had Dawn dolls! They had silver go-go dresses with bright blue fringe! I also had Hi Dottie and Baby Alive. My Mom hand crochet outfits for them one year at Christmas when we were broke. Pants, sweaters and matching hats. My Barbie had hand carved wooden furniture with hand made cushions. There was a couch, chair, bed and table.

I STILL have my Spirograph and my I Dream of Jeannie doll in her bottle.

My Dad has eaten at least 9 million tiny muffins from the Easy Bake oven.

Little House on the Prairie books were a big treat. I always tried to make them "last" but always ended up setting down and reading them all the way through.

What about Romper Stompers? We couldn't afford real ones, but I had a great pair made out of old coffee cans.

Oh MY Romper Room LOL Hadn't thought about that show in decades!!! Yep...home made Romper Stompers out of tin cans and twine :mrgreen:

It was Sue Barton - I loved those books! But they were from an older generation, so I only had hand-me-down copies or those I could find in the library. Same with Trixie Belden & Cherry Ames. Do you also remember the Donna Parker series?

I had a Bobbsey Twins book or two. My mother said they'd been childhood favorites of hers. (She also mentioned having a Shirley Temple doll - didn't you post that you'd had one? How long were they around? My mother was a child during the Depression.)

One set I didn't have that other kids had was the Happy Hollister stories. Anyone remember them?

I vaguely remember Dawn. I may have had one. Did her clothes fit Barbie? I had one of the silvery go-go outfits for my Barbie. It might have been a Dawn outfit. That was a Christmas gift from a neighbor, who'd bought a pile of the dolls and clothes for all her various nieces and let me choose an outfit from the lot before she wrapped the rest up for the nieces.

I don't remember these at all, but I have to ask, did a rhyme go with them? I do remember my cousins reciting
"Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair..."
and there were a couple more lines after that. Do you know what they are?

Oh, I had both of these. I far preferred the flowers. I can't imagine why I had the creepy crawlers at all.

"Fuzzy Wuzzy wuz a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wuzn't very fuzzy,
Wuz he?"

The empty wooden thread spool with nails hammered in the top to make a long yarn "chain" was called "French Knitting".

How about Chinese Checkers...real marbles, on a tin game board?

Cowboys and Indians...not "politically correct" today.

Hot Wheels- the ones that had the red line tires and the button that came with them.

GI Joe's with kung foo grip

Schwinn Stingray Bikes

Ed Roth Hillbilly Hats

Rat Fink

The Monkees trading cards

Planet of the Apes Trading cards


Billy

Anyone have a "Rocket radio"?

I remember most of those toys. I loved the Happy Hollister books. Still have some in my mom's attic.

Does anyone remember the Swingy doll? She was a little doll that ran on batteries. She would walk or if you flipped the switch the other way, she would swing her hips and dance. My brother and sister walked her down the basement stairs and she never worked again. I was so mad!

Sue Barton, yes! I got all those from the library. I must have bought or been given a few Trixie Belden and Cherry Ames books, but the rest came from the library. (Was it Cherry Ames who was accidentally the last one in her class to receive her cap? I miss nurses' caps. Now you can't tell them apart from nurses' aides or techs.)

Both Cherry Ames' and Sue Barton's first books were set during WWII. The Bobbsey Twins books were set even earlier, although they were so generic it didn't seem to make any difference. My daughter just cautioned me not to get rid of them (since we're moving soon) because my DGD's would probably want to read them, but I have a feeling they won't be interested. I know they don't care about paper dolls. Why play with paper dolls when you have fairy and princess outfits of your own and a gazillion dolls to play with?

I don't remember the Donna Parker series. It wasn't the one set on Lookout Mountain, was it? I remember one of the girls in that series had a blond ponytail and was named Bitsy, I think. I don't remember the Happy Hollister series, either.

I just thought of something. I loved reading the Boy's Life magazine. My brother got it and I always snuck it out of his room so I could read it. I was a fast reader and always got it back to him before he missed it.

I did have a Shirley Temple doll. I don't remember when I got her, but I know I still had her when I was in third or fourth grade, which would have been 1959-1960. I wish I knew what happened to her. I always kept all my toys and books, but she disappeared. I may have thrown her away, now that I think about it more. I think I got tired of her curls and decided to give her a short haircut. Did you know the hair on dolls doesn't grow back? :cry: I may have thrown her away so I wouldn't get in trouble. :oops:

Someone mentioned the Little House on the Prairie series. I loved those, too. I couldn't pace myself either and always zipped right through them. I still read the same way.

No, Donna Parker lived in a small town.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Parker

"Misty Mountain Hop" is a Led Zeppelin song. (One day we'll have to do a thread about our favorite music growing up.)

The "misty mountains" were part of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Ring trilogy. The Hobbit was its prequel, if that rings a bell.

I don't know of any other books set in the misty mountains or a place by that name.

no idea what they were called: two very heavy balls on a string. The object of the game was to grab the string in the middle and flip the balls til they kept clanging against each other. OH did that smart when you did it wrong an they hit body parts - mostly the knuckles.

Then I had a thing that looked like an hourglass. The object of the game was to make it roll back and forth on a string controlled by sticks at each end. Never got that to work either.

I was very glad when I discovered boys.

Sewhappy, pm me your addy and I'll send you some!

baren*eh*ked_canadian............quoting you..........
(keeping in mind I am a child of the 80s)

remember this......I was a child of the 40's !!!!!

anyway, as little girls, we loved our baby dolls. We would dress them and take them for walks in the carriages. During WW2, I lived in California and missed my "Bright Eyes" baby, so very much, that Santa left her under my tree so very far from home.....thanks to some help from an uncle who worked for the PO. One of my treasured memories.

And paper dolls....they were another big thing that kept my friends and me amused for hours. We had to obtain boxes from all the cigar smoking men in the family to keep the clothes nice and neat. We had a ball with them.
Have any of you ladies seen the fabric out now with dolls and also the fabric for making outfits for them.....almost like our paper dolls.

Well, ladies, we can come back to the current generation and see what has developed over the years.

MaryJane

I am child of the 50's.

My mom made my clothes..until was old enough to make my own. I just bought some fabric with pix of the old McCalls "mom and daughter", and "big sister, little sister" patterns on it.
I am sooooo enjoying all these memories.

mjsylvstr...your comment about the baby dolls reminded me of one of my earliest memories. I loved purses, so my aunt would give me her old ones. I still remember taking my "baby" for a walk in her buggy, me with my purse over my arm. I suspect the purse was almost as big as I was!!! LOL :)

the more I read from you other ladies, the more I remember.....A friend made me a "don't know what you would call it" !!!!!!!!

it had a base like a skating board.....but homemade !!! A crate was nailed to the front (open part facing where you would stand) and handles nailed to the crate....I guess one might call it a scooter but it sure wasn't shiny and slick like the scooters today..but we did have fun on it and it got us where we wanted to go.

Other than toys, we always had the games that needed nothing but the kids
...like king of the mountain, Simon says...stick ball (well, maybe one needed a ball for this one and we could always find a stick laying around) and there were lots more games.

We survived without the electronics.......do you think the kids today could?

Oh yes....mjsylvstr...mud pies needed nothing other than dirt and water!!!!

pzazz...
aren't they great memories

baren*eh*ked_canadian..
thanks so much for starting this topic..I think that we all are enjoying the thoughts and memories of long ago......

longer for some of us than others...lololol

I make mud pies with my 2 year old grandson..much to my DD's dismay!
we search for worms, and bugs..he loves it..we go to the petting farm..about every 2 weeks..they have a butterfly farm. my girfriend raises monarchs..so we go over there too..he gets to set them free and they usually land on his hand..
we play games too.
i limit his TV to "sprout"..a few shows.
there is nothing like being in the garden with your grands!

Let's see how much I can date myself by telling what I wanted for Christmas:

a Barbie doll (like someone else said, she came with the bathing suit and if you wanted more clothes, you made them yourself)
45 rpm records (my brother & I used to buy used ones from a tavern which had a big jukebox)
In high school, I REALLLLLLLLY wanted a transistor radio. They were about the size of your hand and used a 9v battery.
And most of all, I wanted more than 1 pair of shoes at a time and clothes that came from a store and looked like what the other girls wore :D :D :D

sewjoyce............

You're young !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I remember those transistor radios, I would lay awake at night and listen to WLS in Chicago. carried it everywhere I had the same Barbie dollwith the ugly black and white striped bathing suit. pretty much learned to sew by making her lots of clothes including a powder blue skating outfit

We had one of those! I don't know what the official name of it was, but it hung in a tree for years!

I had a thing like that only instead of a ball, it had a hard plastic lemon filled with something that rattled. All the girls had them. We played every day at recess. It was called a Lemon Twist.

Here is a link to a picture of one. It's about halfway down the page.

http://www.starpulse.com/news/index....e_told_were_da

Yup! We played it at Grandma's house. It was in the toy closet.