#meanwhile we used to spend entire weekends just messing with blankets and twigs at their age

[ophelianated]

This just occurred to me a while ago: what do kids even play with these days?

By kids I mean 3-10 year olds. 'Cause I remember we had Bakugan, Gormiti, Bionicles, Style Me Up!, Monster High, football trading cards and My Little Pony collectibles in primary school (Filly Princess is best line and I'll die on this hill), but I assume those are either considered old now or have gone through massive changes since the last time I played with them. Then before that in kindergarten one of the parents brought us a dozen worn-out flip phones without batteries to play grown-up with, still in kindergarten we had building blocks, rag dolls, Ringa Majigs, Barbies, toy cars, board games, plastic animal figures, Lego, some other plastic building toys that I don't remember the name of only that they were as ancient as the Ringa Majigs and we made hand grenades and pistols out of them (as your average 5 year old does), then we also made DIY 3D glasses out of paper frames that we glued transparent red and blue candy wrappers to the back of when we visited each other for play dates, built forts and nests and time machines out of blankets and pretended we were all kinds of things or that we travelled to different worlds, made potions out of rainwater and rocks and grass and "sold" them to each other, made up spells and cast "magic" with wands sticks we found on the side of the road, went rollerskating, tried recipes from children's cookbooks and even made up some of our own, made corn husk dolls, held fashion and talent shows where we switched between being performers and judges, made up code names for each other with "official" poorly-drawn IDs and secret handshakes and passwords and played spies with daily missions gathering (innocent) intel on teachers and other classmates, I could go on for days.

So I'm curious. What is trending nowadays among children of kindergarten and primary school age? And do they still play pretend and make potions and trade cards or do they play on their phone and watch Youtube all day?

I'm not old by any means, barely an adult by law. Yet I feel like I don't see the same enthusiasm in young children for toys and just playing irl in general that we had 10 years ago. Then again, I don't interact with people younger than me that much, so I could use some up to date knowledge from those that do.

#i only now realize how creative we were as children wow #we had a children's day at my mom's workplace back in june #and we were sweating blood trying to hold the little gremlins' attention for more than 2 minutes #they were around the same age as in the post #so anywhere from 3-10 with a couple obligatory middle schoolers #when i say we pulled EVERYTHING in the book #from toys to sandbox to interactive games to treasure hunt #there was even a police car #and a drawing contest #and they were still bored out of their minds #meanwhile we used to spend entire weekends just messing with blankets and twigs at their age #it may be because i grew up in the country with fuckall to do and these were city kids #still it was a huge shock for me #anyway #walking down memory lane to a time when i didn't have silly things like responsibilities #oh to be 6 vibing to the Dinosaur King intro and not having a roulette wheel for a sleep schedule #good times