Toys with the Highest Play-Time and Lowest Clean-Up-Time

Repeat twice a day because the kids love the idea of the game!

Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys for a greener more affordable option.

It's much easier to collect from the ground than Lego.

Newer Lego stuff also has so many tiny parts.

These tubes have been one of the most consistently used toys for the last 2 years.

They are about 5 bucks a piece depending on length.

Large flat bases to build on, or not.

Wheels, or not.

Little characters, or not.

Train tracks, or not.

Etc.

If you don't make all the context-defining options available all the time, it keeps lego play fresh and fun.

Second is something to climb on. We have a product called the nugget with nevernudes (accident protection) and he's tumbled and built shops/forts out of it for years now.

So long as you have a steady stream of cardboard (whether from packages shipped to your home or it ends up in your friendly neighbors' recycling), I anticipate that you could always make things, solo or with friends.

I've heard that one can use wheat paste as cardboard glue.

My hope is to have the combination of a cardboard "saw" and cardboard glue is to result in something like (nail-free) carpentry that kids can perform nearly entirely unsupervised.

Even making simple shapes that can go into dioramas and be props for roleplaying would already be great, I hope!

but the toys in the article actually seem nice.