A small wooden box makes the store. A smaller cardboard box turned upside down will make the counter, or small pieces of wood can be nailed together by the little amateur carpenter. Buy toy scales or make some as described below. Small barrels can be obtained at toy store or little bottles and boxes can be filled with small quantities of tea and sugar, with tiny bags of pebbles for potatoes, apples, etc. Cranberries make acceptable play apples. Corn and nuts also will find places. Tacks can be hammered in on which to hang tiny brooms, and by hammering in two long nails and laying a narrow board upon them a shelf can be made for the canned vegetables. Let the children make their own brown paper bags, looking at a real one for a model.
Scales (Two small square cardboard boxes, made or bought, twine, skewer or other slender stick of wood or metal)
In each of the four sides of a box make a small hole near the top. Take two pieces of twine each four times the width of the box. Tie one of these through two opposite holes of the box and the other piece through the two other holes, being sure that the strings when tied are of equal length. These two strings cross each other. In the middle, exactly where they cross, tie one end of a string three inches long. Raise the box by this string and it should hang exactly true. Arrange the other box in the same way.
Now take the skewer and exactly in the middle tie a string of three inches. To the ends of the stick tie the ends of the twine already tied to the boxes. Raise the skewer by this string and the boxes should hang evenly, like scales. If they do not, slide one or the other back and forth until they do balance.
Use in the toy grocery store. Playing store is always a fine opportunity for indicating lessons of honesty in business. Train the child to give fair weight and measure, even in play.
Merry-Go-Round for Dolls (Cardboard, large ribbon spool, stiff paper or kindergarten folding paper, slender pencil, tiny flag)
Cut two circles of cardboard, one five inches in diameter; the other, ten to twelve. Using the smaller one as a base, stand on it a large ribbon spool (spool around which baby ribbon comes). Glue the large circle to the other end of the spool, parallel to the other lower circle. Make a hole in each circle. Run a slender pencil through the upper cardboard, then through the spool, and then through the lower circle, making an axis round which the spool may revolve, carrying with it the upper circle.
On the upper circle paste alternately animals cut from paper or cardboard, and benches also cut from cardboard. Elegance may be added by gilding the spool and letting a tiny flag float from the point of the pencil. Cut out paper dolls for a ride.
Dolls' Park (Starch-box, earth, moss, twigs, tiny mirror, etc.)
Fill the box with earth and sand for a foundation, and then with moss, twigs, elder-berry sprigs, etc., fill in the fairy-like details. A toy swan or boat adds to the reality.