8 Year Old Boys and Their Toys

My 8 y/o and his buddies like to play catch (football or baseball), jump on the trampoline, water gun fights, nerf gun fights, the wii, bey blades, air hockey, bake (I know it sounds weird, but they love to bake cookies or cupcakes then decorate them) and build with the legos.
Every 6 months or so we go through the boys' toys and if they haven't played with it or we haven't seen it recently we donate. My boys are 4 and 8 so right now my youngest is really getting into a lot of my 8 y/o's stuff so we tend to just donate (or hand down to nephew) the 4 y/o's toys he has lost interest in.

I think it just depends on the kid/kids. My younger son is almost 13 and he still regularly plays with Nerf guns and Legos. In fact, he is having a Nerf birthday party and has requested Legos as gifts. However, my older son was never really into those things, but he liked cars, trains and sport/active activities.

My boys, 10 and 7, took out pretty much every toy over the summer. They still play with matchbox cars, the younger one loves boardgames, they also played with legos a lot and even took out the big legos and played with those. They also still play with their stuffed animals. Often they play all those things at the same time. They create their own world in their bedrooms upstairs. It's made up of a city build of legos, matchbox cars driving around in it, stuffed animals roaming the forest around it and Playmobil pirates trying to take it over. It's pretty messy at the end of the day but it keeps them busy sometimes for hours.

Now that they are back to school they probably won't have the time anymore to play like that, except on the weekends. Sometimes they don't play with some of the toys for a long time but then will go back to them all of a sudden and play with them on a daily basis. I'm not ready to give them away yet anyway.

Retire the toys if you can. Our nine-year-old son won't let us, but they just sit in his room. He hasn't played with toys in at least a couple years.

Nerf guns are still a hit, but really it's all about video games now (sigh ...). I miss the old Lego days!

They grow up so fast.

At that age my son still played with his Legos quite a bit. Other than that he was mostly reading (regular books and comics) and playing video and computer games. Outside he liked riding his scooter, bike and Heelys. Sometimes when friends came over they would pull out the Nerf guns or plastic army guys :)
Oh, and he and his friends liked playing Stratego and Risk too!

My 8 year old son is suddenly really into toy guns. He likes to run around with his friends shooting imaginary bad guys. They have elaborate plots. Or they like to pretend they are spies (using Spy Gear). He also will get out his Tech Decks and pretend with them (the little ramps and finger skate boards/bmx bikes) in his room. He loves certain board games. He loves the trampoline. He loves riding his bike the best of any toy. He will ignore a toy for a long time (like 6 months!) and then suddenly get into it again. It is hard to get rid of stuff. He used to play with legos constantly but not lately. I know he'll come back to them again in the future.

My 7 year old son and my 81/2 year old daughter are OBSESSED with Ninjago legos. My son also loves nerf guns, kickball, regular legos... he doesn't play with cars and trucks very much anymore unless he's creating some other kind of world with them in the dirt or sand. Very interested in science, animals and video games ( although we don't have video games at home, just at the arcade.)

You don't see them when they have play dates?

I would ask him. Every once in a while I tell my kids we are cleaning and we have a donation bag. That way they choose what they don't play with anymore. I go through it for *sniff, sniff* sentimental reasons but I put it away instead. There's no wrong or right thing for any kids, just let them play what they like.

At 8 my kids liked all the things your child does minus the sports. They enjoyed sitting around doing art more so. =)

You know, it really depends on the kid, I think.

My son (now 9) was a HUGE hot wheels/Nascar car collector.
Once in a while, he will pull them out...

But at this age and beyond, I think the focus shifts from toys to activities.
Basketball, bikes, hockey, cops & robbers, football, wiffle ball, trampoline, hide & seek outside, army stuff (they use their Nerf guns ALL the time).

Honestly, my son never was that big into Matchbox cars anyway. So those were never a "go to" toy, at any age. Definitely not by age 8+. That was the age he was really huge into Bionicles (Lego). Of course, I don't think they even make those anymore, there is some other type of specialized legos, now. Whatever it is called, that is what I would stock up on. :)

Tinker Toys are actually pretty fun, or Knex, if you have a big enough set. Even Lincoln Logs.

Nerf guns always managed to get dragged out at some point, too.

Get rid of the matchbox-after 8 it is rare to play with those. My kids go in and out of interest in Nerf and Lego...they always like them when friends are over and they aren't playing video games though.

I played with Legos from age 6 all the way through High School; I wish I still had my Expert Builder sets! But Legos may be the exception. I think toy cars are fine for that age, especially if they have race tracks. I remember playing with electric car tracks at that age, and remote control things, and sports in general. And I spent alot of time on the Atari 5200, Intellivision and Colecovision too. I think as children grow, the way they play with the same toys evolves and changes too. I've noticed this with my 3 year old already.

If your child likes legos, keep them. Maybe in a shoe box (or 12) and see if he plays with them when it starts raining? Mine wasn't a lego fan, but will play at other people's houses. The Nerf and airsoft guns are a big hit right now (he's 11). The older they get, the more I want them out of the house playing. Good luck!

Every kid is different, but I found that once we let the video games into our lives, they didn't play with toys as much! Really sad! I always make sure we have some kind of multi-player video game for when friends are over. My kids also tend to do more outside stuff when they have friends over, like jump on trampoline, Nerf guns, skate boards, etc. My boys have always loved Lego's and did continue to play with them occasionally, especially in the summer. I would get them all out and let them take over the dining room table to create large cities, etc. They are now 17 and 13 and this is the first summer that they really didn't play with them that much. I would hang on to the Lego's and Nerf and any other favorites to pull out when needed.