Toys in a Montessori Home - Lower Elementary

Our toys requirements for the elementary Montessori age - 6-12 years:

• constructive
• imagination development
• develop real-life skills
• aesthetics: something I can stand to look at

So what do we have? A lot that has carried over from primary actually - just expanded and deepened, with a few things removed: 

• Legos - yep, plastic - constructive, imaginative, aesthetics (good and bad), patterning - we do NOT utilize many specialized pieces; a friend has described his engineering college degree as "legos on steroids"
• Lincoln Logs - cultural significance to North America, natural, limitations of styles encourages creative solutions to build various structures, those same limitations demonstrate what is possible or not possible with this particular material
• Easel with chalkboard and magnetic/dry-erase board
• Art and Writing supplies: non-drying clay, real water-colors, a few kid water-colors, easel paper, various high quality paint brushes, a couple of junk drawers for random supplies to use for imaginative purposes, high-quality paper scissors, fabric scissors, tracing paper, some construction paper, glue, double-sided tape, Prismacolor colored pencils, white erasers, KUM pencil sharpeners, cheap sets of cards and envelopes, notepads
• Craft supplies: yarn, knitting needles, crochet hooks, cross-stitch and embroidery materials, felt, fabric and thread, use of the sewing machine
• Schleich and Toob animals and scenery
• Wood barn
• Supply of cardboard for making own creations
• Gardening supplies
• Stuffed animals - nothing gaudy or entirely unrealistic
• Wood train track with magnetic-wooden trains
• Music: various percussion instruments from various cultures; recorder with instruction book; CDs; CD player; 
• Books - lots and lots of excellent literature selections
• Wood pattern blocks for tessellations and patterns: my Montessori albums do not include presentations for these, so we count them as "toys"
• Board games, card games, strategy and logic games: this is a whole post by itself! See this post for a few of our games
• Building blocks
• Wood yo-yo
• 2-wheel bicycle
  
• jump ropes, kites, sleds
• Keyboard: newest acquisition - yes, it's for learning to play, but it's also for fun!
• Kept the balance beam! 

This has actually been a difficult list to create because so much of our school and home/play overlaps, flowing from one to the other. Because of this overlap, this list actually looks longer than it feels. A lot of these items were primarily "school" at primary and are now toys; or are still partially used for school. 

And I want to include our science supplies as toys, because they are so much fun! But I'll hold back on that one! ;)