Hi
My childhood objects were objects that I used to play in the garden during summer (for example hammer and nails to build shelves, boxes, houses where we spent time with kinds from neighbourhood), plastic models, kites and a bike.
Also I used have fun to disassemble old equipment, check how it was built.
Nowadays I play with kites, build them with kids at school where I work. We take a part in local championships. Sometime I build paper or matches models.
I also play geocaching which is like an adventure. You don’t know where it takes you or what things you will learn next time solving another mystery geocache.
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Hi @Derval, my co-mentor at CoderDoJo uses Trinket ( https://hourofpython.trinket.io/a-visual-introduction-to-python#/welcome/an-hour-of-code ) for Python. Not sure if you’ve already tried that out ? I haven’t tried it yet myself, so would be interested to hear what you think.
I’ve just started using p5js though, and love how visual that is and there are loads of awesome resources online to help too (eg Coding Train on YouTube 1.1 Code! Programming for Beginners with p5js )
Hi everyone 
The childhood object that interested me were the finger puppets and their corresponding book series from “A Child’s First Library of Values”
puppets all cosied up together
The stories were soo good and the art was top-notch, it was soothing, exciting and inspiring all at the same time! The art was so compelling that it felt like I was living in the world of the stories, and it was so amazing to me that the characters in the books could become “real” in my hands with the puppets, and I could play with them like they were my friends, it was like magic!
a page that i really loved from one of the stories
I think it played a big role in my life in terms of instilling curiosity and finding joy and magic in the daily mundanities of growing up!
Even now, when I go through the books, I’m filled with a sense of childlike wonder and inspiration 
last but not the least, all the books!
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@DebC I never played with Tinker Toys as I’ve never seen them in Italy growing up, but I read that Marvin Minsky (artificial intelligence pioneer and close friend with Seymour Papert) used to love them!
Maybe you (and others) might enjoy reading about it in this essay called The Infinite Construction Kit
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We also had lots of those blocks that were kept in an empty laundry detergent container (those were round in those times). We had another tub with figurines and accessories. It was a mix of things collected over years, but between the two tubs stories came to life, based on story books, TV shows or our imagination, or even a combination of the 3. The memory triggers a faint scent of laundry powder…
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Yes, I also did that. I loved to play with these paper doll sets.
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One of the most important gifts I received when in primary was a pair of good scissors for needle work. I still have them and still use them. It was a key instrument in my tinkering with yarn and material, creating dolls, clothes for dolls, dressing up sets for theme parties etc.
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Oh yes @pawelbednarczyk , I’ve been geocaching too and know just what you mean there : D
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Personally, I’m thinking for a long about a toy or an object which could impact myself positively, in a creative way. Honestly, it is a hard exercise because I do not remember any toy specially. However, one of the first toys I remember I spent a lot of hours playing with it was a building one: K’nex motorized Scorpion. A few years later, arrived to my life videogames, a pasion which today is still in my live.
Surely, the mixture with both, could finished helping to boost my coding feelings, and the learning and/or teaching about it. In my personal opinion, logics and computational thinking has a lot of relationship with the 4p’s and the spiral of creativity Mitch wrote about.
Esp:
*Llevo rato pensando en el juguete u objeto que pudo haberme inspirado o despertado curiosidad y, honestamente, está siendo un ejercicio difícil para mí. No recuerdo uno en especial, aunque uno de los primeros juguetes que recuerdo, y que sé que le destiné muchas horas fue un juego de construcción, un K’nex scorpion motorizado. *
*Años más tarde, llegaría mi pasión por los videojuegos, que dura hasta hoy. *
Seguramente, la mezcla de los dos, haya acabado ayudando a que me interese la programación, el aprendizaje y la enseñanza de la misma en educación, e intentar entender la relación o el funcionamiento de las cosas (su script). Creo la lógica y el pensamiento computacional tienen un vínculo muy estrecho con las 4p’s y la espiral creativa de la que habla Mitch.
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Books and Puzzles … where my favourite toys … these were my gears books: Travelling, discoveries. and science books … Curiosity is still my best friend.
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My favorite childhood book is Junie B. Jones. Reading these books allowed me to imagined and get lost into the story and characters.
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My childhood changed the minute I discovered this computer hiding away in the school library. I was in first grade and wasn’t having any luck making friends but this computer was friendly to me! I played Oregon Trail and learned how to use the Logo turtle, wrote some games in BASIC and used all sorts of MECC educational software.
I was the only person in the entire school who used that computer. This was in Southern Alberta in 1980.
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When I was a child, my dad made me a large fleet of very simple boats from scraps of wood, dowels, and pieces of felt. I created puddles using the garden hose in depressions in the yard and spent hours floating them around. Alas, I cannot find a photograph, but this image from the Adventure in a Box company’s site is similar. I so admire that my dad did not buy me toys, but created them from scraps. The desire not to waste, to reuse, and to give new purpose to disused items sticks with me as an adult.
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I thought first of the games and toys I had. I also thought a lot about the first computer that gave me a vision of my future.
But on top of them, i remembered one play i did often : I created a lot of adventurer stories with Playmobil and Legos. I created extended universe with moulding putty or outside bushes.
Then there was one object, very common one I moved to use because it was easy to transform, reuse, on the size of these figurines hands.
This object was an aperitive pick. You know ? This simple wooden stick used for olives or cheese cubes ?
I used it to build ladders or platforms. I used it to play Olympic games javelin, or doing fences, teepees, doors pillars… i also used it a lot for crafting things : for putty strengtheners, or to hang things on it, to do precise painting dots or lines, to glue fine beads,…
This was one of the most polyvalent creative tool I used with no material.
So clearly : long life to aperitive pikes :D
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oh yes, @Lieve and @katiacristian me too! made up different characters and lots of stories with paper dolls like these. so simple to make, but would play with them with them for hours and hours : )
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@turtleSpaces I’d never seen one of these before until I watched part of The Coding Train video with one in recently. It’s super-super-long video, so you might not want to watch it all, but… All aboard! Apple Basic, Macrodata Refinement, Passenger Showcase, Upcoming Challenges - YouTube …and (Spoiler Alert) you especially might want to close your eyes around 1:45:00 with this being your favourite childhood object!! 
This was my favorite set of objects- I used them in every game I played. I liked to create a structure for my play and I associate these cardboard blocks with my first experiences of “flow” [Csikszentmihalyi]- where when I was playing I was totally immersed in that world- the blocks were animal hospital beds, seats that changed into beds on the train where I was a conductor, the outline of houses I built, and the edifice of a very ultamodern multi apartment building for my troll (which was my other favorite childhood objects). I had a lot of them and I could really build cool play environments that I then merged with. I liked this assignment because I enjoyed reexperiencing the feeling I had in those kid memories.
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@Scmilblick have you ever seen what artist Scott Weaver creates using similar toothpicks? When I first visited the Tinkering Studio and saw this amazing sculpture of the Bay Area I couldn’t believe my eyes!
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**What was special about your object? How did it affect the way you think and learn?
I guess my toy would be an old set of marbles I found in an old barn behind my house when I was 12. It was special to me because I found it, it was old, and it was a cool game to learn to play.
I know finding those old marbles made me love the history of toys. I figured out I learn best by trying things myself with someone showing me while explaining what to do.
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Love how you describe the way you merged with your own hand-built play environments @rusty and are reexperiencing the feelings you had then : )