Family Falooda: Stones and Stickers

Starting a collection with your children adds a wonderful new dimension to remembering and exploring the world around you.

Children love collecting things, and it can be an inexpensive hobby suitable for any age. It’s a great way to build a lifelong fascination with the interesting—but often ordinary—things surrounding us. Collections of simple, everyday items that cost little or nothing to gather are often the best. They provide an opportunity for each family member to express their unique ideas, differences, and interests from an early age.

Almost anything can become an interesting collection: bottle tops, labels, buttons, stones, shells, feathers, pressed leaves, flowers—the list is endless.

A Child’s Collection

I asked my seven-year-old grandson to give me a list of things he is collecting or might like to start collecting. It didn’t take much persuasion for him to share:

“Stones—I really like the flat ones and the ones with fossils. I’ve got blue, white, and green ones. I like stickers, especially the ones with Superman, and I like feathers.”

The Locked Drawer

The father of a friend of mine always kept a locked drawer and was very careful with the key. My friend, just a little girl then, imagined he kept very important documents inside. One day, unable to contain her curiosity, she got hold of the key and peeked inside. Not a single paper in sight! Instead, she found several boxes of pens—big, small, new, old, sparkling, bent. Fascinated, she carefully opened each pen and discovered that none of them were actually usable. A strange collection to many, but very precious to him, for each pen had a story to tell.

Bells and Tales

Kumari is thirty-five years old. Since the age of five, she has been partially paralyzed due to polio. Prone to infections, she is rarely allowed outside the house. She keeps herself busy knitting and stitching for many friends. Around her small room—on shelves, the mantelpiece, and window ledges—are hundreds of bells. Big ones, tiny ones, bells with a loud clang, and bells with a delicate jingle. Cowbells, school bells, old ship bells, and even a fire engine bell given to her by a chief fire officer who heard of her collection.

Kumari’s incredible bell collection brings her great joy and serves as a window to the world beyond her home. She keeps visitors enthralled with tales about where the bells came from and how she found them.

Starting a collection is more than just a hobby—it enriches memory and imagination.

Now, get started with your own ideas!

Adapted from Family Falooda – a unique and inspiring resource for young families investing in their children’s future, written by Rod & Ruthie Gilbert with Luke & Kirti Gilbert.