Pull one stick out of the tube and the afternoon is sorted. A hundred play prompts on sturdy printed sticks: race snails, stack balance pebbles, lie on your back and name the cloud shapes, build a mud kitchen, take a penny hike where a coin flip decides every turn. Not every idea suits every mood, so you turn the stick over or pull another.

Dawn Isaac wrote them for children aged 3 to 8, and the mix is deliberate. Some are ten minute distractions that need nothing but a yard or a park. Others, the potion lab, the giant bubbles, the chalk paints, fill a whole afternoon, and the booklet in the tube explains how to make what they call for. There is solo play in here, things for you to join in with, and games sized for a birthday party or a big family.

It lives on the shelf by the back door, in the glove box, in the bag that goes to the grandparents. For a screen free summer it does more work than anything else its size, and it never runs out of charge.

First Sticker Book: Nature Peek Inside the Farm