Trash Packs Crazy!

Ace is into a new "trend"....

That trend is called the Trash Packs.

About a year ago, he came home from school one day and kept talking about this toy called the Trash Pack. He kept saying that they are very cool and that all of his friends have them and that he wants to buy some and asked if we could buy some for him.



For the benefit of those who do not know wat trash packs are, they are just little rubber monsters the size of an adult thumb and they come in various series. They act as a collectable series and also can be used to play games like shooting down your opponent's "trashies" the way we shoot goli (marbles) when we were young.

As you can see, there is almost ZERO educational value in this toy. To me, it is a boh liao toy and total waste of money to buy them and so I said no.

But Ace's godma Annie gave him a red packet and said if he did well in his tests or exams, he will be allowed to use it to buy something he likes.

So that particular semester, Ace did a chinese test I gave him and to my surprise scored like 75 marks... the benchmark I set for him in order to get permission to use his red packet money.

And so, he went out and purchased a set of 5 trashies from the series 1.

He was not allowed to bring toys to school. He played with it like 3 times in the next year and then dunno where he put lah. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe it is not fun to play with it alone at home or with me or max cos we dun really know the rules.. hahahaha...

Some time at the start of the Autumn Term this year, he decided that Parent's Rules are all meant to be overthrown and that you could just ignore what your parents say and as long as you teh siao, you could do what you wanted... (Read about how he lost his Gshock watch  because of that here)

And so, he started bringing all sorts of things to school even though we said not to. When we found out. We told him he has to be responsible for his own toys then because we are not going to buy him new ones as replacement when that happens.

There was a sudden revival of the trash packs in school and suddenly, he remembered that he had them as well and he searched for them and packed them into a bag and brought them to school.

And over time, he has been playing with them every day. His collection of 5 grew slowly... and everyday he will come back and report about which new trashie he has traded for. Over the next few months, his trashie collection grew from 5-14!

And how did he grow his collection?

You see, they do trading and I dunno how... but sometimes people trade two lower end ones from an older series for a newer one.. and he trades.. so he changes one for two. Sometimes his friends have too many and want to give him one or two... Sometimes, his friends want to give someone else and someone else say it is no good and doesnt want it and he just conveniently ask, "Then can you give to me?" wahahahaa....  Only one time he won one playing the shooting game. He usually only play friendly matches where you dun lose the trashie because he is afraid of losing his.

Because of that, he is so crazy about them and everyday, he has been bugging us to buy him new trashies from the latest series 5.

Around that time, we started implementing the do your own chores to earn money for your own toys thing and so, he worked hard at his chores and finally saved up enough money to buy a pack of 2 new trashies... hahaahhaah..

 

That is Ace making money and buying his own things with the money he made for the first time...

Check out the big smile!:)

Now he says he wishes that everyone will give him trashies for his birthday. I wish not though cos I still think it is a useless toy and that 16 trashies IS ENOUGH:) wahahahaha...

But he has been working hard at work to change my mind by randomly and nonchalantly engaging me in discussions about why Trashies are great learning toys....

According to Ace, trashies help you in MATH (you have to count them) and also SCIENCE (you have to use your knowledge in science to make a decision about how to shoot and which one to use to shoot the other trashie down..)


Hahaha.. like tat also can???


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