Did you know?
Kondapalli, a village near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, has made wooden toys for about 400 years. Artists carve each part separately from a soft wood called tella poniki, then join and paint them.
In Etikoppaka village, Andhra Pradesh, toymakers colour their wooden toys with lacquer and natural dyes from seeds, roots and leaves. In 2017, the toys got a GI tag, a label showing they truly come from that place.
In Japan, red Daruma dolls are sold with blank eyes. When you set a goal, you paint in one eye. When you reach it, you paint in the other! The dolls stand for never giving up.
Try this: Make a Wobbly Doll
Do this with an adult
With an adult, cut a ping-pong ball in half. Press a small lump of clay or play-dough firmly into the bottom of one half. Draw a tiny face on a strip of paper, roll it into a light cone and tape it on top. Push your doll over gently. It wobbles back up! The heavy clay keeps its balance point low.
Go further: Why the Wobbly Doll Stands Up
A roly-poly toy has a round bottom with a heavy weight inside it. This puts its balance point, called the centre of mass, very low. When you tip the toy, the weight is lifted a little, and gravity pulls it back down, so the toy rocks upright again. China has old roly-poly clay toys, and Japan has the okiagari-koboshi, whose name is often explained as 'take a spill, get up'!