‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’ was Shirley Temple’s signature song and first sang it in the 1934 movie Bright Eyes. Shirley Temple was born in 1928 and entered show business from the age of three. She was one of the most famous film stars of the 1930s and capitalised on a range of merchandise featuring her iconic image including paper doll books, toys and clothing.

The Australian-made Ezy-Bilt metal construction toy is almost a direct copy of Meccano. Meccano was invented in 1898 by an Englishman called Frank Horby. He wanted his sons to have a toy that they could use for more than one purpose. Meccano was originally called ‘Mechanics Made Easy’ and started being sold in stores in 1903. His company is also well known for making Horby model trains. Ezy-Bilt made a cheaper alternative to Meccano in the 1930s and it was one of the first construction kits that used rubber as well as metal for parts.

The word Marngrook comes from the Gunditjmara (located in the south western district of Victoria) language and means 'game ball'. It is the name of a game played by Aboriginal people across South Eastern Australia that was played with a possum skin ball, however in different areas the ball was made from other materials. The game has different names in different Koorie languages but is now generally referred to as Marngrook. Elements of Australian Rules Football are believed to have originated from this traditional game.

Purlja, Buroinjin, and Pulyugge are all other traditional ball games from across Australia. Purlja was a popular ball game of the Walbiri people of central Australia, Buroinjin was a ball game played by the Kabi Kabi people of south Queensland, and Pulyugge was played between selected teams of different groups in the Murray, Lake Alexandria, and Lake Albert areas of South Australia.

Diecast metal toys were extremely popular from the 1930s onwards with the most popular brands being Matchbox, Dinky, and Tootsietoy. Cars, trucks, tanks, planes, cruise ships, trains, and warships were popular diecast toys. Originally diecast toys were all metal. It wasn’t until the 1950s that some plastic parts were added.

Norman Lindsay wrote and illustrated The Magic Pudding in 1917. It is his best-known children’s book, featuring the adventures of Bunyip Bluegum, Bill Barnacle, Sam Sawnoff, the Puddin’ thieves, and Albert, the ‘never-ending’ pudding.

May Gibbs was one of Australia's foremost children's authors and illustrators and is best known for her story, The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, featuring two gumnut babies and their escape from the big bad Banksia men.

Ginger Meggs was created in the early 1920s by Jimmy Bancks and is still going today! The strip follows the escapades of a red-haired boy names Ginger Meggs who lives in an inner suburban working-class household.

In 1872, British soft drink maker Hiram Codd designed and patented a bottle designed specifically for carbonated drinks. The bottle was made of thick glass to withstand internal pressure and included a chamber to enclose a marble and a rubber washer in the neck. Children would smash open these bottles to retrieve the marbles inside.

Jacks, knucklebones, jackstones, dibs, chuckstones, or 5 stones (depending on where you lived) come from the foot of a sheep. Children would buy knucklebones from butchers or if they lived on a farm and had their own sheep, they could get their own after it died. To make jacks you would boil the bone to remove any meat. Sometimes children would dye the knucklebones using colours they could find around the home like beetroot skins for red or onion skins for yellow.

Aeroplane Jelly has arguably run the most successful advertising campaign in Australian history. Their iconic jingle is one of Australia's longest-running jingles and was even added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2008. The jingle was first recorded in 1937 featuring the voice of five-year-old Joy King who won a competition to voice the song.

All of these nursery rhymes are believed to be stories about historical events. Ring Around the Rosie is well known as a reference to The Plague. The "ring around the rosy" is said to be referencing the bubonic plague rash. The "pocketful of posies" describes the handfuls of herbs people would carry to mask the smell of the sickness.

The other two rhymes are supposedly in reference Queen Mary I of England (also known as Bloody Mary). “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” was written as a heckle at her time in power, referencing her poor leadership and inability to have children. “Three Blind Mice” is thought to be in reference to her murder of three noblemen who had plotted against her.

The Knitting Nancy is a great example of how toys were made up of objects that were available around the home. A child only needed a wooden cotton reel and four nails to make one. The yarn would be woven around the heads of the nails twice and then a pick would be used to bring the lower yarn over the top creating a braid that would come out through the middle of the reel. These days it is more common to use an empty toilet roll with four pop sticks taped around the side.