I love visiting historic places with Zosia. One thing about them is they often have lovely handmade children's toys that are fascinating to her-- hammers and peg boards, wheelbarrows, little wooden swings. She seems to love the natural textures and feels of these toys, which makes me wish that I could integrate more of them into my own household.
We are huge on hand-me-down toys. I will not turn down a toy based on the fact that it is plastic, squeaks, or involves electronics. But, I will admit, not only do those toys get on my nerves, but they're sort of an eye sore. I hope that both Zosia and Lily grow up with an appreciation of nature and natural things-- wood, stone, yarn. What better way to do this than to fill their world with beautiful natural things?
We have some wooden toys, and she loves them. As her second birthday is approaching, I'm on the lookout for some more "natural" toys to fill out our collection. I'm not sure quite what yet, but there are lots of ideas floating around: an old-timey trike, a collection of colored spools of thread, a set of plain wooden blocks. We'll see what I can find on craigslist and at the thrift store.
In the mean time, does anyone out there have ideas for natural kids toys? Have you seen anything interesting or creative out there?
2 comments:
Do you guys have a saw? I think my favorite toys when I was a kid were blocks---I used to "build" houses for the little people I played with. Is Zosia into blocks yet?
There's a Waldorf book, called something like Creative Play for Toddlers, that shows you how to make your own toys. I have the baby version of the book and made quite a few of the things when my son was smaller.
But really, I like to set my son loose outside and see what he likes to play with. We're similar to you in the sense that while we don't like loud plastic toys, we wont turn them down if they're offered.
But my son likes to bring in a lot of "treasures" he finds outside to play with.... twigs and leaves etc. he's normally more interested in playing with "grown up things" like my pots and pans than he is his own toys though!
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