Ostheimer Wooden Figures

September 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

When my children were little I remember scrimping and saving so I could build up a little collection of Ostheimer figures.

I just love the simplicity.

The figures have very little detail to them — perfectly ready to be transformed by the child.

 

I could usually afford to just buy one figure at a time, but after a few birthdays and Christmases we had quite a little collection.

My children played with them all the time and they definitely earned their keep.

There are quite a few places online where figures like these can be found. One is called The Wooden Wagon. They have quite a collection to choose from.

Nova Natural Toys also carries a nice selection of beautiful wooden figures.

Though these figures are lovely, it must be said, your child does not need these expensive toys to have a complete Waldorf playroom. Ideally toys are as simple as possible, made from materials that are as close to the natural world as possible. It’s a wonderful thing to watch when children freely and imaginatively create the toys that they need out of the materials they find around them.

Filed Under: Age 0-2 1/3, Age 2-5, Age 5-7, Toys

Favorite links?

August 21, 2011 By 3 Comments

I’m looking to populate my sidebar with links to other great Waldorf resources. If you’ve got one that you love leave it in the comments below!

Filed Under: Age 0-2 1/3, Age 2-5, Age 5-7, Age 7+, Books, Complete Curricula, Crafting, Early Childhood, Email Groups, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5, Grade 6, Grade 7, Grade 8, Health, Inspiration, Internet Resources, Online Articles and Lectures, Parenting, Readers, Remedial Work, Steiner, Supplies, Toys

Waldorf Games

January 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The best past-time for a young child is to immersed in the world of imaginary play. Games, though, offer a great opportunity for adults to interact with children in an honest way, playing with them, without becoming part of the imaginative game. Some parents and adults enjoy engaging in the imaginative worlds of their children, but others are less comfortable and find a game to be the best way to engage. Here are a few games that can help with that.

The Snail’s Pace Race from Ravensburger is a great cooperative game. In this game the players cheer six snails as they make their way from the start to the finish line. On each player’s turn, he or she rolls the 6-colored die and then moves the snail of the corresponding color one space. Sometimes children will choose one snail and root for that one to win, but more often they change their chosen snail part way through the game, rooting for the underdog, hoping that all the snails move along together without any one taking the lead. It’s been a longtime favorite in my house and I’ll never forget the time when my teenage son and his friends all gathered around the younger kids playing and they all rooted for the snails, making up cheers and loudly expressing reactions to the rolls of the die. Fun stuff!

Harvest Time is another great game that has the players working together towards a common goal. What is lovely about this game is that it has imaginative content to support the game. It is also completely pictorial so no number or letter recognition is required. It’s a great game made by Family Pastimes which has a collection of wholesome cooperative games.

Memory games are another great way for parents to engage with their children and even the youngest children can play a memory game with minimal competitive edge. Though the traditional way of playing memory includes competition there are many ways that a parent could change the game to minimize the competitive aspect. Perhaps one player chooses the first card and the other chooses the second. Maybe you collect the matches together in one pile. There are so many ways that this simple game could be adjust for different players.

There are also lots of different versions of Memory out there. I like this one made by eeBoo. The pictures are simple, pleasing and natural. It would also be quite fun to work together to make your own memory game. Parent and child could each draw a picture of the object to match them up. Or, to bring some letter practice in for older children, one card could be the picture and the match could be the beginning letter. There are so many ways to bring life to this simple game.

Filed Under: Age 5-7, Age 7+, Toys

Playframes

January 23, 2011 By 2 Comments

I remember when my children were little and I was outfitting their Waldorf playroom what I coveted most of all were a pair of those beautiful wooden playstands.

I dreamt about the wonderfully creative, imaginative worlds my children would create underneath that cozy rainbow silk held by those lovely natural wood.

But, my husband and I were young parents. Burdened by student loan debt and a high cost of living. We made every sacrifice so that I could stay home with our children. We certainly could not afford those gorgeous stands.

I lamented this fact until we went to a Michaelmas festival at our local Waldorf school. While we were there we saw a vendor who had made something he was calling “playframes.” They looked very similar to these.

They were perfect! My husband started talking to the vendor and he was all too happy to talk about his plans and share his techniques. My husband was excited to try a new building project and felt that it was quite doable.

Before long he had made me three sets of double frames that were joined with double hinges.

I went to Goodwill and found some king size sheets and we were set. Our children built and played in forts for hours. Even today, fort-making is one of their fondest childhood memories.

I’ve since found that there are quite a few online retailers selling playframes and I believe there are even plans to be found online. They’re definitely worth the investment.

Filed Under: Age 0-2 1/3, Age 2-5, Age 5-7, Toys

Sweet Wooden Toys

January 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Though the most appropriate toy for children is as formed as little as possible (think sticks, tree stumps, branches, etc.) sometimes we want to get something a little special for our little ones. There are some lovely little wooden toys out there that make simply beautiful gifts.

Puzzles are often turned to by grandparents and well-meaning family members when Waldorf families request wooden toys. Wooden puzzles are easily found and they appeal to relatives’ desire to cultivate thinking in our children. In truth, though, puzzles are just the kind of limiting, round-peg-round-hole kind of toy that can stifle the imagination.

Why am I recommending a puzzle, then? I just love this puzzle. First of all, the pieces make sense. You’re not looking at a cat broken up into different pieces (Ewww.). The cats in the tree puzzle is about as holistic as a puzzle can get. Second, the pieces can be played with separately. They can be transformed into imaginative toys. Perfect! A Child’s Dream Come True carries several different versions of this type of puzzle.

Ostheimer figures are just my favorite. They are simply beautiful and truly encourage imaginative play. They’re not cheap, but if you build up a collection over time (a new figure for every birthday and Christmas) you’ll have quite a collection before you know it. Definitely worth the investment.

Tree blocks are an absolute essential. You can easily make them yourself and put your little ones to work sanding and rubbing with beeswax, but if you feel like you don’t have the know how, this is a beautiful set that is well-worth it’s $29 cost.

Filed Under: Age 0-2 1/3, Age 2-5, Age 5-7, Toys

Writing

November 14, 2010 By 1 Comment

When a child reaches about fourth grade (give or take, depending on the child’s handwriting), the time for writing with those thick Lyra colored pencils has passed. Ideally, at this point the teacher would help the child have an experience of creating a quill and writing by dipping it in a jar of ink. This very holistic approach allows the child to trace the footsteps of humanity, creating and gaining use of more and more sophisticated writing tools. The child can go from crushing bricks and stone and mixing with water to create face-paint on the playground in kindergarten to making writing implements and learning about ink in the middle grades to learning about (and perhaps creating?!) a printing press in seventh grade while learning about the Renaissance.

Far too often we write with little understanding or appreciation for the ingenuity that has given us this ability. A ball-point pen is available at the click of a button but that click is a little too easy for us to truly appreciate the ability that it gives us.

For these reasons I think it is absolutely essential for a student in the middle grades to write with a fountain pen that requires them to replace ink cartridges, or even better, refill them! When brought in the right way the students see these pens as absolute treasures (my students pumped their fists exclaiming how lucky they were and then treated their pens so tenderly they were afraid to push hard enough to put the ink cartridge in!)

My students use the Greenfield pens available from Mercurius because they are more affordable than any other pen out there, buy I actually prefer these Lamy pens that I found on Amazon.

These pens are solidly constructed, have a triangle shape on the grip and give a little window to see the status of your ink supply. They are still fairly affordable and I find them more pleasant to use than the Greenfield pens. They somehow feel a bit more grown-up than the Greenfield pens and if you can’t afford them right away they would be a great upgrade for a 7th grader.

Filed Under: Toys

Making Your Own Chalkboard Tutorial

April 14, 2010 By 5 Comments

In response to my chalk recommendation, Rachel wrote in asking about making your own chalkboard. Making your own chalkboard is so easy, there really is no reason to go buy one. Here’s a quick tutorial.

The first thing is to find the flat material that will be your board. Some people have sectioned off portions of the wall, others have painted kitchen cupboards or closet doors. Some suggest using metal because then you can use magnets, too.I bought some thin particle board from the local lumber store. I think it came in a large 6 foot by 8 foot sheet that I had them cut in quarters so I had four nice 3X4 foot boards. Using particle board is nice, also, because you can round the corners or create cool anthroposophical edges.

When I got home I covered one of them with primer.

Once that dried I used chalkboard paint and painted the board. A word about what paint to use — I like the texture that comes from using a paintbrush to paint the board. Some people prefer to use a spray on paint to create a smoother texture (I should say that I have never used the spray-on paint, so I’m guessing that the resulting texture is smoother.) I really like for the board to have some tooth to it to hold the chalk dust. If your board is too smooth the chalk doesn’t hold well. This isn’t so bad when it comes to writing, but for drawing you really want to have a toothy board. With Waldorf chalkboard drawings I always end up layering lots of different colors of chalk. On a smooth board the newly applied chalk causes the underneath layer to fall off the board.

Here’s a close-up of the texture of the board (if you can see it in this photo.)

This is the paint I just brushed onto the surface.

When the first coat was dry I painted a second coat and let that dry.

This is what you’ll have then.

Once the board is all painted it needs to be primed. After a few days (the exact instructions are on the paint can) take the board and apply a layer of chalk on the entire board, and then erase it. This will prevent the writing from scarring the board so that it is permanently marked. Once this is done, your board is ready to use.

Here is the board that I screwed into the wall at the entrance to my kitchen. Though my original intent was for phone messages, the kids take turns doing seasonal drawings. The chicken basket on the right holds the chalk, so it’s always at the ready.

You’ll notice that one drawback to having the chalkboard on the wall like this is that the wall around the board can get pretty grungy. We just clean it now and then and it doesn’t bother us too much.

Before I wrote this I did a bit of googling and found some pretty good sites on the subject. Check these out for some clever ideas.

Filed Under: Supplies, Toys

Top 5 Must-Have Waldorf Toys

December 27, 2009 By 5 Comments

Ironically, a complex industry has arisen around simple Waldorf toys. I remember when my oldest started attending a Waldorf kindergarten I saw on one of the toy shelves a basket full of 20-30 simple wooden figures. I immediately went home and searched online to find them. I found that these beautifully simple figures were made by a company called Ostheimer and they cost about $20 each! I ordered just one and felt bad that my son’s new toy didn’t have a friend. It felt like I would need to scrimp and save to ensure my children had the right kind of toys.

I’ve since liberated myself from this very fixed way of thinking and realized that there is more than one way to find toys that support the imaginations of young children. As you probably already know, a visit to one of the big box toy stores will inevitably end in disappointment. I went to one recently and was stunned to find that almost everything on the shelves was related to a movie or television show. So, it will take a bit of hunting, but here are my top five Waldorf toy recommendations.

  1. A doll. — Boy or girl, all children should have a doll. And by doll I mean a baby-sized one with arms and legs and clothes that can come off and on. Check out one of the links in my sidebar for beautiful dolls made by real people who give them life. Also, read my post about Waldorf dolls to see why they are so important. As it turns out, Waldorf dolls are not so hard to find. I just did a quick search on Amazon and found this sweet little doll for just $40!
  2. Playcloths. — I’ll confess that when I first started my Waldorf journey I was convinced that the only things that were good enough were beautiful silk cloths like these. It didn’t take long, though, before I was at Goodwill buying up sheets of various sizes, cutting them down when necessary. Though they weren’t as beautiful, they were much more servicable. I also realized that the silks were just too beautiful for playing and if I let my children play freely, the silks just saw too much abuse. So, we saved the silks for story time and creating puppet plays, leaving the sheets and other cotton cloths for playtime. I have seen playcloths used for so many different things — capes, walls of houses, dolls, hammocks, swings, rivers, ropes, blankets . . . the possibilities are endless.
  3. Playframes — This is another area where my financial reality collided with  the Waldorf ideal. For a long time I coveted a set of Waldorf playstands. But, they were so expensive, and my children were young so we were in the “mom stays home with the kids so we’re poor” phase of our lives. I finally saved up enough money to buy just one, quickly realizing that one playstand on its own is pretty useless. It stood in the corner, taking up too much room, holding two or three baskets of toys, but mostly gathering dust. Now, maybe some of my readers’ children have found a purpose for one playstand, but my children did not and I always wished I’d had a second.  Until I discovered the playframe, that is. A playframe is made of two large frames (imagine just the wooden part of a picture frame, but larger and with thicker wood) screwed together with hinges. Children open them up and stand them up and throw cloths over them. We found them superior to playstands when it comes to building structures and the best part for my small living room — when they’re not being used they fold up and lie flat against a wall. All my google searching for an image has proven fruitless — I’ll have to dig ours out of the garage and post a pic so you can visualize them — and it appears that no one out there is making them to sell. Hmmm, any enterprising woodworkers out there? My husband made ours and he put double hinges on them so they could bend either way.
  4. Blocks, sticks, branches, pinecones, acorns, nuts and treeblocks. — Most of these things you can find while out on a nature walk. It is a good idea to purchase a set of wooden blocks (Waldorf purists would tell you to avoid regular rectangular blocks, but I think they’re great and a pretty minor compromise.) I also purchased a set of treeblocks like these, that I just loved and they got a lot of use around our house. Someone handy could probably make them pretty easily, but we bought ours. These blocks are great for building little houses and even the rectangular blocks can become any number of things. I’ve seen them become an iron, a notepad for taking orders in a restaurant, ice skates, and skyscrapers. Pinecones, nuts and acorns are great for when they need little things in their play — food at the table, money, buttons.
  5. Small human figures. — This is where those Ostheimer figures that I so coveted were great. Children don’t always play on a large scale and sometimes need the level of detachment that  recreating their world with small figures allows. If you can afford to buy a collection of figures like these, great, but if not there are other solutions. The best thing is to learn to make the simple standing puppets that Waldorf teachers often use in their puppet plays. I found a book that gives instructions at Amazon titled Making Magical Fairy Tale Puppets and I made them myself using the instructions found in The Nature Corner by M v Leeuwen and J Moeskops. This is a great book that I found so inspiring! It definitely earned its $16 worth with me. Again, it doesn’t appear that there is anyone out there making these great little dolls — any enterprising sewers out there?

So, these are the basics as I see them. Beyond these five things I would add a dollhouse, a play kitchen and a collection of crates and boxes — but a lot of fun can still be had without these big ticket items. And contrary to what the industry might have you think, it doesn’t take much money to get started creating a magical Waldorf playroom.

What toys do you find get the most action in your playroom? Post in the comments!

Filed Under: Age 0-2 1/3, Age 2-5, Age 5-7, Toys Tagged With: , ,

the ultimate Waldorf toy — the doll

December 25, 2009 By 4 Comments

From the time a newborn baby’s vision becomes clear enough to distinguish them, human faces are the baby’s most frequently studied form. The blissful gazes that the newborn bestows from the crook of her mother’s arm (when that distance is the exact measurement of the baby’s limited focal length) let every parent know that what the baby needs most of all is interaction with the human form. Studies show that when given the option of two different photographs, the baby turns his or her head towards the photograph of a human face two to three times more than any other image. Even my two-year-old nephew, whose most adored objects are toy cars, prefers the cars from a well-known Disney movie, because they have eyes, mouths and expressions like humans.

From the moment she arrives on the earth, the baby makes it her business to learn what it means to be human. This natural fascination with the human face is how even the youngest baby can begin to learn about the world. It is no wonder, then, that the most natural first toy for a baby would be something based on the human form — the doll.

It is through play that children not only learn about the physical world, but they also develop and shape themselves. Experiences that they’ve had are worked through and transformed in their play so that they become integrated into the constitution of the child. In this way, we can see play as supremely important as it literally creates the child.

This process is never more tangible to me than when I am watching a child play with a doll. The doll can be a very transparent way for parents and teachers to observe the development and becoming of the child. I’ll never forget one day when I was teaching preschool and the children were completely engrossed in the world they had created with the dolls. The more interested they were, the richer the ir world became, and the more dolls they suddenly realized they needed. I watched with astonishment as the children bustled around the room gathering all of the blankets and cloths they could find, creating dolls by bundling up a cloth to create a head and then putting an open cloth over the top to create the body — instantly giving life to the simple materials. As I watched them literally create the physical bodies of these dolls I thought of the work that they must do to create their own physical bodies everyday. The makeshift quality of the “dolls” didn’t bother them in the least, and the physical and imaginative work that was required was of tremendous benefit.

Typical Waldorf dolls have this simple, undistinguished quality, to allow the children to create and form the details with their imaginations. Though this simplicity is important for preserving the imagination, the creative work required of the child allows her to work upon her own development. There are many companies that sell Waldorf dolls or kits for making them. Here are a few of the sites I am familiar with.

Holli’s Dollies — I’ll begin with this one because not only is Holli a friend of mine, but she also creates the most beautiful Waldorf dolls I have ever seen. Though she keeps the details on the dolls themselves simple, she creates beautifully simple clothing with an eye for detail. Truly beautiful.

Joy’s Waldorf Dolls — Though I recall that Joy retired a few months ago, her website is still up and promises that soon her dolls and the supplies for making them will be sold by other well-known companies. Joy has been a Waldorf doll institution for years, providing dolls themselves and doll-making supplies (including the ones I used to make my first Waldorf doll 12 years ago).

Kathe Kruse Waldorf Dolls – Kathe Kruse dolls (sold here on the Waldorf Treasures website) are beautifully simple. Their faces seem a bit more formed than some other Waldorf dolls I’ve seen but they are solidly made and readily found.

Magic Cabin Dolls — Though the catalogs that have been arriving at my house from Magic Cabin these days have been displaying toys that are much more formed and developed than I remember seeing in the catalog when my children were little, I was pleased to find that they do still carry those very simple toys. They carry several different styles of dolls and kits with everything you  need to make them yourself. I made a starbaby doll from one of their patterns years ago and found it very easy to read and follow.

There are so many beautiful dolls out there, that it is easy to be swept away by the magic, forgetting that the intention of the doll is for the child to do the forming himself. It is best to start out as simple as possible. Some teachers suggest that the child receive a small bunting doll at age 2 1/2 or 3 and not receive a complete doll with arms and legs until 6 or 7. This approach would follow the development of the child whose physical awareness enters into his or her limbs and extremities last of all. I have seen dolls of all types loved and played with by children of various ages. The important thing is that the doll be free enough to be a vehicle for the child’s imaginative, creative work.

Filed Under: Age 0-2 1/3, Age 2-5, Age 5-7, Age 7+, Toys Tagged With: , , , ,

Toys

December 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Naturally beautiful, Waldorf toys are designed to inspire the imagination in an open-ended, creative way. The best toys are inexpensive, simple and made of natural materials. In her book Work and Play in Early Childhood, Freya Jaffke depicts the child simply playing with whatever is around. Ironic, then, that such an industry has arisen around Waldorf toys. There are, though, toys that are worth spending money on. Here you’ll find reviews of the Waldorf toys that are worth spending money on as well as ideas for making toys of your own.

Filed Under: Age 0-2 1/3, Age 2-5, Age 5-7, Age 7+, Toys
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