Grow-With-Me Toys: Choosing Sustainable Toys with Aimee Ray

Greetings!
I’m Laurie’s daughter, and a new co-blogger for her Parenting by Faith blog. I am an early childhood educator turned mama, with a passion for building a strong foundation for little hearts and minds. It is such a joy to see children learn about the world around them starting in infancy and I hope to foster that joy in others by supporting intentional play.

As any parent knows, the choices are almost endless when it comes to finding toys for your child. From the day your little one reaches for her first rattle, all the way up to engaged hours of independent play, it can feel overwhelming to choose toys that will captivate little hands and minds for more than a few months.

There are a few criteria I look for when deciding whether or not to purchase a toy for my child (the same criteria I used when purchasing materials for my classrooms of infants and preschoolers before starting my own family).

* Quality materials: is the toy durable, made to last through multiple children and perhaps even multiple generations? Not only does this cut down on the waste of broken toys being tossed after one tot, but it generally results in toys that are much more pleasant to look at, touch, and play with.

* Multiple uses: can it be played with in more than one way? Can it be used in open-ended play, leading to discoveries in language, motor skills, and mathematical or scientific concepts (shapes, colors, movement, sound, and much more)?

* Aesthetic appeal: Now this may seem unimportant, but toys that you think are beautiful, well-made, and engaging will be toys you want to have out and available to your children. They will teach your child to appreciate their environment and value beauty around them. One aspect of Montessori philosophy I hold dear is the importance of instilling a sense of belonging in your child’s environment with carefully chosen materials, which promotes creativity, learning, and a desire to care for and maintain that environment.

That being said, a few intentionally chosen toys will save you money in the long run, cut down on waste, and promote a play environment which spurs intrigue (rather than spurring the need to purge toys every three months!). Tune in for my next post with a review of a toy that is providing my 9-month-old with endless entertainment. In the meantime, look at your child’s existing toy collection. Do any of your toys meet the three criteria above? Tell me about them in a comment below!

Aimee

 

 

Mom Plays the Fool; Baby Giggles

Quite a few parents have asked me, “What qualifies as play?” as if there were one answer.  One dictionary defines the word playful as:

“high spirits, gaiety, and humor in action or speech.”

Hmmm. Fun is a key element!

Do you have fun with your children? Do they have fun with you? And how do you do that?

Let’s look at one bunch of intriguing synonyms for play:

“. . . cut up, be the life of the party, play the fool, carry on.”

Playing the fool may be tough for you if you struggle with spontaneity. Yet it can be learned, and I believe it is worth learning. You don’t have to truly be a fool, but you can be willing to look a little silly on occasion in order to connect with others in a fun way. Silliness comes easier if you start with babies. Merely sticking a shoe on your head makes a baby laugh, because he’s learned just enough about the way the world works to know that sneakers make ridiculous hats.

One evening when my son Tyler was six months old, he was trying desperately hard to crawl, but just couldn’t get it. Instead, he flopped about like a fish out of water…