Hi, friends! Welcome to another Sunday with Sarah. I'm Sarah Baldwin, Waldorf
early childhood teacher, and I'm here to talk to you today about wooden versus
plastic toys. Now, if you've ever visited a Waldorf early childhood classroom you
may have noticed that all the toys are made of wood and natural materials.
You'll see very little, if any, plastic. I'm here to tell you today some of the
reasons why that is and to share with you some of the differences between
wooden and plastic toys. The first quality I want to talk about is safety.
As waldorf teachers we're very concerned with the child's safety. We want to bring
healthy, natural materials into our classroom. A lot of plastic toys contain
harmful chemicals and substances like BPA and phthalates. Some of them may have
lead paint. Especially when children are putting things in their mouths you want
to keep these chemicals away from young children. Wood is also naturally
antibacterial, as studies have shown. Another safety issue is that plastic
toys can break easily and leave sharp, jagged edges like this unfortunate
Barbie doll that I found in the bottom of a child's toy box—really sharp edges.
It's not to say wood—wood does break too but not as often and less likely in a
way that would be harmful to a child. The second quality I want to talk about is
the sensory experience of wood versus plastic. A wooden toy is very soothing
and appealing to the child's sense of touch. It's warm, it feels good where
plastic feels kind of cold and almost oily. It doesn't smell the same. A young
child is going to experience toys, discovering the world, with all of her
senses and that's by putting it in her mouth or smelling it and touching it so
we want to give children an experience that will really gratify
their sense of touch. Number three is the quality of
imaginative play that I find wooden toys encourage. Wooden toys tend to be simpler,
less formed. They leave more room for a child's imagination and if you've been
following me for any time at all you know how strongly I feel about the
importance of imaginative play in early childhood. If a toy doesn't have
batteries, if it doesn't have any bells or whistles and makes no sound, that lets
the child make the sounds and imagine what the toy is doing and makes the toy
move himself. Number four is that wooden toys tend to be more aesthetically
pleasing than plastic toys. Plato was attributed to have said "The most
effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things."
It's one of my favorite quotes and in Waldorf education we want to give
children things that not only feel beautiful to the touch but look
beautiful and to surround a child with beauty. Just because they're a child
doesn't mean that they deserve junk. And wooden toys just look nicer
displayed in a child's room. If you had, say, this wooden Knight on a shelf or a
plastic Batman. They look beautiful displayed in your home, as well. My kids
are grown now but I still have lots of their wooden toys all around our house.
And number five is perhaps the most important reason of all: wooden toys are
simply more eco-friendly than plastic toys. Wood is a sustainable material, it's
recyclable, it's biodegradable. There was a study recently that showed that three
months after Christmas, 41% of toys that were given to children are broken and
end up in a landfill. Wooden toys, on the other hand, are heirloom toys, generally.
They're built to last. I always say they're not throwaway toys. When your
child outgrows one you'll save it for grandchildren or pass it on to someone
else. And children play differently with wooden toys. I've seen it, having worked
in mainstream preschools before I became a Waldorf teacher. There's a very
big difference in the quality of play. If you ever saw the movie Toy Story 3,
there's a scene where all the toys are waiting in fear. They've been donated to
a preschool and they're waiting in fear for free play time and the children come
in and just start throwing them around and I've seen children play that way and
you probably have, too. But if you observe them playing with wooden and natural
toys there's a very different quality in their play. So I hope that gives you some
insight. I always say it's not about good toy versus bad toy, it's just bringing
new consciousness to the quality of toys when you're choosing what toys to
provide your child with. So thanks so much for watching, leave your comments
and questions and I'll see you next time! Bye-bye.