Hello, and welcome to another "Sunday with Sarah." I'm Sarah Baldwin, owner of Bella
Luna Toys,
blogger at Moon Child, and welcome back!
Or welcome if you're joining us for the first time. When I launched this video series
a couple, a few months ago, losing track now, I asked for your feedback on questions,
topics you'd like me to address in future videos. I've gotten
sidetracked along the way with different crafts and different things I wanted to
share with you but I wanted to get back to some of your questions. I don't
have time today to answer all of them but we'll get to a few of them and
more of them in coming weeks.
So let's see what we have here.
Mama Songbird wrote "Would you address helping young children into creative play so
that a mother can then step aside a bit and address work around the house that
she needs to get done?
This is a challenge for me with a three-and-a-half year-old and a one year-old
because my three-and-a-half year-old always wants me to play with him. The
moment I step away from his play he gets whiny or starts tormenting his little brother.
It would be great to have some creative ideas to put to use." This has been a
common question and I'm sure many of you can relate and you are far from
alone, Mama Songbird.
It's a challenge but some ideas are to involve your child in
the work that needs to be done. If you're cleaning house,
give your child child-sized tools: a small broom, dustpan and brush, a mop.
If you're folding laundry
give him some laundry to fold with you even though he might not do the job you would.
Involve him in real work. I think sometimes we forget how capable young
children are, preschoolers are, of doing real work and they love to imitate the
work of their parents and the adults around them. I realize that may not
always work, it's one tactic to try. Another suggestion is to have some
special toys tucked away somewhere that only come out at certain times, something
that's not always out in your child's room and available but that's hidden
away on a closet shelf and may come out at times when you just need
that extra half hour or an hour to get something done.
So a special basket of toys or books that will capture your child's attention,
something that they haven't seen, that's another idea. Yet another idea is
to get some some really engaging work. In my kindergarten classroom I had a
basket of branch blocks that we had cut ourselves with a saw —
you can do this yourself, we do sell natural tree blocks at Bella Luna Toys but
you can make your own — and you have a basket there with sandpaper.
Girls and boys love to do this but a lot of boys really need a
really active job and that's a great one, just sanding blocks smooth,
pulling the bark off and sanding them smooth.
Also, my classroom had a grain grinder and I will be introducing a new
grain grinder at Bella Luna Toys, but that was a wonderful thing to have in my
classroom, filled with rye or wheat berries and when a child needed a
job to do, using this hand mill, grinding and grinding.
So those are just a few ideas.
It's always a challenge, it really requires some creativity but I
hope some of those suggestions help.
Let's see, what else.
"How do I convince family the importance of natural toys? It seems no matter the
reasons I give, ultimately the price dictates a cheaper plastic toy.
My daughter is a year old on Wednesday and she's been given a plethora of plastic."
This could be a topic for a whole other video. It's always a
challenge, isn't it, with gifts and we don't want to be ungrateful.
I've always felt like you can't really dictate a gift someone wants to give you.
Be gracious, thank the giver for it and then I put them away or give them to
Goodwill. Or you could let the child play with it for a little while.
Most kids are not wanting for a lack of playthings and when my boys were younger,
if an unwanted toy would come into the house
they might play with it for a little bit and then it would just disappear and
most of the time they would not even mention it again.
Sometimes they might bring it up and say "Oh, where's the
whatever-action figure?" And I'll just say "Hm, I wonder" and usually it
never came up again.
Another idea is when a new toy comes into the house
let's find one to give away, that we can give to Goodwill. Too many toys are
overstimulating and the fewer the better: a few choice, quality toys. But then in
terms of letting our friends and loved ones know the kinds of things we would
appreciate, its delicate, you know your family.
Some parents will be grateful for the guidance,
others might be offended but letting our family know "these are some catalogs or
websites, kinds of toys
we would welcome and we might rather have one
well-made wooden toy that will last for years than several plastic toys
coming in over the course of the year."
I'll get back to that in another episode because there's so much more that could be said.
One more question for today:
Kelly wrote "So wonderful to learn more about you, I was wondering if you could
give some information on becoming a Waldorf educator. I am a public middle
and high school teacher who feels that so much is missing from the classroom.
Thanks." I have to say when i discovered Waldorf education
it was a real turning point in my life. I was visiting a classroom, a kindergarten
classroom and thinking about sending my son, Harper, to the Waldorf school and I
walked into an environment that just really spoke to my heart on some deep level.
I just had never seen an environment like this but I just knew this was a
healthy environment, this was the right environment for children. I ended up
asking the teacher, I was presumably there for an interview for my son, but I asked
the teacher
"how do you become a Waldorf educator?" I had also been thinking about going back
to school. I'd been an actress as some of you may know before I became a
teacher and before I became a mother, and I asked her about teacher training options.
I was living in California at the time and thought maybe this was something I
would do in the future but she told me about a part-time training in the
Los Angeles area, at the Waldorf Institute of Southern California. They had a
program that met on weekends and three weeks each summer and I ended up
enrolling in teacher training before Harper ever got to kindergarten. All
I can tell you is it was a life-changing experience. The training is not just
teacher training, it's not just about learning
the educational philosophy, it's self education and self-development
Through my training we sang and we studied and we did
wood carving and we learned eurythmy and we did handwork — the richest
two years of my life and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
There are teacher training centers on the east coast and the west coast and a
few in the midwest, in Wisconsin, in Chicago. Below this video blog pos,t on my
blog, I will post a link to AWSNA's website, that's the Association of
Waldorf Schools of North America. Their website is a treasure trove of
information and lists the various teacher training centers you can get in
touch with. Some are part-time programs and some are full time and there's
training for early childhood, for grade school teaching, and also for high school
teaching. Finally, Lifeways is another training option that I cannot recommend
highly enough. If you aren't necessarily interested in teaching in a school but
if you're interested in learning more about the philosophy, if you're working
with young children, if you're a parent at home or if you
operate a home day care center or offer childcare in your home, or you're thinking
about it.
Lifeways is an incredible, life-enriching program. I'll post a link about
that too and that's another subject we'll talk about more fully in a future
"Sunday with Sarah." I want to bring a friend of mine here who's a director of
of Lifeways training to tell me more about that. I could go on forever!
I love answering your questions, I wish I had more time but I'll get back to them.
Please, as always, leave your comments here and
suggestions for future weeks. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks for all your
wonderful feedback.
See you next week.