Welcome to the January 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting:
Experiments in Natural Family Living
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have reported on weeklong trials to make their lives a little greener and gentler.
Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
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| Dress Up with Hat and Mom's Headbands |
I am excited to join in the
Carnival of Natural Parenting for 2012 year. One of my goals is to participate every month. This month challenge was pretty fun for us and liberating for me. Our goal was to only use natural toys for at least a week maybe longer. My criteria was the following;
battery = put away, plastic = put away, if it manipulated the child = put away, and if it did not inspire open-ended or imaginative play = put away. We also tried to do no television. We don't watch much as it is, but I wanted to eliminate that as well. My son is 19 months so it was not to hard. I was surprised at how many toys we had that really are useless when it comes learning and developing. Being the fourth boy in our family as far as cousins go he has received a lot of hand-me-down toys.
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| Elephant |
A couple of exceptions to the rules above were; plastic animals figures, Legos, and puzzles. These are the reasons I chose to keep them out. The animals; he loves them, he plays with them constantly. ~B~ does things like make them kiss (if you ever see an elephant and a lion kiss it’s very cute), puts them boxes and carts, lines them all up, and takes them for rides on his train. I feel that they do inspire imagination, open end play, and of course love for animals. The Legos; stimulate creativity and lateral thinking, they help build dexterity and aid in developing simple math and pattern skills. The way they interlock helps children learn problem solving skills as well. The puzzles; I was on the fence about this one. They don't inspire open ended or imaginative play. They stayed because they help develop problem solving skills, build dexterity, they help teach concepts like colors, shapes, and language skills when done with an adult.
