My guest today is Sarah Baldwin, owner of Bella Luna Toys, a leading website offering families natural, wooden, and eco-friendly toys inspired by Waldorf education. We’ll be talking about how natural toys are a safe alternative to the usual toxic toys, and how Waldorf education offers children a different way to play. Sarah is a former actress and teacher and is the author of Nurturing Children and Families, a guide for Waldorf-inspired play group leaders. She has taught music-and-movement classes for parents and toddlers; started a support and activity group for stay-at-home-mothers; and worked in preschool classrooms in Los Angeles before earning a master’s degree in Waldorf early childhood education in 1999. Sarah taught early childhood classes at the Ashwood Waldorf School in Rockport, ME for ten years, and currently serves as a board member of LifeWays North America, an organization devoted to developing healthy childcare and training programs for caregivers, parents and educators. www.debralynndadd.com/debras-list/bella-luna-toys

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
“A Different Way to Play—Natural Toys Inspired by Waldorf Education”

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
GUEST: Sarah Baldwin

DATE OF BROADCAST: December 10, 2013

DEBRA: Hi, this is Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Talk Free Radio, where we talk about how to survive in a toxic world because there are many toxic chemicals around; there’re all over the place. They are in consumer products, in the foods that we eat, in the water we drink, in our bodies, in our homes and today we’re going to be talking about them in our toys and what we can do instead and especially, we are going to talk about not just finding non toxic toys but we are going to be talking about a different way to play altogether. It’s Tuesday, December 10, 2013; the sun is shining here in Cool Water, Florida and my guest today is Sarah Baldwin. She is the owner of Bella Luna Toys.

Hi Sarah!

SARAH BALDWIN: Hi Debra, thanks for having me

DEBRA: Thank you for being here. Well, the title I put on the show today is, “A Different Way to Play – Natural Toys Inspired by Waldorf Education” and at Bella Luna Toys you sell natural, wooden and eco-friendly toys inspired by Waldorf Education. So, first, why don’t you tell us what is Waldorf Education? I know what it is but I know a lot of people don’t

SARAH BALDWIN: Well, Waldorf Education is an educational movement that actually started in the 1920s in Germany; has been in the US (United States) for many years but recently, I’d say, in the last ten (10) to twenty (20) years has exploded in popularity around the world. There are now over a hundred (100) Waldorf schools in the US and hundreds worldwide. It’s growing in China and really exploding around the world and Waldorf is always putting emphasis on natural childhood, natural play, the importance of play, the importance of imagination for young children and I think the reason it’s really exploding in popularity is because more and more research on studies on the brain and studies on child development are showing how important imaginative play is in early childhood and we believe this is the key to creative thinking later in life, when children are allowed to play freely out of their own imaginations in their early years. Imagine the future and the future creators, not just consumers; that imagination is so important and healthy toys are so important.

DEBRA: Part of that imagination is playing with that imagination. So, before we get into talking more about that, tell me your story. How did you become interested and why is this important to you?

SARAH BALDWIN: Well, I discovered Waldorf Education soon after my first child was born and that was over twenty (20) years ago. Prior to that I had been an actress but always interested in education and always thought about teaching and after I became a mother my priorities in life really began to change and I became more and more interested in children and education and I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to teach and I wasn’t too inspired by any of the programmes I was looking at for teacher education and while my son was still a baby I learned about Waldorf Education and visited a Waldorf school. I stepped into a kindergarten and I just had this moment; hard to describe, where I just saw this beautiful environment, wooden toys and silk curtains and it just seemed so calm and nurturing. The children had been baking bread and I smelled that bread and outside there was a garden and the children seemed so healthy and imaginative in their play and there were little slippers all lined up in the room and I had this moment where I felt so excited. I thought this is the right environment for children and then a moment later I thought, oh, but wait, I was visiting.

At that point, thinking about my son, I thought, I want to come here every day too and at that kindergarten interview I asked the teacher about teacher training options and found out (I was living in Los Angeles at the time) there was a part time training right in Los Angeles that I could do as a young mother and so before my kids ever got to a Waldorf school, I enrolled in the teacher training and really changed my life and my family’s life in profound ways. So anyway, fast forward, I completed the training. I taught early childhood classes in a Waldorf school; later moved to Maine, where I live now; taught at the Ashwood Waldorf School in Rockport, Maine for about ten (10) years. I taught everything from parent/child classes to children as young as two (2) and later nursery and kindergarten classes, four, five and six year olds and then about five (5) years ago after teaching for a quite a number of years I was feeling ready to make another change, but I wasn’t sure what I would do next.

My children were older, were teenagers by this time and our school enrolment had dropped and they needed to drop one teacher and I was ready for a change; so I kind of volunteered to step back and almost as soon as I made that decision I found out that Bella Luna Toys which was a website selling Waldorf toys or the kinds of toys we use in Waldorf Education, was for sale and even though I had no experience at the time in business or in retail, it really appealed to me because I really know these toys and I love these toys and I was really excited about introducing them to a whole new generation of young parents and to not only have a website to sell stuff but to use it to share my knowledge, my love of these toys, to promote the importance of play and imagination for young children and to support parents. So, I took a plunge and I bought the website and we are in the midst of our fifth holiday season. It’s grown considerably and I now have a blog and a video series where I share my passion not only for the toys but for Waldorf Education.

DEBRA: We just have a couple of minutes before we need to go to the break, but I want to ask you a question and not start talking about this even though I may interrupt you. First, I want to say, I understand that moment when your walked into the room at the Waldorf School, because I have had some more experiences, not only walking in the room but also even just seeing a flyer or a picture that was painted by a Waldrof child and seeing the beauty in it and the naturalness and that it has a whole different feel which is something that I identified with right away, so I totally, totally, understand. When I was a child I don’t think we even had Waldrof schools here or at least my parents didn’t know anything about it or they probably would have sent me to Waldrof School. It’s just something that I think is a very wonderful thing and I am very happy that people like you are doing it. Could you just start to describe, before I interrupt you; what’s the difference between Waldrof play and children playing with ordinary regular toys that you would buy in a toy store?

SARAH BALDWIN: For one thing Waldorf toys are almost always made out of natural materials; wood, cotton, wool, silk, so not only are these healthy and safe materials for children, but they also nourish a child’s senses and Rudolf Steiner who is the founder of Waldorf Education talked about the importance of a young child, a baby learning all about the world through his or her senses and so to nurture those senses with things that feel good.

DEBRA: And feel natural to your body and connect you with the natural world

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: So, Sarah, before the break we were talking about what’s different about Waldorf Education and you were telling us about how the natural materials in addition to being safe and non toxic for children also nourished their senses

SARAH BALDWIN: Yes, and another thing that differentiates Waldorf toys from more mainstream toys is, we look for toys that are unformed, not too formed so that for instance, a great toy is natural blocks made out of tree branches that have just been sawed so they’re organic forms. They’re not fixed and hard, they’re not rigid shapes so it really allows a child’s imagination to go all kinds of places; little discs of sawed wood could be plates or they could be money or they could just be any number of things. Great toys that were in my classroom were things just found in nature, a basket of pine cones, a basket of shawls, a basket of smooth river stones and the kinds of toys that we would introduce could be handmade dolls from natural fibers, cotton skin, silk stuffed with wool, yarn for hair, mohair and these dolls have intentionally very simple faces. This is a hallmark of a Waldorf doll. Sometimes there is no face at all but most dolls will have just two dots for eyes and a little dot for a mouth and this way a child can really use her imagination to imagine, this doll is happy or sad or crying or sleeping, unlike a hard rigid moulded plastic doll with a fixed smile on its face that’s always wide awake and happy. So we’re looking for unformed toys that are open ended; can be used in any number of ways not just play with one way, can become any number of things to really enliven a child’s imagination

DEBRA: I just think that’s so beautiful, I just love everything that you’re saying. I love everything that this is all about because as you said earlier, it encourages the child to use their imagination which then becomes an excellent tool later in life to be able to imagine what they want to create in the world and then go create it because they are already accustomed to doing that. It’s just so great.

SARAH BALDWIN: Exactly

DEBRA: In contrast, can you give us some information about regular toys; what kind of toxic chemicals might be used in those toys that are not used in your Waldorf toys?

SARAH BALDWIN: Hmm, I think everyone is aware of the high number of toys that have been found to have lead in them; a lot of toys mass produced in China even when lead is illegal. They’ve tested toys and still found unacceptably high levels of lead and BPA (Bisphenol A) which has been found in baby bottles and other children’s toys; they are known to be hormone disruptors; again even in spite of more stringent safety laws for toys in the US . Recently they just did random testing and I believe they found toys imported from China that had four (400) times the legal limit of BPA; so at Bella Luna Toys we carry nothing plastic, so that can reassure parents. We do have some toys with stains and paints but I am very careful to source our toys and make sure that the companies whose toys we sell take these safety standards very highly. They are all third party tested and use eco-friendly paints and on our website every toy we sell we list the country of origin and the materials used in its manufacture and that’s something that parents should be aware of, whatever kind of toys they shop for, wherever they shop because there are just too many toys being produced with harmful chemicals that very young children should not be exposed to.

DEBRA: And often those toys don’t tell you anything about what the materials are. I’m looking at your website right now; I’m looking at the page of coloured wooden Waldorf building blocks and it says, let’s see; these blocks offer colours, textures and organic shapes that will enliven children’s imagination, dah.. dah.. dah… Handcrafted in Europe of sustainable alder wood, the blocks are dyed using non toxic water based stains and food grade vegetable oil; no paint or lacquer and it says that they are made in the European Union. So, that gives the shoppers, the parents, an idea of what’s there and I really appreciate your describing them so well because we need to be able to have the information about what all these products, toys or whatever, are made from in order to make these decisions.
SARAH BALDWIN: Yes, yes, absolutely and true also if a child has allergies and sometimes some of our non toxic stains might have almond oil it so if your child has an allergy to it, it’s especially important even though that might be non toxic for most of us. Children with sensitivities or allergies, parents need to be really vigilant about what toys have been finished with and for that reason we also sell quite a large number of unfinished wooden toys; just unfinished raw wood.

DEBRA: I like the unfinished ones because they are even a little more abstract

SARAH BALDWIN: Yes, yes indeed

DEBRA: I remember some years ago when I first started discovering these toys, my husband and I bought different toys just because we wanted to have the shapes of different things. At that time he was trading futures for pork bellies and I bought him a little pig (laughter) He just loved it because he loves anything that’s wood, even though he’s not a child he still appreciates the smell and the touch and the feel of wood.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: I was looking at your website; I’ve looked at it before but during the break I was looking at it again and there’s so many different and interesting things, that I’d just like us to go through and talk about how some of these different toys, how children play with them and how they give children a different look at the world and the page I’m on right now is about children’s books and I’m noticing that they revolve around the seasons; like I’m looking at the page for Spring right now and the book talks about children engaged in springtime activities, like playing with new born lambs, planting a garden, decorating Easter eggs, watching baby birds and things like that and that’s so different than many of the children’s books that are sold otherwise

SARAH BALDWIN: Yes, yeah, the series you’re looking at is a set of four (4) board books for toddlers and as I was talking before about the simplicity of the toys there is simplicity in these books too. They have no words and just as Waldorf dolls have no face a child and parent can look together at these pictures of children doing seasonal things, as you said like dyeing Easter eggs in Spring or walking through a mud puddle or jumping in leaves in the Autumn book and so this will help children with their own language. As a toddler is developing his or her vocabulary they can make up the words, they can make up their own stories as they go through these books.

DEBRA: And the stories could be different every time they are told whether the parent is telling the story or the child is making up the story

SARAH BALDWIN: Exactly

DEBRA: Again it’s use of imagination and that they can see different things in the picture. It’s just another way I see of connecting the child and the parents too, to the natural world as the basis of life, rather than having the industrial world be the basis of life as is in our industrial consumer society. This takes you into that bigger world, whether it’s a toy or book. That’s the whole basis of this

SARAH BALDWIN: Exactly, exactly. Story telling is such a big part of Waldorf Education throughout all the grades, starting in early childhood in the nursery and kindergarten and going through eighth grade and even through high school; some Waldorf schools go up to twelfth grade; and in the early years we tell stories by heart, we don’t use a lot of picture books. In kindergarten we tell a lot of fairy tales and the teacher tells them by heart and repeats them over and over again. Sometimes we tell the same story every day for a week until it really becomes a part of the child and those children then start telling the stories themselves and you hear it in their play. It’s a very different thing, telling a story by heart than reading it from a book and for parents to make up stories with their children is the best gift of all. A lot of parents think, oh, I can’t do that, I can’t think of anything; well it’s so easy really once you start. Children love to hear stories about when I was a little girl or when daddy was a little boy and I did this, or, a great thing to do at bedtime is to review the day with a child and you could make a story up about a little squirrel or a mouse who did all the same things your child did that day

DEBRA: Speaking of stories, I just want to also mention that there is a page where there was a birthday, what’s it called? the birthday ring with little animals and things on it

SARAH BALDWIN: Yeah

DEBRA: Here it is, Waldorf birthday; it’s along the Menu on the left, click on Waldorf birthday, listeners when you go to the site and you will see it and at the bottom there is a lovely… oh, if you click on Waldorf birthday ring set it explains how to use this product and what it’s made from and everything and at the bottom part of the instructions was to tell the child’s birthday story. You want to talk about the child’s birthday story? I think this is great

SARAH BALDWIN: Yeah, well the birthday ring comes out of a European tradition. It’s a round wooden ring candleholder and so you can put one candle in there for each year, whatever, so, for a three (3) year old, you put in three candles, for a four (4) year old, four candles and in the other holes we have little decorations that can take up the spaces; little wooden painted decorations; a flower, a snail, a tree; very festive, very pretty and so when we celebrated birthdays in my classroom and most Waldorf teachers will do this; birthdays are big a celebration for each child in our classes and you tell the story. Well, when Mary was born it was a cold wintry day and her grandmother and grandfather were there waiting for her, waiting for the new baby to be born and whatever the circumstances of the birth are and then during that first year she learned to do many, many things. She learnt to walk and to talk and to crawl and before she was one (1) year old she said her first word which was, “Da”, “Da” and then it was a frolick trip around the sun and then Mary had her first birthday and then she was one year old and then you light the first candle; and then when Mary was one year old she learnt to do many more things. She learned to walk and then to run and that was the year when her aunt and uncle came to visit from Michigan and they all went to the mountains etcetera; and then she was two (2) years old and you light the second candle; and when she was two, whatever milestone happened that year

DEBRA: I think this is just so.., it’s such a wonderful tradition and I had never even heard of this before until I was looking at your website and it’s meaningful to me because just recently I have started..; I made a page for every year of my life and I started trying to remember what happened in each year of my life. I was going back and I was looking at journals and my check register and things like that because I was forgetting; when did I take that trip to Europe and what year did I get married and little things like those and it’s like I wanted to, in retrospect, have the whole of the milestones of my life so that I could just go back and look at it and I didn’t have it and how wonderful to begin that for a child right at birth

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: Before we get off the subject of storytelling I want to say that in addition to the story- telling books there are also storytelling cards so a child could choose a card and tell a story or choose a card and give to a parent or an adult or another child and ask them to tell a story. I just .., you know, Sarah, I want to be a child; I want to play with all these toys; I want to play with these things and spark my imagination (…laughter). Wow! wow, wow, wow. Ok, I also want to mention that some of the other toy categories are; art supplies so that children learn drawing and writing and painting and modeling and crafts to help them learn skills like knitting and sewing and some of the other toys have to do with playing things like cooking and so there’s a lot of skills that children learn while they are playing

SARAH BALDWIN: Yeah, yeah, exactly and I’m glad you mentioned the arts and crafts supplies and kits that we have. Another thing that is unique about Waldrof Education is the emphasis on handwork and all children starting in the early years learn to work with their fingers. Kindergarteners will learn what we call finger knitting, kind of like making a crochet chain by hand with their fingers and what we know now, what all the recent research bears out, is how directly connected the finger tips are with the brain and so by developing fine motor skills children are actually developing their brains and increasing their capacity for learning and when children get to first grade all children in the Waldrof School, boys and girls, will learn to knit with knitting needles. They later learn crochet and embroidery; by sixth grade they are sewing and learning to use the sewing machine but these just aren’t artistic activities, these are learning activities and as I said, really help in their brain development as well as producing beautiful things with their hands; things they can give as gifts or use themselves. It’s a wonderful thing and so I also offer…

DEBRA: And it’s a useful skill in life, that people should know how to do things, like sew a button on their shirt, at least and..

SARAH BALDWIN: Exactly, yes

DEBRA: Children should be learning how to cook and how to plant a garden, and all these things and so it’s giving children basic life skills while they are playing, instead of sitting them down with a book and saying, now read this. It’s that actual hands on activity and a lot of these toys are the things like a stove or a cash register or something like that that is an object that is a toy for a real life skill

SARAH BALDWIN: Yes, yes, yes

DEBRA: And they can play going to the store and learn how to count money and things like that and that’s just one of the things I love

SARAH BALDWIN: Exactly, you bring up a good point. Children love.., especially young children, their play is all imitation. They love to imitate the world that they see around them and young children love to imitate the work of adults so as teachers we are very conscious of what we say, being worthy of imitation. What are the actions, what are the children seeing us do and how are we doing them; are we harried and stressed as we do our daily work or can we remain calm and relaxed as we are preparing meals or cleaning or doing whatever the mundane tasks? Are we doing them consciously and with intention, knowing that those children around us will be imitating not just our actions but our mood as well?

DEBRA: Yes, yes. So, tell us about play silks? What do children do with play silks? Well, first, tell us what they are. I’ve seen them; I know what they are but tell us what they are?

SARAH BALDWIN: They’re just large squares of dyed silk in different colours, about one yard by one yard square and these are played with in so many ways; most Waldorf kindergarten classes will have a big basket of coloured silk. What do the children do with them? They use them as dress ups, they will tie them on as a cape or a skirt or a veil or they become wings or you might tie it around your waist as a belt for a pirate sword and they also use them as landscapes in their play. They’ll take a green silk and it will become green grass for little wooden horses and a blue silk will become a pond or a lake and a brown silk draped over some blocks becomes a mountain and again we talked earlier about materials that are nourishing to the senses and the silk just feels so lovely to the skin and really fulfils that need of toys that are nourishing to the senses

DEBRA: Yes, yes, silk does feel so different than polyester. What else do you have? The seasonal toys; tell us about some of the seasonal toys

SARAH BALDWIN: Well, we also try to.., I always try to have a collection of things for the season because again, in Waldorf Education the seasons are very important and we talk a lot about rhythm. Having a rhythm of the day, a rhythm of the week and a rhythm of the year and the rhythm of the year is the season. A lot of it is how children in the early years are learning about the world and nature which is kind of their science study but celebrating festivals throughout the year too, really is healthy for children and I mean if you just think back to your own childhood and our holidays through the year gives you a reference for the frame of the year but also we can bring reverence and meaning to the seasons and to whatever holidays and whatever culture we’re from. Children love ritual and celebration and so at this time of year we have some German wooden advent figures, a spiral where you can light candles whether you celebrate Solstice or Advent or Christmas or Hanukkah. They’re all celebrations about light; bringing into this darkest time of the year with the short days and the long nights and lighting candles, so all these different festivals from different traditions, a lot of them have to do with light this year. So we have this lovely wooden spiral that holds twenty four (24) candles that you can either count off leading up to Christmas or whatever festival you celebrate and at Easter we’ll have lots of springtime grass planting kits and natural egg dyeing kits and gardening things in the summer and so on

DEBRA: Oh wonderful; so, I want to make sure my listeners know that in addition to all these unusual things that there also are the usual things, like wooden blocks and push/pull toys and puzzles and stuffed toys and so you’ll see some familiar things as well as some new and different things.

Well, Sarah, our hour is almost up; it always goes by so fast and what a magical hour it has been. I so appreciate you being here as a guest. Is there anything else that you would like to say before we end?

SARAH BALDWIN: Oh, I just want to thank you so much Debra. Thank you for your interest. I’m glad you discovered Bella Luna Toys and I really appreciate your enthusiasm and interest and everything you are doing to promote green and healthy living

DEBRA: Thank you, thank you. So, I wanna say that this is just one example of how what we’re doing here is just not to be not toxic but to show that there are whole other worlds that are on the other side of being toxic; that it’s not just about having things be exactly the same but in a non toxic version but there are other ideas and other ways of being that I think are wonderful that I’ve incorporated into my life over the years and being closer to nature is one of those; but we also need to remember that if we are using toxic products in our home, they’re getting into nature and destroying nature so it’s not just about being aware of nature, it’s about looking at how our actions affect the natural world and continuing to have it there for all of life as well as ourselves.