Great holistic products for children: Natural and highly educational
In HOLISTIC LIVING everything we use, should promote our health, awareness and consciousness. This is also true for children. For example, they don’t need toys with crazy colors, forms or sounds. They really need simple things, made from natural materials, with different colors and shapes, where they learn to concentrate, to coordinate their fine motoric skills as well as logical thinking, also as part of HOLISTIC EDUCATION.
A child should express his/her creativity, for example, by creating something from his/her imagination. That is why a toy should offer endless combinations with the opportunity to modify the result, ideally an organic and sustainable item.
Great Holistic Products for Children: Solid Wooden Toys for maximum Creativity
Wooden toys are best for small and older children. Many of the products, which are available nowadays, are lovingly crafted by hand. They are easy to grip and pleasantly to the touch, making them really fun to play with, even for adults. They are mostly based on raw materials from sustainable forestry. When choosing products, make sure, that they have an eco-label, as small children put almost everything in their mouths, to explore their environment.
In general, wood is a very sustainable material, because it has a long lifespan and even remains intact, when thrown around with force. Usually several generations of children play with the same wooden toy. It can also be easily recycled as long as no nasty chemical substances and colors are used. Therefore, ecological play is usually kept simple in color.
Playing with wooden toys is usually a quiet affair. This is important because children need to have peace and quiet while playing in order to think and find solutions. Constant and unnatural noises are therefore counterproductive to creativity, as are bright colors that flood the senses with stimuli and irritate the child.
Another advantage of wooden toys is that the risk of injury is very low. They are also easy to care for because they have rounded corners and smooth surfaces. There are many different types of wooden toys, such as wooden building blocks and Lego, where a toddler can practice their skills or let their imagination run wild. By using blocks, miniatures of cars, traffic signs, animals or food, they also learn to understand shapes and colors in daily life.
Great Holistic Products for Children like wooden toys are available from Manufactum for example or from Philly and Friends.
Special Holistic Products for Children: Wooden Quarry Stones
Very special are the wooden building blocks, which have funny shapes and look like Quarry Stones by Manufactum. The idea behind is, to give the child space for experimenting, because in contrast to normal blocks, all of the bricks are are differently sized and shaped.
Instead of straight edges or towers the child has to find out, which of the blocks fit together and which combination will cause the object to topple over. The child playfully learns, to practice patience, mindfulness and fine motoric skills. The blocks are made of natural beech wood and were developed by a Dutchman, who lives very close to nature with his family. He designed these blocks for his children.
Holistic Products for Children: Navigate the Labyrinth
The wooden labyrinth is a skill game for children aged 5 and over. Using two rotary knobs, a wooden plate can be tilted to all four sides and the ball can be moved specifically through the labyrinth. But there are 35 holes, where the ball can disappear on the way to the target. The holes are marked with numbers. The score is determined by the number of the hole into which the ball falls. The wooden plate cannot be moved directly, but only by using the two rotary knobs.
This way, the children practice patience and learn to combine fine motoric skills and logical thinking. They also learn about numbers from 1 to 35 and get a feel for the mechanics. The Montessori Wooden Labyrinth is finely manufactured and is from wood, which comes from sustainable forestry.
Great Holistic Products for Children: Hand Puppets
Hand puppets are not just cuddly toys or dolls. They can also be used specifically as problem solvers for therapeutic purposes, for example when the child cannot tell mom or dad what is on his/her mind and heart. When looking at the cute hand puppet, a child can forget, who is behind the puppet. Psychologists and therapists are working since decades with the supercuts hand puppets from Folkmannis.
Holistic Products for Children: Maximum Joy with Skipping Ropes
For children, who are in the middle of their physical and mental growth, a skipping rope is definitely one of the best toys. It trains the muscles of the entire body and also promotes fitness and coordination, concentration and sense of rhythm in the child. The effect is even stronger, if the sequence of steps and jumps is changed daily.
You get good Skipping Ropes from Manufactum, which are made of hemp and cherry tree wood. The rope is attached to the polished wooden handles, which gives a good grip in your hands.
There are many different jumping techniques, from simple jumping on the spot to one-legged jumps, so-called jumping jacks, in which the feet are alternately opened to the sides during the jump, double rope jumps or rope jumping with crossed arms. The more physical effort, the better. 10 minutes a day are enough, ideally in the fresh air.
