Green Options

If you live in Southern California and are looking for something to do this weekend, join me at The Whole Planet, Whole Child Expo. Held at the Waldorf school in Northridge, California, it promises to be the place to be this weekend for we eco types.

This two-day event will be filled with fun, education and entertainment. Celebrities, experts and practitioners will share

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My daughter didn’t get her first doll until she was about two-years-old, as I intended to raise her as gender neutral as possible and wanted to avoid the plastic baby/Barbie doll phenomena. My intentions were thrown out the window when I realized she was naturally a “girly” girl, and I discovered Waldorf dolls.  I hunted for a doll that would match my green values and still please her. I wish I would have found the organic Bamboletta Doll available from Natural Pod.

Bamboletta dolls are handmade by a stay at home mama in Cobble hill, BC, Canada. Bamboletta means “little doll” in Italian, which is what the dolls’ creator Christina Platt’s father nicknamed her as a child. She creates her handmade dolls from organic cotton, carded locally sourced lamb’s wool, and natural fabrics. Some dolls take up to 18 hours to complete.

Safely secured inside the tummy of each one of our dolls are three crystals – quartz, fluorite and carnelian – placed there to help produce a calming and grounding effect upon children. They are fashioned with serenely neutral facial expressions that encourage children to engage in open play, reflecting back to the child whatever emotion is timely and appropriate, whether happy, sad, or somewhere between.

Little girls love mermaids, and I love Waldorf dolls. I have always been drawn to the work of dollmaker Kathe Kruse, the oldest German doll company. “Handwork, simplicity of design, integrity, and an aversion to gimmicks and fads are still very much a part of how the dolls are made. Each doll and item of doll clothing is made by hand and takes from 16 to 36 hours to make. During that time, [...]

We have finally done it! After being inspired by my friend Teri’s guest post in February, my daughter and I have finally made our own Waldorf doll from a Magic Cabin Doll Kit. The Magic Cabin Doll Kit comes complete with mohair yarn for hair, wool for stuffing the body, embroidery floss for eyes and mouth, and skin stretch fabric. In addition, you will need matching thread for the skin [...]

One of the things we have lost in our modern culture is the teaching of fiber arts to our children (unless you adhere to Waldorf philosophy). Traditionally, mothers and grandmothers taught children to weave, sew, and knit. I had to go to college to learn how to weave! I was so excited when my sister bought this Leave It To Weaver Kit from Land of Nod. A similar loom [...]

Our good friends’ daughter attends the Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School in Wisconsin. The school is sponsoring a Good Energy Raffle. The grand prize is a hybrid car or solar power system or solar/wind power system for any home/person in the US. Each raffle ticket is $50. At first, I thought the raffle ticket’s price was very expensive, then I realized the school is limiting the number of tickets sold to [...]

The Waldorf Alphabet Book illustrated by Famke Zonneveld is a sweet way to introduce your child to the letters of our language. On each page, the letter is introduced with a painting of a main object/animal/etc. in the shape of the letter that also begins with the letter. Surrounding the main image are other images that also begin with the featured letter. For example, on the “S” page the main image is [...]

I won’t pretend to be an expert on Waldorf education; however, I have done some research. Some of the ideas I agree with, and some of the ideas I question. The emphasis on natural toys and natural materials is obviously an attractive one to me. Another idea I love is the story of Rainbow Bridge. On each child’s birthday, their story of crossing the rainbow bridge at birth is told. Each [...]

While I was pregnant with my second child, my mother wanted to buy my daughter her own baby doll. I spent countless hours searching the internet for the perfect, natural baby doll. I wanted a doll that was about the size of a newborn baby, in order that it could share clothes with the real baby in our family. Eventually, we [...]