WALDORF BOYS TOYS
Many people seem to only give their boys traditional “boys” toys. I’ve found having a son and daughter that they both seem to like all sorts of toys until the age of about 8/9.
Juliette still loves her “Barbie” dolls (for want of a better description). Dolls that go places, get dressed into many clothes, give parties, fight, cry, get married, have children etc. etc. In other words she acts out real life but in a 10 year olds way. Now StJohn is 7 at the moment and he has always loved to join in this game, but he wants a man, not a lady doll. So what is available for boys? Well…an action man. Usually a soldier with a mean angry face who comes in a box with weapons and being plastic, breaks within a 10 day period.
I can’t stand these awful plastic soldiers! They seem so grown up and aggresive. They don’t seem to be interested in doing loving, nurturing things. So I finally said…No!NO! today we make a gentleman! This was a while back, so we got out an old action man, and we cut out a felt dude! Here he is…
We made StJohn an orange and yellow one, as those are his fave colours. He then made clothes for his “little gentleman”. He is the same height and everything as a normal action man. He has pipe cleaners in his limbs so that he can bend, sit and dance. He has yellow roving for hair. That went from nice haircut to fright wig within 2 weeks as it started felting, just mildly but still felting! StJohn loves him! When it came time to do his face, I asked StJohn if he wanted eyes, mouth etc. and he said, “No.”
When I asked him why not, he said to me,”Well if we give him a smiley face then he can’t be cross but if we don’t put in any face then he can be cross, happy, sad, anything. You see it happens in my head, Mom.”
So there you go my answer to action man! Oh and last of all we sewed on a heart, so that he came alive (according to StJohn). He needed a heart to love you see…
Filed under: Waldorf Toys, Anthroposophy, Handwork & Crafting, Waldorf Homeschooling on August 29th, 2009
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