I am often asked by parents who are waiting to transform their child’s playthings from commercial plastic toys to more natural Waldorf toys for my recommendations of the most essential Waldorf toys. This week on “Sunday with Sarah” I share five of my top picks and discuss the play value of each.
Keep in mind that if you are limited by budget some of these toys can be handmade or built oneself!
Video Highlights:
1:00 Heavy Baby Waldorf Dolls 2:30 Play Silks (Playsilks) 4:00 Ostheimer Wooden Toys 5:16 Waldorf Play Stands (Playstands) 6:35 Wooden Play Kitchens 7:23 Waldorf Rocker Board 10:09 Upcoming Giveaway – Win a Waldorf Rocker Board!
Do you or your child have a favorite Waldorf toy? What would be on your top five list? Anything you think I’ve omitted? Please share your thoughts, comments, and questions here!
If you were to ask me to recommend my one favorite Waldorf toy, I would have to tell you the Rocker Boards!
You might be surprised, because rocker boards may not yet be thought of as classic Waldorf toys. They are, in fact, a relatively new addition, but I’m confident that in very little time rocker boards will become synonymous with “Waldorf toys”—just like Waldorf playstands, Waldorf dolls, and play silks.
My Introduction to the Wonder of Rocker Boards
I’d been teaching early childhood classes in a Waldorf school for many years, but had never seen nor heard of this toy until one of my colleagues brought two of them back from the East Coast Waldorf Early Childhood Conference in 2006.
When I first saw this unusual plaything–a piece of high quality, thick plywood, about three feet long and one foot wide, curved into a perfect quarter-circle arc–I wondered how interested the children would be and what could be done with them.
I knew how beneficial rocking is for a child’s development: it stimulates the vestibular (balance) system and aids a child’s sense of proprioception (the awareness of being in one’s physical body). It seemed like a good toy for allowing rocking indoors.
I knew how important balance is for a child’s brain development, and it seemed like a good and possibly therapeutic toy for certain children.
What I didn’t yet know was how much children love this toy!
Rocker Boards in the Classroom
We introduced the rocker boards in our classroom in February of that year, and the children wasted no time in finding them and putting them to use.
I was amazed at all the ways they found to play with them. My limited adult thinking assumed that this was a toy for children to stand on, with one foot on either end, on which they could rock back-and-forth.
I didn’t yet realize it could be so much more!
Right away, these boards became the most popular toys in our classroom. They were the first toys the children would go to as soon as snack time was over and play time began.
Yes, children would stand on them and rock, but they found so many other uses for them:
The rocker board would become a slide, with one end propped up on a Waldorf playstand.
Tipped over, it became a bridge. The children would act out stories, like the “Three Billy Goats Gruff” and trip-trap over the bridge.
It became a sailboat, carrying fishermen off to sea as they cast their nets.
It was a pirate ship sailing through mighty storms.
It was a cradle for a mama (a 5-year-old) to rock her baby (a 3-year-old) to sleep in.
