Junk Toys

I went to an open house yesterday at my 3 year old’s preschool and was blown away by what I saw.  My own son, aka The Hulk, was playing ever so gently with educational toys and explaining to me how they worked.  He carefully rolled out his mat, took the toy out, played with it, and then He Put it Away!  My son?!?  I’m new to the Montessori experience but I’m so sold on it now I think I should start going to classes there.  Miracles aside, one thing I noticed was that he was playing with typical household items that had been “recycled” into useful toys for children.  Items such as old purses and wallets, bottles and tins, and kitchenware. The few actual toys there were in the classroom were just basic wooden type things, such as farm animals (for agriculture) and a few cars (urban planning no doubt).  Talk about green!  I’m green with envy.  How do they do that?

For starters I’ve got a pretty well organized play room with clear boxes for the toys to go back in on reachable shelves, but I seem to be the only one who puts them back.  And of course the used toys are never in just one section of the carpet.  (Is there anything worse than the sound of a million legos getting dumped out of the container?)  Could it be that I’m not enforcing the pick-up segment of playtime?  And come to think of it might it be possible that there are so many distractions in the house at any given time when the kids are home that it would never occur to them they’re supposed to put things back?  The answer is yes!  Fortunately the Headmistress at my son’s school is willing the share her secrets with me so in a sense I am indeed going “back to school.”

The lack of fanfare in the toys at the Montessori School also got me thinking.  With the recall this week of Fisher Price products, I have to wonder why we fill our homes with plastc “junk toys.”  One mommy blogger when interviewed about the recall replied, “I’m starting to feel like maybe no toys are safe.”  With most of these processed toys, I have to agree.  The plastic is bad for the environment, the gadgets and attachments are eventually going to come loose, the need for batteries is toxic, the noise is repellent, and the quick fix aspect, which is usually the case with most overly commercialized toys, is bad for a child’s development.  We’ve all had the experience of the younger children getting a gift and just wanting to play with the box.  Imagine if someone marketed it on television and every kid asked Santa for a box for Christmas?  A toy drive for empty boxes!  Now that’s green.

Commercial plastic toys are so ingrained in our life that it’s hard to think of alternatives.  This “back to the basics” list by Alicia Daniel, field naturalist, teacher, and mother of two daughters offers these suggestions:

1) Will this toy eventually turn into dirt-i.e., could I compost it? Stones, snowmen, driftwood, and daisies-they will be gone, and we will be gone, and life goes on.
2) Do I know who made this toy? This question leads us to search for the hidden folk artist in each of us.
3) Is this toy beautiful? Have human hands bestowed an awkward grace, a uniqueness lacking in toys cranked out effortlessly by machine?
Will this toy capture a child's imagination?" 

One could go further and add: Does this gift foster my child's natural inclinations? Will it enable him to more fully engage in life? Does it help her reach her goals?

And now to reach my goal of getting the family clean and green.  I want my boys to be self sufficient, and it’s not going to help them if I’m picking up after them all the time.  So it’s back to school for me and out of the house with the junk toys.  I checked with 4 Our Kids Recycling here in town for the best way to recycle and they suggested donating them to a new organization in Tamworth called "A Stepping Stone" that assists single Moms (and they may accept some gently used items too - find them on Facebook), and of course there’s always the dump store.