Well my fellow DA friends, I am becoming a father! Ms. Whitespike is expecting! I'm very excited.
I thought it would be fun for parents and parents-to-be to discuss smart design for little ones, including toys, educational films and games, and kid furniture.
Crossing my fingers ... maybe he/she will become an architect!
Here's to fatherhood!
Congrats...
Congrats Whitespike!!!!
The best toys around, as far as I'm concerned, were those designed by Creative Playthings in 1950s-19970s. There's the iconic rocking horse( that DWR ripped off), great educational wood shape sorters and counting toys, fantastic blocks, cars, trucks, planes and doll houses and the imfamous "inquarium"-their designs are fantastic. As an expectant father into good design, you also must check out the Daddytypes blog. (its really great). Its kind of like a designaddict for children's design blog. See the link below
http://daddytypes.com/
Awesome!
Thanks everybody. I love the Creative Playthings rocker. I bought the DWR version for a friend when he had a baby. Now I cannot for the life of me find out where I could get another .... DWR stopped selling them.
An original would be cool, but I've never seen a sturdy one.
Thanks for the lead on the blog!
Congratulations!!
I cannot speak from experience here, but I came across "Froebel Training" when reading a FLW bio that described it as a part of what influenced him in his childhood. It's for kindergarten-age and sounds very interesting. It incorporates different toys given to the child in a defined order to encourage learning from nature, spatial and structural thinking. That's what I remember, the link gives a little more info.
It sure worked for Frank...
http://www.hatii.arts.gla.ac.uk/MultimediaStudentProjects/00-01/9706775c...
Just super
That's great news, Whitespike, and all best wishes to you and your wife. I actually do have a son who grew up to be an architect and the only things that I can think of that he was fixated on more than my other two kids were those "Transformer" toys that mutated between robots and vehicles and good ole'Legos. He had varying Lego projects set up in his bedroom continuously from about the age of 5 until about 10, when he just got too cool for toys and switched to a fixation on video games, (which I think he still has!).
He also liked to sit in the kitchen when he was very little and play with the stuff in the Tupperware cupboard and in the pots and pans cupboard. He enjoyed putting little things inside of big things, again and again, like Russian nesting dolls. He would kill me if he knew I was telling you all this.
Saturation!
Hi Whitespike, congratulations to you both! Good times ahead!!
Choosing toys for small children is like buying food for your cat or dog. The manufacturers are appealing to the purchaser, not the recipient! And unfortunately most purchasers will go for the ?tacky?, bright and shiny, plastic toys.
A baby or small child will have no preconceptions or preferences, let alone a more sophisticated pallet. But given time and the opportunity to try various toys, they will soon let you know which they prefer.
It?s a bit like food. Give them heavily salted or sugary foods and they will prefer those to less 'tasty' foods.
I have often felt that giving babies and small children whole packets of crisps (potato chips), or candy as I often observe parents doing, is overdosing or over-stimulating the child with sugar or salt.
Likewise with too much, or too bright colours.
Quantity, too! A floor full of toys must surely be less stimulating than just a couple of toys at a time.
It?s all about saturation of the senses.
Trouble is, you can?t dictate what your friends and relatives are going to buy your child and it?s that that will cause the conflict! You can't just hide them away!
I have been disappointed after purchasing ?well designed? toys for my grand children as they will often choose the brightly coloured, gaudy, plastic toys over the more subtle, wooden toys.
The most fun I have had with my grand children is when we have made a house from a cardboard box. They just love it!
Good luck in your quest!
toys
as for toys, i've always favored things that promote movement, namely that of the child from the sofa to the outdoors! just about anything that requires pushing, pulling, chasing, throwing, catching and the like is worthy of consideration.
on the flip side, if it requires batteries and/or has electronic circuitry, it's inherently evil. of course, the exaggeration is for emphasis, but that stuff tends to move the child from participant to spectator.
also, time-honored games like checkers and chess likely promote the development of more desirable qualities than does most of the trash filling the aisles of the toy department.
and for the smaller tots, you just can't go wrong with a well-worn set of building blocks, unless of course you get an imported batch with a generous coat of toxic lead paint!
anyway, congrats on the good news! my prediction is that you'll be having a boy unless it's a girl. remarkably this has always proved to be quite accurate.
Acrobats
Whitespike, somebody's got these little guys going on ebay right now.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Creative-Playthings-1967-Wood-Acrobats-w-Box-Eames-E...
I've been shopping online...
...for my new grandson and I came across Willow Tree Toys, a site with a lot of well-designed toys. The ones below are in the baby/toddler category. There are lots more! I especially like the wagons that babies can push around as they're learning to walk. The ride-on toys are nice, too.
http://www.willowtreetoys.com
more
Here's a great book, first published in 1961---"Little 1" by Paul and Ann Rand:
http://www.buyolympia.com/q/Item=little1
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