Toys: Open-ended and Natural Materials

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Toys provided in the Waldorf kindergarten are typically very simple and of natural materials. Because this is the developmental stage in which the imaginative, creative brain is rapidly growing, toys children play with during this time should stimulate and enhance this imaginative, creative growth. Open-ended toys are those that are minimally formed so that the child's imagination "completes" the object in whatever way her play needs it to be. A long-time Waldorf kindergarten teacher, Nancy Foster, points out: "A curved piece of wood, for example, may be used as a bridge, or as a telephone, a boat, a cradle, a delivery truck, a fish, merchandise for a store, and so on." And of course a younger child simply may use it as a piece of wood to build a play fire with - whatever the child's imaginative play needs it to be. Jack Petrash, author of Understanding Waldorf Education, wrote, "Children who are encouraged to play with the same object in a number of different ways develop...flexible thinking that can consider a problem from a number of different perspectives." This is called divergent thinking, as opposed to convergent thinking which only seeks a single answer to a single problem. Divergent thinking looks for a multiplicity of solutions, a capacity that is essential in later stages of learning and life for problem-solving.

Toys in a Waldorf kindergarten include objects found in nature - pine cones, stones and crystals, feathers, blocks made from cut and sanded tree branches, stumps, a large sandbox (indoor and outdoor) and digging tools, shells, etc. Teachers make many toys such as knitted animals, soft dolls, felted puppets and carved wooden items. There are also home items, typically made from wood, such as kitchen tools, brooms to tidy up with, baby cradles. And there are building materials - large wooden stacking cubes, boards, wooden playstands, building cloths of silk and cotton to attach and drape over playstands and cubes to make homes, forts, a store, etc. These simple objects made from natural materials foster creative, imaginative play as well as a love for nature.