Knitted Animals

Anne-Dorthe Grigaff

Beautifully illustrated with full-color photographs throughout.

Hardbound, Sheer Delight!

$29.95

Delight a child while using odds and ends from your stash!

Here is an irresistable collection of animals to knit in soft, natural materials: ducklings, teddy bears, lambs, piglets, hedgehogs, a handsome rooster and clucking hen, mice and more and more. Most of the projects can be quickly and inexpensively knit with odds and ends of yarn, and many can be completed in an hour or two. Not to mention that then you can present them to a beloved child and watch their eyes light up at the sight of their new friend.

Knitted Animals includes:

• Step-by-step, clearly written instructions for making over 20 dear little animals
• Beautiful full-color photographs throughout
• Many projects that are suitable for older children to make themselves

Beginning and experienced knitters alike will love this charming book.

Carpentry for Children

Simple Step-by-Step Plans for Great Do-It-Yourself Project

Lester Walker

Preface by David Macaulay

Softbound

$16.95

If ever there was a book embued with the power to transform lives, Lester Walker's Carpentry for Children is it. It is absolutely thorough in its task of introducing the world of hammer, saw and wood to children (and the adults who teach them), and is so infused with the joy Walker so clearly finds in this craft that in addition to being a consummate guide to introductory carpentry, it is also just plain good reading.

The instruction is designed for children ages 7 through 11 (or so) and the book is written to be read not only by adult teachers, but also by the older student-carpenters. Walker begins with guidance on buying tools that will be of the right size and weight for this age group then proceeds to discuss what materials to buy (and what to look for to make sure you are getting the quality you need). He also devotes an entire chapter to how to use each tool well and safely.

As is both necessary and practical, the first project involves creating a workshop, including building a workbench, toolbox and sawhorses! From there, the projects march out, beginning with a tugboat and including a puppet theater, painter's easel, stilts, a raft, and even a coaster car for fast trips to the bottom of your favorite hill.

Walker's contribution to putting handwork back into our lives is wonderful - we hope that more and more children can be gifted with the experiences he is sharing.

Housebuilding for Children

Step-by-Step Guides for Houses Children Can Build Themselves

Lester Walker

Preface by Nonny Hogrogian

Softbound

$16.95

For me, one of the most attractive things about Waldorf Education is that toward the end of 3rd Grade "housebuilding" is part of the curriculum. When I first read this, I could hardly wait for our children to reach 3rd grade so that they could experience some of the joy I had at that age.

When I was 8-10, my family lived in a home that backed up to an untended field filled with high-growing grasses. With the help of nocternal creatures we never saw, we children discovered pathways and little "rooms" in the grass, quickly caught on to the process, and set about making house after house that we played in year after year (building them afresh each season by crawling to make paths and lying about to create the "rooms"). Once we had conquered the art of grassy housebuilding, we moved on to large trees where we discovered in our imaginations all manner of houses in the large and leafy branches. This was a period of almost rapturous play and discovery in my life -- and one that I knew could be reflected in the housebuilding blocks of a Waldorf 3rd Grade, even though at the time my children lived far from the wide open spaces I had enjoyed as a child.

What I love about Housebuilding for Children is that it is not about creating the perfect playhouse for children to play in, it is about guiding children to build their own houses, with only enough adult supervision to be sure that safety is part of the process. The houses range from ultra-imaginative super-low budget projects (using discarded materials such as a mattress innerspring or an old dresser), to an actual woodframe house whose charm is enhanced by the fact that it really can be built by children, given a bit of instruction.

This is a wonderful book that offers children adventure and discovery, and offers the adults who teach them the guidance needed to convey basic building skills to their students. Happily, it is again in print. We are delighted to bring it to you.

Spring
Nature Activities for Children

Irmgard Kutsch and Brigitte Walden

Hardbound

$22.95

It is thrilling to see the second of this vibrant 4-book series in print in English. It is every bit as beautiful and as inspiring as it's companion volume, Autumn, and I expect it will do a great deal to get all of us outdoors and loving our dear world more and more.

Spring is the time of creating and cleaning, of building and renewing, and each of the activities suggested here harness our impulses as they connect us and our children with the earth and nature. It's hard to imagine more exhilarating and inspiring activity ideas than these.

Here's what's inside:

Introduction
Between Heaven and Earth

MARCH

• Nesting
  • Our Native Birds in Spring
  • Even Younger Children Can Help Build a Nesting Box
  • Nesting Help for Birds
    • Box for hole nesters
    • Box for eave or platform nesters
• Sowing, Planting, Growing
• Sprouting Grain
• Caring for Flowers
• Sprouting Walnutes
  • Johnny Appleseed Grace
  • Johnny Appleseed
  • Thought about trees

APRIL

• Creating Garden Spaces
  • Garden Work and Health
  • Landscaping a Garden as a Group Project
  • Actively Shaping Our Surroundings
  • Gardens at the Root of Social Change
• What to Consider When Landscaping a Garden
  • Initial considerations
  • Action guidelines
  • Conclusions
• Landscaping Ideas
  • Layered tree trunk wall
  • Climbing wall
  • Tree stump spiral for climbing and sitting
  • Twig layer wall
  • Building with stone and wood
  • A root mountain
  • Nesting places for insects, bats, wild bees and wasps
  • A willow arbour
  • Making a spring flute from a willow branch
  • Play pit
  • Stone herb garden
  • Paradise garden
  • Earthworms - compost in a worm box
  • Potato box
  • Strawberry pots
  • Keeping pets
  • April does what she wants

MAY

• Plant-based dyes and paints
  • Making Dyes
  • Color chart for plant dyeing
  • Characteristics of plants used for dyeing
  • Painting with plant-based paints
  • The invigorating effect of plant colors
• Milk Processing
  • The Cow - Serving humankind since ancient times
  • Milk - Lifeblood of the child
    • What can be made from milk
• Beekeeping
  • From forest bees to beekeeping
  • The Bee Colony
  • Biology of the Bees
  • Beehives
  • Bee products
  • Swarming
  • How can children be included in beekeeping

Further reading and resources
***********************************

So - grab your sweaters, put on your shoes and let's go outside!

Summer
Nature Activities for Children

Irmgard Kutsch & Brigitte Walden

Hardbound

$22.95

Ahhh! Those lazy, hazy days filled with wonder and adventure and the vibrancy of life. In this sunny book that completes the seasonal Nature Activities series, Irmgard Kutsch and Brigitte Walden take children on a stroll through the wonders of the outdoor world in full bloom. Whether you are fortunate enough to have a rural countryside at your front door, or have window box gardens and city parks as your touchstone to nature, you'll love this book and find hundred's of ways to delight the children in your care with the natural world.

Inside you'll find:

Foreword
The Story of This Book
An Invitation

JUNE

Working with Herbs

• The Herb Garden
• Raised Beds for Herbs
• Working with Herbs: Basic Skills
• Herb Recipes

Breeding Butterflies

• Butterflies: a Symbol of Beauty
• Looking after Caterpillars
• A Butterfly's Favourite Places
• From Caterpillar to Butterfly
• Making a Butterfly Cage

JULY

Water

• A Bridge to Lie on
• Ponds and Streams
• Water: Lessons for Life

Earth

Air

• Giant Soap Bubbles
• Conscious Listening

Fire

• A simple fireplace
• Building an underground oven
• Building a clay overn
• Building a clay ball oven
• A wood-fired kiln
• Some thoughts on responsibility, safety and supervision

AUGUST

From Grain to Bread

• Healthy Nourishment
• Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
• Creating an Eating Culture
• From Whole Grain to Fine Flour: The Story of Grain
• Grain Recipes
• A Quick Reminder

Resources
Further Reading
The Children's Nature and Garden Centre
Credits
Special Thanks

Autumn
Nature Activities for Children

Irmgard Kutsch & Brigitte Walden

Hardbound, full color photos and drawings throughout

$22.95

What a wonderful, exciting book! This is one of the best "activities with children" books I've ever been privileged to hold in my hands. Both the authors and publisher deserve a big "Thank you!" from all of us who care for children. The author's experience as teachers at the Children's Nature and Garden Centre in Reichshof just radiates off these pages!

Each and every activity suggested within this beautiful book forges a simply tie between those who do the projects and crafts and the world of nature. Here you have everything from harvesting fruits and vegetables, to building houses (including a chapter on house building in the Waldorf 3rd Grade!) to beeswax modelling. The authors exude such an enthusiasm that I think anyone who reads this book will want to get started on one of the crafts right away.

Most of the activities can easily be done within cities and towns, also -- you very definitely don't need to live in the country to create with autumn's gifts. There are some, such as extracting honey, that do require knowing someone who works vocationally with nature (and are very much worth pursuing, if possible), but the overwhelming majority of activities are simple and easy to do with materials that are not difficult to come by unless you live in the desert.

I should also add that although autumn is the theme of the book, the activites given for late autumn can take you well into winter as well -- they are very suitable for those days when we like to gather in our snug homes and make things

Here's what you'll find in between the covers:

SEPTEMBER

• Harvesting fruit and vegetables
  • Where do fruits and vegetables come from?
  • Biodynamic Farms & the environment
  • Natural wholefoods in the kindergarten
  • Information and advice
  • Eating together: A good influence
  • Understanding how things are connected
  • Training the senses
  • Recipes for freshly-harvested fruit
  • Drying fruit for the winter

OCTOBER

• Basket-making
  • Plants used for basket-making
  • Making a willow basket or hanging basket for flowers
  • Weaving round or oval objects
• House-building
  • Simple houses and huts
  • Building: Putting down roots
  • Imaginative structures: Large and small
  • Building as an archetypal experience
  • Building a house together: Developing social skills
  • House-building in the third grade
  • A dedication ceremony

NOVEMBER

• Caring for birds
  • What we can do to protect birds
  • Food for birds
• Working with Beeswax
  • Modelling with beeswax
  • Beeswax: A precious material
  • Dipping candles
  • Related Activities
• Making paper
  • History and production of paper
  • Making paper with children
• Painting and handicrafts without toxic chemicals
  • Paste and plaster
  • Glue
  • Finger-painting
  • Sand pictures
  • Nature mobile
  • Pan pipes
  • Castanets
  • Pinwheels

Winter
Nature Activities for Children

Irmgard Kutsch & Brigitte Walden

Hardbound

$22.95

Kutsch & Walden's third nature activities book leaves me simply breathless with excitement -- this is the best-ever compendium of winter-y joy! It all but guarantees that gloomy winter days will be a thing of the past, replaced by day after day of discovery, creativity and accomplishment. Just the ticket for home and school - which I predict will take on a warming glow of wonder with the help of these two wonderful ladies.

Here's what's inside:

Foreword
The Story of this Book

DECEMBER

Advent

• Advent: A Time for Contemplation
• The Advent Wreath
• Advent: A Time for Candles
• Blowing Ships
• An Advent Story
• Blooming Branches
• Rattling Walnuts
• Christmas Scenes
• The True Meaning of Advent

JANUARY

Working with Wool

• Working with Wool: A Rich Experience
• Processing Wool
• Clothing: Our Second Skin
• Wool: from the Sheep to a Ball of Wool
• Wool: from a Ball of Wool to a Toy Sheep
• Free Play with Wool
• Stories

FEBRUARY (Part 1)

Working with Willow

• February: the Last Chance to Cut Willow
• Willow: a Good Plant for Children
• Willow: Creative Possibilities
• Making a Latticework Willow Hedge

Woodworking

• Wood: A Valuable Material
• Forests
• Wooden Toys
• Listening to Wood
• Rattles and Stick Instruments to Scare away Winter
• More Woodworking Projects

FEBRUARY (Part 2)

Working with Clay

• Pottery: a Valuable Activity
• Basic Rules for Doing Pottery with Children
• Clay Bowls for Easter Grass
• Clay Insect Nests and Bird Baths

Resources

• Further reading
• Craft Suppliers
• Conservation of rare domestic animals
• The Children's Nature and Garden Centre

The Big Summer Activity Book

Anne and Peter Thomas

Hardbound

$30.00

Although we can't guarantee that you'll never again hear, "There's nothing to do" from your children, we can guarantee that with this book at your side, you'll have a ready suggestion that's likely to be met with delight.

Based on many years experience of keeping children busy and happy, Anne and Peter Thomas have compiled a huge collection of summer activities that will help keep boredom at bay and help parents feel better, knowing that their children are busy having wholesome fun.

The authors include both indoor and outdoor activities, things to make, things to see, and things to do. It is packed with handy tips on food (like sweets for car journeys), health (such as sunburn), and safety. The Big Summer Activity Book covers everything from simple games that parents might themselves have played as children, to inspiring projects that will challenge the whole family.

Fully illustrated in colour throughout, this is an indispensable handbook that every parent will want to keep handy throughout summer vacations.

Contents:

• Introduction: Whose holidays? — Three important factors
• Holiday preparations: Tips for going on holiday
• Checklist
• In cases of illness—from motion sickness to insect bites and stings, plus a traveling pharmacy
• The weather
• The stars and planets
• Nature
• Orientation in the wild, in nature, and more
• On the beach
• In the mountains
• Games to stretch the muscles
• Living and playing in the countryside
• Tag and other outdoor games
• Playing on the beach
• Indoor and outdoor games
• Creativity with natural materials
• When it rains
• ... plus a revolving celestial chart, songs, and more
  

Children's Knitting Special

Purchase both A First Book of Knitting for Children and Knitting for Children - A Second Book

Regular Price $44.90

Special Price $39.90

This combination of approaches is sure to help establish any child (or adult!) as a great knitter!

A First Book of Knitting for Children - New Edition!

Bonnie Gosse and Jill Allerton

New photos - 20+ more pages!

$19.95

This charming book is nothing less than the Waldorf approach to knitting captured between two covers. Here is everything - rhymes for each stitch, excellent step-by-step photographs, and the most delightful collection of projects we have seen gathered in one place. With the help of this book and a kind adult, any child can master the basics of knitting and then go on to create more animal and people friends than you can shake a knitting needle at! We are often asked questions about how knitting is taught in a Waldorf school - we are delighted that now we have such a wonderful way to answer them.

Knitting for Children
A Second Book

Bonnie Gosse & Jill Allerton

Softbound

$24.95

The long-awaited continuations of the authors' wonderful A First Book of Knitting for Children has finally arrived! Building on their first volume, the authors bring many new skills and a wider variety of patterns to eager children and adults. Here is everything anyone needs to know about:

• reading a pattern
• increasing and decreasing
• dividing work
• picking up stitches
• ribbing
• multi-color knitting
• knitting in the round
• turning
• double casting off
• making proper holes

Included too are patterns for everything from sweaters and hats to gnomes, frogs, hand dolls and their clothing. This is a great book to have fun with - whether you are a child expanding your knitting horizons or an adult knitting for a beloved youngster. A terrific and inspiring resource!

Kids Knitting
Projects for Kids of All Ages

Melanie Falick

Softbound

$12.95

What a great book for young knitters (and older knitters looking for an introduction they can understand)! There are delightful and useful projects that take a beginning knitter all the way from an introduction to the basic tools of the trade to dying yarn (although all the projects name the commercial yarns that were used), making needles, shearing sheep and more. Then come the projects: these range from a basic bean bag as a beginning, then a pocket scarf and hat set with optional tassels, a patchwork afghan, knit dolls, puppets, and a stuffed caterpillar, a ribbed scarf, backpacks, purses, more caps, magic spiral tube socks (I made these - a truly great pattern for anyone!) and - finally - a sweater. This introduction is hard to beat for enthusiasm and thoroughness - great for beginners of all ages!

Single Crochet for Beginners

Cindy Crandall-Frazier

Softbound

$22.99

Cindy Crandall-Frazier has created the book I've always hoped for to help teach children (and anyone else!) how to crochet (part of the 3rd grade handwork curriculum in Waldorf education). In it you'll find a perfect marriage of joyful enthusiasm with clear instruction featuring creative techniques and new learning approaches. It is fabulous. Cindy's background as a homeschooling mother and Waldorf Kindergarten teacher shines through the book as well: though written for a broader audience, she has incorporated so much of what makes the Waldorf approach to teaching fruitful and beloved:

• She includes a verse with instructions for making the slip knot as well as a diagram for those who are visually oriented
• She created new labels for the parts of the hook, so that using the hook can be more clearly explained
• Her technique of having students skip the first 2 chains when beginning a row is brilliant because it makes it much, much easier to see the first stitch and to keep correct count
• She includes a very helpful chart of hook sizes coupled with yarn weights - very helpful.
• You'll also find LOTS of information about different fibers and color - wonderful stuff!
• and, her projects just sing with the kind of excitement that will urge children or adults on to more learning and eager skill development

There's lots more to love, much more - but I'm hoping you'll get a copy, grab your hook and yarn, and discover them for yourself. Your children will come to think of the crochet lesson as one of their favorite parts of the day!

Cindy Crandall-Frazier is also the author of Sock Doll Workshop

Earth, Water, Fire and Air
Playful explorations in the four elements

Walter Kraul

Softbound

$16.95

This craft book for children shows how to make a waterwheel, paddle-steamer, propeller plane, parachute, windmill, simple pendulum clock, spinning tops, a little hot-air balloon, and lots more. Some suggestions are simple enough for 6 year olds, others challenging enough for a skilful 12 year old. This book is chock-full of really fun ways to learn about the world - outstanding!

Soapstone Carving for Children

Bonnie and Dave Gosse

$14.95

Many of us are inspired by the depth of awareness that shines from seemingly simple Native American carvings. Soapstone Carving for Children gives us more than an excellent introduction to yet another interesting craft - it is actually a doorway into a way of looking at the world that is at once deeply connected to the ways of the Earth while at the same time ever aware of the sanctity of All Creation. Bonnie and Dave take us on a step-by-step adventure as they show us how we can bring forth the simple forms that reveal the essence of our animal brothers. Here is an invitation to look at the world with new eyes - and learn a rich and rewarding craft at the same time.

The Golden Path
Craft - Technics - Practical
Class 1 to 12

Alan Whitehead

Softbound

$22.95

The Golden Path is a triumph! Finally, a comprehensive, thorough and deeply considered overview "the crafts" that are taught throughout the curriculum of Waldorf schools - covering everything from Grade 1 to Grade 12. And, it's in English!

Alan Whitehead's accounting is one that I believe deserves the term "classic" right from the start. He has managed - all in the space of 128 pages, mind you - lay out the relationships of the different subjects taught, both in terms of the progression through the grades and also from the point of view of which aspect of the developing human being they help most. Then, he offers class-side descriptions that detail not only the subject's approach, but also the sorts of a things a Waldorf crafts/garden/shop teacher would want to keep in mind. As always, he regales us with his humor-filled stories of classes, people and projects past.

A real bonus with The Golden Path the unending stream of color photographs of different projects completed by students in various grades. Alan's recently enhanced printing capacity enables all of us to delight in these handwork victories and study their manifest technic and form. (This is an author, incidentally, who actually produces all his books from writing to printing to binding - no wonder he has such a terrific grasp of the role of the crafts.)

I should add that this is not a how-to in terms of learning the techniques of any of these subjects - there are plenty of resources for that available in our bookshop and elsewhere. This is a guide to what to teach, how to teach it, why you and I want children to learn these things, and the joy they bring. Absolutely everything from knitting to gardening to survival training to baking to toymaking to desk building to . . . more and more and more. All of it is presented with wisdom and enthusiasm.

Inspiring and wonderful! Don't miss it!!

The American Boys Handy Book
What to Do and How to Do it

D. C. Beard

Foreword by Noel Perrin

Softbound

$12.95

First published in 1882, this book contains a wealth of projects and games, with practical directions on how to make them, by one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America. This is the ultimate pre-TV, anti-couch potato activity book. Ages 10 and up.

The Handy Book was the perfect survival manual. It contained plans for 16 kinds of kits and hot-air balloons and fishing tackle. It told you how to make and stock an aquarium, to construct a water telescope and how to camp out without a tent. Or in a hut made from pine boughs. How to build 10 kinds of boats, including a flatboat with a covered cabin. Iceboats, too. One-person canoes. Bird calls. Squirt guns with astonishing range and authority.

- Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun Times

One of our son's favorites - a great resource for any boy or girl who loves to do things outdoors.

The American Girls Handy Book
How to Amuse Yourself and Others

Lynn Beard
and Adelia Beard

Softbound

$12.95

A magical collection of activities from projects to games to presents, complete with instructions on how to make them, by the two feisty founders of Girl Scouting in the United States. It's a cornucopia of projects, devices, toys, gifts, dolls, recipes, decorations, perfumes, wax and clay modelling, oil and watercolor painting and games, all with clear and practical directions for how to make and play them. Vintage Americana that will spring alive in the energetic hands of our modern girls.

Ages 10 and up.

The Field and Forest Handy Book

D. C. Beart

Softbound

$14.95

A year's worth of outdoor activities and projects from the author of The American Boy's Handy Book.

This is the Handy Book I wish I had when I was growing up. I longed to know how to go out into nature and create shelters, find food, keep myself safe. It's all here in this great book which introduces young people to the pleasures and challenges of camping. There are chapters on packing a horse, on making clothes and moccasins, on camp cooking, on building piers, boats, and sleds. Not to mention the serveral designs for simple shelters - from lean-tos to cabins sturdy enough to last the whole summer.

Beard also suggests any number of projects, plans, and schemes to entertain those whose travels take them into the open fields and forests, who want to know everything from how to build kites and birdhouses to snow houses and snow men.

Hard to imagine ever hearing "I'm bored" with this book around!