Books
I like so many books that it was very difficult to choose. At the moment my favorite books are the ones with hard pages so that the baby can handle the book on her own.
The Gerda Muller collection about the seasons of the year, without any text, is beautiful and allows the imagination to fly high. In Waldorf pedagogy it is important to show books about the current season so that the child can identify time and changes in the real world.
Another favorite is the book that was mine when I was a baby. Le premirer livre du bebé from the publisher Gautier Languereau. It's scratched... But it shows various babies in their daily tasks. Only images also without a story. Besides being beautiful, it was my first book and the first book of my daughters. Also this one with hard pages.
The new collection of books by Oliver Jeffers with hard pages is beautiful. From animals, to numbers, to pencils, to the planet. These are images accompanied by words always with the intention of learning.
A beautiful book that I found in the Bosque Feliz shop in Cascais is called Mama Do You Love Me?. It's a small story about an Indian mother and her daughter, where the daughter confirms her mother's love for her. Even if everything goes wrong. This endless search for our mothers' approval, no matter what happens. The illustrations are wonderful. The colors, the details, the adventures. It's all beautiful.
Last but not least, a very special book about childbirth. About how babies arrive but in a very real way full of love. Where everyone participates in the birth, where everyone helps, where everyone watches, where everyone ends up sleeping in bed with the parents and the newly arrived baby. Welcome with love.
Toys
My toy choice could be very long. But here is a small selection. The most educational and manageable as possible. So all the wooden ones to stack, put the rings on the sticks, put the ball on the triangles, the squares on the coin. These are the ones of the moment. The ones we do continuously.
I am also a fan of the Waldorf toys, from the colorful rainbows, to the dwarfs, to the wooden animals, to the more abstract ones. They are good to touch, they are very beautiful, they were practically all Laura's and I renewed them for Clementina.
For dolls I have two lines that I choose. Either the Waldorf cloth dolls. Two that I have are from Vera Imaginenative. Or the dolls from Tic Tac are Clementina's favorites.
At the moment she is in the phase of animal names. I went to unearth the entire collection of animals from Schleich. For now, we use the most basic ones. Horses, ducks, pigs, dog, cat, cow, lion. They are easy to carry in the backpack, they are very real and this is very important for babies. The more real the better for them to know and understand.
You can follow Mariana here. Her incredible work is available here.
