A third of nursery workers want to ban...
Sweets? Tantrums?
...plastic toys in favour of more natural play items, according to a poll.
Err...
Some are opting for wooden alternatives, while others are attempting to make use of everyday finds such as shells, leaves and sticks.
Progressives who don't actually want to progress, but
regress!
In total, 34 per cent of those surveyed by daynurseries.co.uk said they would like their nursery to ban plastic toys.
Is it a practical thing to desire? Reader, it is not...
Sarah Woolley, the owner of Brook Cottage Childcare in Stoke-on-Trent, said her nursery has tried to buy more wooden toys, but found the increased cost to be an issue.
She said: 'There's a lot of beautiful stuff available but the thing we've found is not only is it a lot more expensive, but it breaks so easily, whether it be splitting along the grain of the wood or whether it be the joints of the toy coming apart.
'There's not a week goes by that we haven't got something for the caretaker to repair, to try and fix it back together, and quite often they end up getting thrown away.'
You couldn't make it up, could you? But they aren't
learning from this. They never do.
She said all her staff now look out for items that can be used in the nursery, and the process helps educate children and families on reducing waste and reusing items instead.
/facepalm
9 comments:
Ah yes, wooden toys. How utterly middle-class...
Wooden toys are generally robust, but you have to spend more than you do on plastic. Sounds like they've bought cheap and flimsy wooden stuff that's the same price as the plastic.
I'm retiring soon and making things out of wood is a hobby that I would like to spend more time on. Wooden toys are something that I was thinking of having a go at. I would expect that if you were making them for a nursery or play group they would need to be exceptionally well designed and robust. In other words, as Hector says, not cheap.
All we had to play with as kids was a shrunken head and the jawbone of an ass. Happy days.
The privilege of Boomers.
We had knives, and we would make our own wooden toys. From age five we each had a knife - how else to sharpen a pencil?
A length of springy branch would make a bow, which together with suitable notched and sharpened arrows made a fine toy.
A bit of angled branch would be a gun, a sword, or a forked branch a catapult.
All very green, recyclable - often the same day - and cheap.
But, no EU Mark of approval. Or certified harmless pastel paint.
"Ah yes, wooden toys. How utterly middle-class..."
Of course! Until little Joaquin gets a splinter, anyway...
"...but you have to spend more than you do on plastic. Sounds like they've bought cheap and flimsy wooden stuff that's the same price as the plastic."
Undoubtedly, since image is the main concern here.
"Wooden toys are something that I was thinking of having a go at."
And look at that! A ready-made market opens up! ;)
"All we had to play with as kids was a shrunken head and the jawbone of an ass. Happy days."
"The privilege of Boomers.
We had knives, and we would make our own wooden toys."
Oh, now you've both done it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAdlkunflRs
It should be mentioned that plastic has only become evil since landfill became evil. Now it has become necessary to recycle it. This is mainly done via "accidental" fires at recycling plants or sticking it in the sea.
My dad made a crossbow for me when I was about seven. It was quite powerful. He confiscated it when a fire hardened bolt embedded itself in a mature ash tree.
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