Last Thursday, on a beautiful, still, sunny morning Karri Kindergarten were invited to join Silver Birch Kindergarten around the campfire at bush kindy to meet some very special guests.  Aunty Eliza and Aunty Annette are Noongar elders whom Bruce wanted our children to meet.  The children welcomed and sang songs for them.   Then, as Kristy tended the fire and baked a cake in the dutch oven, they shared many aspects of their childhoods, including the simple toys which they made from found materials to play with as children.  After listening to their stories, the children had an opportunity to play with the toys.  The dolls were cuddled, sung to, then wrapped in coats and put to bed in the shelter.  A couple of the children spontaneously made their own dolls from sticks and leaves.  To see this beautiful connection between the dolls, made from bottles and scraps of cloth, and the children, was a reminder of the joy to be found in the simplest of playthings.

It is a primordial need for a child to have a doll to love, care for and carry around.   With the doll, the child can imitate the parenting he/she has experienced from the mother and father, and can also share his/her joys and fears, as the doll is  an image of the self, often even sharing the same name.  The child doesn't experience the outer beauty of the doll, but instead what he/she brings to the doll from their own being.

In Karri Kindergarten we have some simple hand-made dolls available for the children to play with each day.  Rarely would a morning go by when they are not woken, have their clothing changed, wheeled around in the wicker pram, or carried in a “sling” made from a cloth, fed breakfast, and talked to.  They are an integral part of the self-directed play of our kindergarten, and really loved by the children.

Rudolf Steiner spoke about the importance of a simple doll as a toy in the first seven years.  The more simple the form of the doll, the more the child can bring through the imagination.  A mass produced doll may have a painted on smile so that it always looks happy, yet a home made cloth doll can have such simple features (or perhaps even no face at all), so that it can imbue any emotion at all.  The power of the imagination needs to be exercised, just as human muscles are strengthened by use, and by providing simple toys, including dolls, and better still ones the children make themselves, this capacity is given a chance to develop.  Before mass-production, dolls, like people, were unique.  A hand-crafted doll is one-of a kind, an individual which carries the spirit of the maker in it’s stitches and absorbs the spirit of the child who loves it.  I think the loving gestures of the children as they played and cared for the Auntie’s dolls that day, demonstrated an innate feeling for the creative force that produced those simple playthings and in this way the seed for a healing connection was planted.

Many thanks to Bruce for all his work with bush kindy and with introducing such rich experiences for our children,and to Kristi too, for all she does to nurture and support.

Warm wishes,

Denise