Nanchen dolls are manufactured mainly with organic cotton and stuffed with Bioland pure new wool. All dolls are the perfect size and shape for your baby to hold and have sweet expressions painted on their tiny faces. The pumpkin above has a slight rattling sound. Nanchen only uses raw materials stemming from permanently controlled bio-cultivation and products conform to European safety standard EN71. If pumpkins aren’t your favorite veggie there’s also a totally cute Carrot Rattle Doll to adore and even a fun Banana Rattle Doll.

Available at the Wooden Wagon.

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The NRDC, among others notes that toxins found in toys related to plastics can interfere with normal sexual development, and may even lead to early onset of puberty.

Collect up any soft plastic toys, toys with older paint (could be lead based), and drop them off at the recycling center. Make sure that friends and family know that your goal is safe holiday toys. Tell them to limit the amount of toys they buy your kids, and also look for toys made with sustainable materials. Instead of plastics, look for wooden toys, toys made from recycled plastics, wool, organic cotton, and other eco-friendly materials.

Additionally encourage friends and family to offer other gifts – i.e. not toys but an outing, or experience, like a play, vs. a toys that may get tossed aside.

Also see…

• Nine Affordable Green Toys for the Holidays
• Well-priced organic toys for baby
• 2008 “10 Worst Toys” List

[image via stock.xchng]

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1. Eco-Friendly Tea Set from Green Toys – $24.99
2. Oval Xylophone from Plan Toys – $22.99
3. Crayon Rocks – $5-27
4. CitBlocs – starting at just $15
5. Contemporary Dollhouse from Plan Toys – $99.99 (seriously, one of the best deals for an eco-friendly dollhouse, most are well into the triple digits.
6. Sprig adventure toys – $9-28
7. Organic Veggies and Crate from Under The Nile – $25.99
8. Whole World Fun Eco Activities – $5.99 (Cedar loves this)
   
9. HappyMais Building Blocks – boy’s set and girl’s set available – $29

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The review is of Citiblocs – a totally green, super fun, and best of all, affordable green building toy. Cedar loved them, and if you’ve got little ones, this item is a must consider toy for the upcoming holiday season. Seriously, kits start at just $15 and are a cool family activity. Plus they really work your brain. You can build twisty structures, straight structures, long and tall structures, and crazy intricate patterned structures. See some of the cool things you can build below, then check out the review.

Read the review: ‘CitiBlocs’ Eco-Friendly Building Blocks: A Kid Tested Review

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Power House provides an introduction to sustainable energy sources and teaches basic concepts and principles in physical science. Using the kit will teach you about, and how to use heat and light energy from the sun, wind power, and electrochemical and plant energy.

The Power House kit allows you to build a model house complete with solar panels, windmill, greenhouse, and desalination system. The experiemnts actually work and were developed by physicist Uwe Wandrey. There are plenty of easy-to-follow activities included in a 96-page full color manual that highlights 70 experiments and 20 building projects, organized into the following nine chapters:

1. The Heat Trap: Construct and experiment with a greenhouse.
2. The Sun Collector: Collect the sun’s rays to heat water.
3. The Sun Burners: Make a solar cooker while learning about the principles of light before you cook rice and bake bread.
4. The Water Vampire: Desalinate water, plant watercress, produce sauerkraut and make chewing gum.
5. The Heat Absorbers: Learn how heat of evaporation provides cooling, conduct experiments about air humidity, build a hygrometer and test a refrigerator.
6. Power Plants: Grow beans, make a potted plant feed a candle, harvest sunflower energy, build an oil press, and assemble an oil lamp.
7. The Energy Converters: Extract electric current from sunlight and metals in acid, build a light telephone, galvanize a nail and split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
8. The Forces of Magnetism: Generate electric current with magnetic fields. Build a current indicator, electric and solar motors, a transfer switch, and a crane. Lift pencils with the sun and learn about levers. Build an electric car.
9. Wings in the Wind: Build a sail car and learn how wings and sails transform energy. Learn to sail with the wind, by the wind, and against the wind and examine a mixed energy vehicle.

Who could use this kit…

• Homeschoolers
• People interested in realistic model building
• Folks interested in learning more about sustainable living and green energy
• Schools
• People who like to do science experiments
• And more

With the holidays coming up this might make a great gift too – for the right person. It says that the Power House is for ages 12+ – I’m going to work on it with my son Cedar who is 8 1/2. I figure Cedar loves to build and he loves eco-topics so this is right up his alley, even though he’s a little young. When he saw the kit he almost exploded with excitement so that’s a good sign.

After we take a closer look I’ll post what we think and what ages I think it’s ok for.

The kit contains: foam house and plastic greenhouse parts • frame • base • wood glue • solar panel • compass • wire • LED (light emitting diode) • battery holder • small light bulb and holder • solar motor • magnifying glass • propellers, iron core • ring magnet • thermometer • test tube holder • measuring beaker • sand paper • copper foil • zinc plate • wire mesh • many small parts such as paper clips • screws • clips • lead sinker • washers • wing nuts • iron powder • wires • tubing • rubber bands • yarn • wooden components • cutouts for devices • and full-color, illustrated 96 page Experiment Manual with 70 experiments and 20 building activities.

Look for our review soonish, but until then you can visit the Green Power House page for more details or pick it up at the Discovery Store.

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Doing it yourself is the cheapest route when it comes to play kitchens. You get to choose which eco-friendly materials to use, and often stuff around the house works for this project so costs can be low to free. My absolute favorite DIY play kitchen of all time is Lili’s Play Kitchen via Ohdeedoh shown above. Cost – about $30. Your child’s amazement – priceless! Seriously, how gorgeous right?!

Build An Eco-Friendly Play Kitchen – amazing DIY kitchen with easy $12 instructions!

Totally sweet re-purposed entertainment center! So creative and a great idea for keeping furniture out of the landfill.

The most beautiful blue play kitchen. This looks so pro I can’t believe it. Good instructions given too.

I love Via Toy Box and they have a sweet homemade kitchen that uses their pretty cubes. This one will cost a little more due to the cube purchases, but all cubes are made with beautiful baltic birch plywood that is sustainably grown and harvested and finished with eco-friendly paints; you could do this in any configuration and color scheme you like, and it’s quality that will last.

Hopefully this gave you some summer inspiration. Later maybe I’ll post some places to get less expensive eco-friendly play kitchen accessories to go along with your bright new kitchen!

Which kitchen is your favorite? I still like the first one the most, but that blue one is pretty darn enticing.

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What are HappyMais: Natural arts and crafts material made with GM-free certified cornstarch and dyed with non-toxic food colorings. You can use them to build just about any old thing you can think of and there’s no glue needed. HappyMais stick together with water.

Eco-perks:

• 100% biodegradable
• Non-toxic
• For every box sold, the manufacturer makes a donation to the Earth Fund Association.
• If you buy from Peek A Green you’ll get a tree planted for your purchase.

See Cedar’s take on this craft material below – neither of us like talking on camera or being on camera much, which you’ll likely be able to tell.

There’s a boy’s set and girl’s set available, which frankly is kind of silly since this is an any gender sort of toy, but that’s how they come. Each set comes with over 700 pieces in various bright colors, sizes and pre-cut shapes to help children with their creations, a natural cellulose sponge, a Mater-Bi knife (made from cornstarch) and a cardboard sheet with pop-out designs – flowers & jewels shapes for the girls or pop-out monsters & insects shapes for the boys. Either set would make a great gift or summer activity. Cedar loves his.

Has your child ever played with these?

[images via Peek A Green]

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1. Make a recycled Cardboard Playhouse like the one shown above from Make Baby Stuff, then break out the non-toxic art supplies and let your little one decorate to her heart’s content.
2. Kool-Aid dyed play silks – kids love play silks. You can toss them up, use them as doll clothing, use them for dress up fun, or fly around the yard with them swooshing behind you. You can find cheap silks at thrift stores OR silk material which takes a little more work because you’ll have to cut the material and mend them, but no big. If you don’t want to use Kool-aid try dying the silks with some homemade juice dye (made from plants).
3. Homemade Organic Paint Soap for Kids – not freakishly bright, but non-toxic subtly colored paints you can make with the kids.
4. Remember all those lame toilet paper tubes? Grab some glue and paste a million of them together to build a log cabin – if you start saving cardboard tubes now, you’ll have plenty by mid summer to build a big ol’ cabin.
5. Build a Bubble-Powered Rocket – with recycled paper and film canisters. This rocket actually lifts off.
6. Awesome collection of old-fashioned, handmade toys from Mother Earth News.
7. And my favorite homemade eco-recycled toy of all time – the amazing Perfect Summer Recycled Dollhouse Project.

What green and homemade toy ideas do you have?

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THEN I see something so flipping cute, so cool, so fun, that it renews my green go-power. Would you look at this:

Have you ever seen something so adorable!? I’m in total drool bliss right now just looking at these cuties. These brand new toys are the Eco-friendly Wooden Pecanpals. I actually hadn’t heard of them, but another green venue I blog for posted them today, so I got a quick lesson. These toys are made with sustainable wood and I hear that the first set made sold out in just days (not a surprise).

In other Pecanpals news, that said green venue I blog for is also holding a giveaway for one of these toys. A LIMITED EDITION too! Being that I work there, I doubt I’m eligible to enter (SOB) but I figured I’d come tell you guys about it. Look at what you can enter to win:

Um, seriously now… it’s frighting how much I like this toy. I’m wondering if this has something to do with my son’s Totoro obsession because the style is cute-similar; but I digress. What I meant to say is that you can hop over to Inhabitots asap and enter to win this Limited-Edition Pecanpal Toy!. OH yeah, and you’ll win a print which is also super cute:

This is such an amazing prize; since I can’t enter, I’m thinking that one of my awesome readers here should try and win. Don’t wait, because this giveaway ends May 8th, head over and enter now.

Also make sure that you’ve entered our current Tree Hugging Family Giveaways:

• Barley & Birch Organic Clothing Giveaway!
• Sparklehearts Natural Beauty Giveaway!

What do you think of these adorable toys above? Tell me in the comments.

[images via Inhabitots]

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Ping Pong Catapult – fun outside with some action! This toy is a cool idea for older kids (small parts make it bad for very young children). This natural, non-toxic wooden ping pong catapult is powered by a single rubber band and your kids. Kids lock the ball cup in place, load a ball, and push down on the lever to launch a ball across the yard. The launch is strong enough to toss balls, marshmallows, or acorns through the air but it won’t shoot hard enough to hurt a kid who gets in the way. Kids can even set up targets to aim for.

The Double Playstand Set is on the pricey side, but if you have more than one child or are ok with a summer splurge, it could be worth it due to the versatile fun factor. The set comes with two Playstands, four Play Clips and an Elemental Silk. This is a great outdoor or indoor play space for kids and allows their imagination to run the show. Kids could use this to put on plays, set up house, or just relax in the shade and read or draw.

The Nature Bag is such a great summer-time toy. Sustainable, educational, and way fun. Plus, I like that it’s a good choice for the whole family. The kit includes: a Fair Trade 100% certified organic cotton shoulder bag, an all season activity booklet, 2 leaf viewers, 8 color cards, recycled notepad, recycled pencil, soy based crayons, hemp twine, organic cotton blindfold, and a rubberwood magnifying glass. The kit also comes with various outdoor suggested activities like scavenger hunts, bug searches, and clay imprints.

SUMMER-MINDED TOYS WE’VE SEEN BEFORE:

Brand New Spring Line of Green Toys!

Perfect Summer Recycled Dollhouse Project – OK, NOT a bought toy, but so very cool.

Action Toys without Batteries

Solar Grasshopper Robot Kit

What kinds of toys do your kids like for summer fun?

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