Fafu’s woolen Furry Fun balls come in boxed sets with 30, 60 or 90 balls. There are no instructions, no pre-set themes to influence the direction of the childs play and creativity. This kind of free form is what makes these Furry Fun balls so special. The offer of a less structured playing element is suggesting to the kids to use their imagination and creative “muscles” by starting from scratch. The psychical form is given but the “psychological form” of Furry Fun rests on what the child visualizes. So, with Furry Fun it is solely up to the children to come up with an idea of what the balls can be used as and from there on morph this idea endlessly.

Conversely, adults can also use Furry Fun. They work great in storytelling in kindergartens, schools or at home. Recently, a teacher told us that she had used the Furry Fun balls as small figures to visualize the story of Little Red Riding Hood to make it more alive. Inspired by this, we also made a short short story – a furry fun fable if you like  – which you can see by visiting our Facebook profile. As you will notice, we stitched some balls together to create small figures. This was very easy to do and is definitely something even small kids can participate in: just let them choose the colors and sizes of the balls. Your job is then to stitch the balls together, following their descriptions of how they imagine the figures should look. Apart from the obvious use as toys, these  fluffy figures also stand as colorful decorations in the window if not your child wishes to give them as presents to his or her grandparents. The balls can also be put on a string and worn as a necklace or bracelet.

Furry Fun is a playing element for children to experiment with free forms by using their creativity. When you see your kid tossing them out all over the coffee table try to  notice how their imagination goes on a journey as the world of creativity spins around at their fingertips.

As an exciting fusion between a sweater, skirt, and Mexican poncho, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to wear Andy. This is simply up to the children to figure out for themselves. With Andy’s bright colors and quite unusual features, the garment presents a versatility of alternative ways to be worn for both everyday uses and as a costume in play scenarios. As such, Andy is more than a normal piece of clothing. Andy is a creation that can take on many shapes and is made so it is fun to wear. More than anything, Andy meets children on their own premises.

The flexible design is intended to embrace the impulsive movements and sudden changes of children’s plays. This makes Andy suitable for any kind of role-play. Children can use Andy as a princess cape or pretend they are a fearsome monster that can grow arms and legs from everywhere. Most importantly, even if the play should move spontaneously onwards, Andy can still be adapted and follow along. It is all about using the imagination and with Andy, children can live it out – with a stroke of magic, the princess cape could suddenly turn into bird wings … and who dares think of, what the fearsome monster becomes?

Furthermore, Andy can come in handy and eventually speed up the process a bit when children are about to learn to dress by themselves. On one side, with all its arm- and leg holes, Andy challenges children’s understanding of how a garment is worn and how it looks. On the other side, Andy arouses a curiosity to explore and experiment with these different schemes.

Andy lives up to what we at FAFU expect from all of our products.  They must be suitable for creative play by calling the child’s imagination to the lead but without interfering remarkably or directly with how the play develops.

In our last blog-post we briefly discussed how toys and children both have an effect on play. We argued that toys intended for creative or imaginative play not only let children channel their innate recourses into the play but also helps develop them further. We also mentioned that we would take a look at FAFU’s products in this and the following blog-post to see how and why we believe they are suited for creative and imaginative play.

In essence, the designs of our products are underlined by the notion of creative and imaginative play by emphasizing that their use opens up for possibilities and offers the child an opportunity to come up with its own ideas regarding their use throughout the play. We don’t want to have our designs dictating the play, as this would interfere directly with the idea of creative and imaginative play. Therefore, we put an effort into having as little prefixations as possible – hence the emphasis on a quality design that brings possibilities into the play.

Let’s take a look at our Cone: At first glance it looks like a felted hat that could have been made for small elves or other pixie creatures. The felt however, is quite soft and treated so it can be folded into something more than that it first appears as. The Cone can easily be folded into a sailor’s hat, or because of the small hole in the top of it, it can act as binoculars like the ones pirates use. Its ability to be altered and take on other shapes also allows the Cone to be used in more than just role-plays. It might as well be used as a cave where toy animals live or as a boat in which toy-figures set off to go on adventures.

The Cone can be seen as a physical paraphrase for the old saying “imagination is the only limit”. Despite its simple look, it really holds more than meets the eye. It supports children’s creativity and natural curiosity with its multifaceted design and playing with it accedes to let children use their fine motor skills as they realize its many potentials.

As you also can see in our online store, the Cone also comes in many different and bright colors.

Any given toy can and will influence the nature of a play, but every child also has his or her own individual way of playing which affects how the toys are used. It is the old story of “the object affects the subject and the subject affects the object”.

All toys are of course made for the purpose of entertaining children. However, many of todays toys are also designed with the idea that the toys must help develop children’s cognitive and motor skills by triggering creative and imaginative  play.

The idea behind creative and imaginative play is that the interaction of these two spheres mentioned above leads to a dynamic play that has no prior outline, except for one: it can develop in all kinds of directions; hence we also tend to call it free play. The important note here is that toys intended for creative and imaginative play bring possibilities into the play – it’s just up to the child to grab and make use of them. The toys themselves have very little effect on the play itself. Instead, they rely fully on the child’s own initiative and capability to make spontaneous decisions to move the play onward – which again relies on the child’s concentration, creativity and imagination.

This is the context in which creative and imaginative play helps develop children’s cognitive and motor skills. In the following blogpost we will discuss this further, by looking at some of our products.

Children learn best through play. For this reason, and with the right set of toys, it is possible to enhance the development of young children’s fine and gross motor skills – such as the hand-eye coordination and balance. The right toys even stimulate children’s imagination and excite their natural curiosity. And because toys with an educational angle allow children to be successful at what they’re doing, they also help to build children’s self-esteem

What to look for are educational toys that let children use their imagination and creativity while they learn new skills in a fun way – look for toys that will call for immediate attention and creative use. Toys with bright colors and peculiar shapes, which can be used in all kind of different play scenarios, make this happen.

These are the parts we at FAFU believe we have taken into consideration in our line of toys. We believe that our toys help develop children’s fine motor skills, that our toys can be used in dynamic and fast moving plays and that our toys also help build up children’s cognitive skills.

From time to time, we all experience boredom. There is no real explanation for its appearance, boredom just .. comes – and then drives us to try a host of possibilities to get away from it. Unfortunately, they rarely seem to really get us anywhere.

But whereas adults can usually live with the fact that sometimes our minutes feel like an endless empty decay, children are less likely to do so. It takes patience and practice to handle boredom and as long as you haven’t learned it, boredom will make you feel alone, insufficient and trouble your minds peace.

So what can we do to save our children – not only from boredom itself, but also from the distress they can experience with it?

It is clear, that we need to motivate our children to do something rather than doing nothing. A response like ”I’ll bet you can find something interesting to do” doesn’t solve much, and the child will almost certainly feel rejected. We need to remember that when children tell us they are bored, they are actually asking us for help and assistance. To help our children to overcome boredom, it is up to us to take the initiative and come up with an idea that will push it aside. Furthermore, we also have to participate in whatever the idea is about. We are their role models, and if we can’t show engagement, neither will the child.

Obviously, the activity we compose must be a social activity – and there are literally plenty to choose from and far more than what we can mention OR come up with here. If there is snow outside, building a snowman or snow cave would be a perfect choice. Especially if it is followed by a large cup of hot chocolate and a good story either from a book or one (or more) from your own life. If it is summer, you could go outside and pick flowers for a bouquet or go on a bug hunt. Later you can see if you can find the flowers you picked or the bugs you caught in a book or on the internet, but don’t forget to set the bugs free again :-). If it is pouring down with rain, stay inside and look through old photo albums or make paintings. You could also gather the family around a board game. It really doesn’t matter what you think up, because anything that can steer the child away from boredom and the off-putting feelings it brings, is an excellent idea! That’s the essential thing for us to remember. If you know any activity that easily steers children away from boredom, feel free to tell us :-)

It is apparent, that the content of raising and teaching a child is expected to vary with the development of society.

Today, one of the overarching motives of raising a child in our society is to encourage and assist a small human being to unfold the potentials that make him or her unique.

Just as it is evident that raising and teaching differ with the development of society, it is also clear that the development of society must be expected to vary with how we raise our children. Eventually, children must recognize that even though we are all unique, we are still a part of a greater whole in which we all share the same equality and therefore must treat each other with care and respect.

In this perspective, the educational context is rooted in humanistic ethics and democratic responsibilities – and still centered around what the children pick-up through adults actions and examples. This means that we should never fail the child and act against it in a way that we would not want to be treated ourselves. It also means that we must explain to the child the reasons to why it is important we help and take care of one another. This concept is of course abstract in its theory, but by setting up illustrative examples it becomes easy to understand. For instance, find (not too harsh) images that show how people in the third world live. Every child will immediately see the difference between their life and ours and thus ask questions about this issue. With a little time and effort, the child will have been given an awareness of other peoples problems and a sense of why they need help. Further, the child can also be introduced to some of the actual ways we can help people in need. For example, the next time the two of you are out shopping, pick a fair trade product from one of the shelves and explain how it can be a significant help for other people if you buy it – and let the child decide whether or not to choose it.
I’ll bet your child will choose the fair trade product and feel a little proud of doing so :-)

Höfundar: Ingvar Barkarson og Hulda Hreiðarsdóttir

Í dag gefum við út bókina Fafúin: Heyrðu ég er með smá hugmynd, sem Hulda skrifaði ásamt hinum bráðefnilega listamanni, Ingvari Barkarsyni sem jafnframt myndskreytti bókina.

Bókin fjallar um Gust, sem er hugmyndaríkt fafú sem ákveður einn daginn að sýna hugrekki og leggja í leiðangur. Hann vonast til þess að upplifa og læra eitthvað nýtt svo hann geti hjálpað hinum í þorpinu og gert lífið skemmtilegra. Á leiðinni eignast hann dýrmætan vin, tekst á við sjálfan sig og færir vinum sínum í þorpinu óvænta gjöf. Tilvalin fyrir börn á aldrinum 2-10 ára.

Bókin um fafúin kemur á sölustaði á höfuðborgarsvæðinu 26. nóvember en verður fáanleg á öðrum sölustöðum strax eftir helgi.

Sölustaðir:

Bókabúð Máls og menningar, Reykjavík
Kraum Hafnarhúsinu, Reykjavík
ABC leikföng, Reykjavík
Úlfarsfell, Reykjavík
Bókabúðin Hamraborg, Kópavogi
Sunnlenska bókakaffið, Selfossi
Eskja, Eskifirði
Hrund, Ólafsvík
Bókaverslun Þórarins, Húsavík
Tónspil, Neskaupsstað

Hagkaup Skeifunni
Hagkaup Smáralind
Hagkaup Kringlunni
Hagkaup Garðabæ
Hagkaup Holtagörðum

A fascinating talk by designer Emily Pilloton about how design can help change the school system (and the world for that matter).