Family Resources

Toys, Books and Equipment

Hearth Song
This vendor consistently wins awards for creativity in toys for children. They have craft items, small games, lots of imagination things, and I’ve been known to purchase gifts for special adult friends occasionally.

Natural Baby Catalog
This vendor specializes in simplicity, quality, and all natural, ecologically-minded products. It’s basically clothes for birth to six year olds, but they have some nice equipment and toys, too.

Perfectly Safe
This vendor focuses on making the environment safe for your little “explorer” with products for traveling, on-the-go, in the car, and when your child is playing at home.

Michael Olaf
A resource that captures the joy of Montessori with creative toys, equipment, and activities.

Montessori Services
Much of their equipment is designed for the Montessori classroom, but you’ll find many wonderful things for your children and your children’s friends if you need to get presents for them.

Childcraft
Has a particularly nice selection of dramatic and active play equipment.

Environments
Has things you don’t see anywhere else, especially for infants and toddlers. Notice their wonderful banners.

Kaplan
A good general-purpose source for browsing. Gives you ideas you might not have thought of and that you’ll never see in the common toy places.

Lakeshore
Another good general-purpose site.

KodoKids
A source for really different manipulatives, especially for outdoors.

Health and Safety

Cordblood
There are more and more diseases that are being treated most successfully with umbilical cord blood. If you are an expectant parent, please consider this life-saving choice even if it’s to a public donor bank.

Drug Abuse
Has some good answers for “did you ever use drugs”. Also has specific effects and long-term results of various drugs.

KidsinDanger
Started by parents whose 17-month-old died when his portable crib collapsed, the site warns of product recalls. It has links to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall list, and is searchable by product category or name.

Kidsource
A good source for in-depth health and education information, this site is managed by a group of California parents committed to making a lasting difference in the lives of parents and children.

March of Dimes
Visit this site for information on prenatal and infant health and referrals to your local chapter of the March of Dimes.

Safe Food
Good tips for keeping germs out of the kitchen.

Safe Kids
A national organization to prevent unintentional injury to children.

Very Best Baby
In-depth info on prenatal health and infant and family nutrition.

Zero To Three
This site contains research and information on physical, cognitive, and social development of infants and toddlers.

General Parenting

BabyCenter
A parenting community with scheduled chat room, including a middle-of-the-night club from 2:30 to 4:30 a.m. EST.

Children’s Television Workshop
Useful information on classic topics such as education and child development. When your preschooler wants to take over the computer, have him click on Sesame Street Central for stories, games, coloring pages, and all the latest scoop on Big Bird and friends.

Family
A member of the Disney online family, this site covers all the bases – food, travel, education, activities, home computing, and family relationships.

Screenit
A comprehensive review of movies, videos, and music. Reviews rate potentially objectionable material as alcohol, sex, violence, and profanity as minor, mild, moderate, and severe. They also detail the parts of the material in which these things appear.

Life in General

Center for Loss and Life Transition
Helps people in a grieving place. Great for you or if you are wanting to companion a person who is grieving.

Kraftfoods
Quick and easy food ideas using ingredients you can keep on hand.

National Wildlife Federation
This organization is an advocacy group to sustain our natural ecology. Their backyard wildlife habitat program is particularly good, and they have really high quality nature-inspired gifts.

Montessori

Association Montessori Internationale
This association was founded by Dr. Montessori to maintain the integrity of her life’s work and to ensure that it would be perpetuated after her death. The site describes the pedagogy, provides a historical background, and has an online store for purchasing materials, books, and videos.

American Montessori Society
The society’s purpose is to help children develop their potential through the educational principles of Dr. Maria Montessori.

North American Montessori Teacher’s Association
A membership organization that provides a wealth of information on their site.

Montessori Foundation
Dedicated to the advancement of Montessori education in the US and abroad. Offers programs and resources for parents, teachers, administrators, and boards.