Walk into almost any early years setting and you will spot two very different kinds of toy: a shelf of smooth, pale wooden blocks and a crate of brightly coloured plastic animals. Both are doing a job. The question of natural materials versus plastic toys is rarely a simple either/or, and it comes up constantly when parents and carers are deciding what to buy, what to keep and what to quietly pass on.
In Montessori-inspired and forest-school practice, materials are chosen with real care, but the guiding principle is not the material itself. It is what the material allows a child to do. A toy that can be used in a hundred different ways, that survives being dropped, and that a two-year-old can carry, stack, wash and put away is worth far more than a shelf of items with a single flashing purpose.
What follows is a practical look at what natural materials bring, where plastic genuinely earns its place, and how families in Enfield and across North London can build a collection that works in a real home — with real mud, real siblings and a real budget.
Why Natural Materials Speak to Young Children
A wooden block is a very different object to hold from a hollow plastic one. It has weight. It feels cool at first and then warms to the hand. It has grain, a faint smell, and a texture that changes slightly as it wears. For a young child still building a picture of the physical world, that feedback matters. Natural materials give children information about how heavy things are, how they balance, and how they sound when they fall — information a lightweight, uniform plastic object simply cannot provide.
Natural materials are also, as a rule, more open-ended. A smooth wooden offcut can be a slice of cake, a car, a telephone, a tower to knock down or a bridge for smaller creatures. A pine cone becomes a hedgehog, a tree, or something to roll across the floor. This is the sort of play that early years practitioners call open-ended: the child supplies the story and the toy does not insist on a script. Toys with buttons, screens and single prescribed outcomes tend to do the opposite — the child presses, the toy responds, and the play is over within minutes.
In a Montessori-inspired setting you will often see trays of shells, cones, curtain rings and pebbles set out in plain baskets, usually with only a few of each. This is deliberate. The materials are natural, the containers are simple, and there are enough items to explore properly without a tidal wave of pieces to manage. Children are shown how to handle things carefully, how to carry a tray with two hands, and how to put things back. Care is part of the curriculum. When a three-year-old understands that a glass jug is breakable, or that a wooden bowl needs wiping, she is learning something much bigger than tidying up.
Outdoors, the case is even clearer. In forest-school practice, sticks, mud, stones, water and leaves are not props borrowed from a classroom; they are the environment itself. Dens are built from fallen branches, kitchens from mud and rainwater, and the only real limit is the weather gear at home. Many parents find that the outdoor play their children remember most involved almost nothing bought at all — a muddy slope, a long stick, and permission to use both.
One honest caveat: natural does not automatically mean safe or suitable. Check age recommendations, watch for small parts and splinters, and look for child-safe, non-toxic finishes on wooden items that will be mouthed. Supervision still does the heavy lifting.
The Honest Case for Plastic: Where Synthetic Toys Still Earn Their Place
The case for plastic is not a weak one, and any fair comparison has to make it. Plastic is durable, washable and weatherproof, which matters enormously in group childcare. Settings care for children who are toilet training, who are unwell, and who put everything in their mouths. A plastic bucket can go outside in the rain, be sluiced with warm soapy water and be back on the shelf the same afternoon. Wool, untreated wood and paper all need a little more thought.
Plastic is also easier to manufacture to a consistent standard. A moulded edge can be made smooth and evenly rounded; a wooden one may eventually develop a splinter. Interlocking construction sets snap together in a way that wood rarely can, and they support a specific kind of play — sustained building, problem-solving, early engineering — that many children adore. Puzzles, threading beads, sand and water jugs, and small-world figures are all things plastic simply performs extremely well.
Cost and access matter too. Plastic toys are generally cheaper, widely available second-hand, and often donated in bulk to charity shops and toy libraries. Not every family has a garden, a shed or the space to store a mud kitchen. For a child living in a flat, a plastic tea set that can go in the bath or a set of stacking cups that can be wiped down may genuinely be the most sensible option. A carefully prepared environment has to work for the families it serves, not for a photograph.
There is also the question of representation. Plastic opens up affordable access to dolls with a range of skin tones, play food from many cultures, model animals, and toys that support children with additional needs. Choosing only the most beautiful natural materials can, if we are not careful, narrow the play rather than widen it.
The most useful stance is not a hierarchy of virtue but a question: what does this toy let my child do, and can we look after it? A sturdy plastic bucket and a good set of wooden blocks can sit very comfortably on the same shelf.
Making It Work at Home: A Practical Approach for North London Families
Start with what you already own. Tip everything out, sort it into three piles — keep, rotate and pass on — and notice how many items your child has actually used in the past month. Most of us are surprised by how few. A smaller collection, stored at child height in labelled baskets, is easier to choose from and easier to tidy, and it tends to produce longer, deeper play than a bulging toy box.
Then add a handful of loose parts: a basket of shells, a bag of conkers collected on an autumn walk, plain wooden curtain rings, corks, squares of fabric, a colander of pine cones. Nothing small enough to be a choking risk for a child still mouthing, and always with an adult nearby. In practice, a setting such as Montessori nursery Enfield builds on exactly that idea — open baskets of simple materials on low shelves, ready for a child to choose from and return.
Look at what is on your doorstep. Enfield and the surrounding boroughs have plenty of green space for gathering and exploring — the woods and open fields around Trent Park, the grounds at Forty Hall, and the parks and playing fields scattered across the area. A walk with a small bag for leaves, stones and feathers costs nothing and restocks the toy shop for a week. Back at home, a washing-up bowl of water, a few real metal spoons and a patch of grass is a complete sensory session for a one-year-old.
Age matters when you are choosing. Between one and two, mouthing is constant, so keep materials large, safely finished and washable, and be cautious with anything fibrous or brittle. Between three and five, children begin to plan, build and negotiate with friends, so add more blocks, more sand and water, and longer projects — a den with pegs and cloths, a planting tray, a mini-beast hunt with a magnifying glass and a gentle hand.
Finally, involve your child in looking after the materials. Sanding a rough edge, oiling a wooden board, drying pebbles after rain, wiping a plastic jug — all of it is practical life, and all of it teaches the same lesson: we look after the things we use, and the things we use are worth looking after. Whatever the material, that habit is the one children carry with them.
