Heaven on Earth: A Handbook for Parents of Young Children
By Sharifa Oppenheimer

We are witnessing the shifting of old forms that once stood as the foundation of our daily lives. Parents, who must prepare the next generation to meet this changing world, have more questions now than ever before. Although our culture and the nature of the family may be changing, the atmosphere in the home continues to create the foundation of a child’s life. In Heaven on Earth, parent and educator Sharifa Oppenheimer reveals how to make the home environment warm, lively, loving, and consistent with your highest ideals.

Heaven on Earth balances a theoretical understanding of child development with practical ideas, resources, and tips that can transform family life. Readers will learn how to establish the life rhythms that lay the foundation for all learning, how to design indoor play environments that allow children the broadest skills development, and how to create backyard play spaces that encourage vigorous movement and a wide sensory palette. Through art, storytelling, and the festival celebrations, this book is a guide to building a "family culture" based on the guiding principle of love. Such a culture supports children and allows the free development of each unique soul.

Responding to parents’ questions from more than twenty years of teaching, Oppenheimer has created a gift from the heart. This is a practical, inspiring resource that brings her informed, intuitive understanding of young children into the heart of the home.

Beyond the Rainbow Bridge: Nurturing Our Children from Birth to Seven
By Barbara J. Patterson and Pamela Bradley

Beyond the Rainbow Bridge is based on a successful Waldorf/Steiner School parent-enrichment class led by a master early-childhood teacher. The book offers a deep understanding of children, along with seasoned practical wisdom from a wife, mother, and grandparent. Readers will learn:

• Healthy rhythms in home and school
• What kind of play stimulates imagination
• How to protect the child’s developing 12 senses
• The stages of a child’s physical growth
• Sensible ideas for creative discipline
• How to create birthday stories, knot dolls and puppets

Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids
By Kim John Payne and Lisa M. Ross

Today’s busier, faster society is waging an undeclared war on childhood. With too much stuff, too many choices, and too little time, children can become anxious, have trouble with friends and school, or even be diagnosed with behavioral problems. Now internationally renowned family consultant Kim John Payne helps parents reclaim for their children the space and freedom that all kids need for their attention to deepen and their individuality to flourish. Simplicity Parenting offers inspiration, ideas, and a blueprint for change:

• Streamline your home environment -- reduce the amount of toys, books, and clutter—as well as the lights, sounds, and general sensory overload.
• Establish rhythms and rituals -- discover ways to ease daily tensions, create battle-free mealtimes and bedtimes, and tell if your child is overwhelmed.
• Schedule a break in the schedule -- establish intervals of calm and connection in your child’s daily torrent of constant doing.
• Scale back on media and parental involvement -- manage your children’s “screen time” to limit the endless deluge of information and stimulation.

A manifesto for protecting the grace of childhood, Simplicity Parenting is an eloquent guide to bringing new rhythms to bear on the lifelong art of raising children.

Toxic Childhood: How the Modern World is Damaging Our Children and What We Can Do About It
By Sue Palmer

Top literacy expert Sue Palmer examines the danger zones, from poor diet, lack of exercise, and sleep deprivation to symptoms emerging from our modern lifestyle of TV, computer games, and cell phones. This combination of factors, along with parents’ increasingly stressful lives, means that we are developing a toxic new generation, with its health and brains at risk. Here is the latest research from around the world, with advice for worried parents on protecting their families and ensuring their children emerge as healthy, intelligent, and happy adults.

Palmer's central argument is that, while adults are benefiting enormously from living in a wealthier, healthier society where electronic technologies have enriched our lives, children are suffering because their childhood experiences are being polluted by the range of technologies and lifestyle choices offered by the modern world.

You Are Your Child's First Teacher: What Parents Can Do With and For Their Children from Birth to Age Six
By Rahima Baldwin Dancy

Nowadays parents are bombarded by any number of approaches about how to be with their children. You Are Your Child’s First Teacher introduces a new way of understanding the human being so that parents can be best equipped to serve as their own children's best teachers. Chapters include: Caring for the Newborn, Helping Your Toddler's Development, The Development of Fantasy and Creative Play, Nourishing Your Child's Imagination, Rhythm and Discipline in Home Life, Readiness for School, and more.

Seven Times the Sun
By Shea Darian

A one-of-a-kind book full of ideas, practical advice and a refreshing view of the routine of daily life in the home and family. Stories, songs, poems, and verses are interwoven throughout. Mealtimes, chores, naps, and playtime. . . A great resource guide.

The Creative Family
By Amanda Blake Soule

Amanda Blake Soule has charmed many with her tales of creativity and parenting on her blog, SouleMama.com (add link www.soulemama.com). In her first book, she shares ideas and projects with the same warm tone and down-to-earth voice. Perfect for all families, the wide range of projects presented here offers ideas for imaginative play, art and crafts, nature explorations, and family celebrations. This is a book which embraces a whole new way of living that will engage your children’s imagination, celebrate their achievements, and help you to express love and gratitude for each other as a family.

Alternatives to TV Handbook
By Marie McClendon

I highly recommend this delightful handbook for 21st Century parents, grandparents, libraries, waiting rooms, or any caregivers. You'll find so many engaging activities for children ages 1-12 along with doable suggestions on how not to use the TV as a babysitter and how to bring out the creativity in your children. A great resource at an affordable price, for you or that spouse or grandparent who needs suggestions or thinks you have gone off the deep end!

The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life
By Marie Winn

How does the passive act of watching television and other electronic media, regardless of their content, affect a developing child's relationship to the real world? Focusing on this crucial question, Marie Winn takes a compelling look at television's impact on children and the family. Winn's classic study has been extensively updated to address the new media landscape, including new sections on: computers, video games, the VCR, the V-Chip and other control devices, TV programming for babies, television and physical health, and gaining control of your TV.