Calling all budding archi-tots and design-savvy kids! We’re partnering with Chronicle Books to give away two of its latest and greatest designy kids products: A MoMa Modern Play House and a MoMa Modern Play Family, worth $33. No stuffy Victorian dollhouses here: This mid-century-inspired play set offers clean, minimalist lines, complete with six nesting boxes, eight mix-and-match furniture pieces, and removable vinyl clings. Our lucky winner will also get a press-out family of five, along with a cat, a dog, a doghouse, and more than 150 mix-and-match removable clothes. Enter to win below!
Here’s how to enter and win a MoMa Modern Play House and Play Family!
1) Sign up for our weekly newsletter (if you haven’t already!) We’ll be notifying the winner in our newsletter – so you need to sign up and receive our newsletter to find out if you have won.
2) Add a comment to this post with your answer to the following question: How are you teaching your green kid the value of good design?
Contest ends Tuesday, June 15th, 2010 at 12 midnight EST. Winner will be announced in the following week’s newsletter!
I am teaching my kid the value of good design in the best way possible . . . by example. My company, Postgreen, builds some of the coolest, most efficient, modern, green homes out there and me and my little lady take regular tours to make sure she is fully indoctrinated with awesomeness.
I try to make his environment simple because I think when surrounded with many small things, we cannot appreciate what we have.
Being an interior designer who concentrated my studies on sustainability, we are always looking for green alternatives whether it be green design choices or green living choices. Although my children are still pretty young (the oldest is 2), we strive to stress the importance of always choosing the option that have the least negative impact on our planet.
Those are awesome! And reminiscent of our midcentury modern home. My little guy would love those. We’re teaching our little man by example– letting him see us making design choices around our home that are environmentally responsible and including him in the dinner time design conversations. He is immersed in our renovation.
Sadly not doing such a great job of this which is why I really need to win it! Thanks, Maureen
Although my little guy is just a toddler, we still try and surround him with aesthetically pleasing books, toys, and clothes. Jut because he’s little doesn’t mean his environment has to be saturated with gaudy neon colored plastic.
when we built our house we tried very hard to have a design that was green as far as heating, cooling and design of the rooms.the kids were part of that process.
tiramisu392 (at) yahoo.com
We live in a small space and work hard to keep it as green and efficient as possible. He learns by example and doing.
everything we give our little one is either re-purposed, handmade, thrifted, or recycled/low impact. Her food is not mass produced, and is very homemade and mostly local. we provide by example and hope that it will infiltrate her attitude about this world we live in. still many more years to go before she could play with this, but gosh! it would be so cool to have it for her.
Another fabulous giveaway. My niece just returned home from a 45 day stay in the hospital.
She is still on anti-seizure medicine and taking 3 kinds of therapy a week until they figure out
what is wrong with her. She would adore this house and family! I am teaching my sons the
value of green and good design by pointing out how we are building our next home. We
have hired certified green builders and they help us pick the most energy efficient way to
buy appliances, furniture and the building of our home. We are also scaling down very much
in the size of the home. Many thanks, Cindi
How are you teaching your green kid the value of good design? We discuss materials things are made of a lot. Plastic, vs. wood, vs. metal. We talk about overuse and bad planning.
My kids are learning the value of green design because we are planning on powering our new house with solar energy and we are also planning on being self sufficient by raising our own animals and growing our own food!
We definitely try to reuse & recycle for all our craft projects. I have a 2 yo & a 4 yo and we have created some fantastic things recently with items that would have been tossed in the trash. It forces us to be creative and green all in one. We have also just signed up for a gardening program for the summer in our neighborhood. I can’t wait for us to get our hands in the dirt.
I am teaching my son the value of good design by showing him the amazing designs and aesthetics of the natural world. Flowers, leaves, worms, snails, birds nests, mole hills…they all have such interesting, efficient and beautiful designs.
oh wow. i think the best thing we are doing is trying (TRYING) to instill a little bit of the value of minimalism.
not lots of toys, just a few really good ones. this will help for sure!
I teach by example! I figure by just being exposed to it he’ll see it and think that it is normal. We’re lucky to have so many good examples where we live too.
What a neat idea! We try very hard to just be vocal about all our decisions… this way she’s learning without forced study so that one day it will be natural for her.
would love to win this, very cute
Both my husband and I are artists and have been eco-conscious for years–that has influenced almost every purchase we have ever made. The upside of most eco-conscious merchandise is it is also social-responsible and the companies that create such products also have artistic vision(or the owners are artist themselves). These are values we want to instill in our children. So, you would say that the lesson is learned at home–or by modeling as someone else stated. (It helps they attend a Montessori school that reiterates these values.)
It maybe extreme, but I don’t hesitate to tell my kids why they can’t have certain toy or other object of desire. If I know it was not created with respect for the earth or the people that made it, then they can’t take joy in playing with it.
My son and I built vegetable boxes for his pre-school. They are working on planting and growing food, as well as composting their food scraps. Start em young!
My son and I built vegetable boxes for his pre-school. They are growing food and composting their food scraps. He now knows that food does not grow at a store and that farms (local farms at that) are very important ito our daily survival.
I probably am not really teaching my kids about the value of good design, but I would like to ! I do try to have nice design in our home, so hopefully they learn by observing. Also, I do teach them about the value of good organization and that is a part of good design.
Our 22 month old is learning from his environment – he’s surrounded by good, natural, simple materials – and we’re helping him apply what he’s learned in designing his soon-to-arrive little brother or sister’s room.
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I implement green design by using and reusing recycleable products in our house.
We like building play spaces together using empty cereal boxes and even canned goods for his cars and trains. I have always liked the idea of reusing what you have to make new things. Not only is it good for the earth, but it’s good for the imagination.
We live in an old house that was designed to be heated and cooled by the environment. We can get a wonderful breeze through the house early morning and in the evening to cool things and we keep the southern blinds shut during the daytime in the summer and then open them in the evening to let the wind sweep through. It’s the kids’ jobs to open and close the blinds and shutters as needed.
We discuss the beauty we see in nature and the cycle of life around us. This teaches my toddler that all things have a purpose and their design is in sync with accomplishing their role in our ecosystem!
My seven year old loves fashionable things and being creative. We try to buy organic and free trade clothing and she loves picking out her own clothes. She is understanding good design, form and function. She’s asked for a sewing machine because when she outgrows the clothes she loves she wants to re-design them and sew them into something she can wear again. Her birthday is next week so we’ve saved for a small sewing machine for her. If we win the little playhouse it would make such a wonderful gift for her.
We are teaching our Ella j by example! Recycling, gardening, and trying to create our own urban farm with chickens.
Our 9 month old twins hopefully have a sense of design – starting with the nursery and now moving toward the play area my husband and I are giving them a sense of good design with great visual cues (colors, wall decals, prints, books, etc) as well as keeping up with the rest of the house for the adults to indulge in (including outside gardens, planters, etc.) So, I guess so far it’s by example with lots of observation thrown in.
We try to buy green, well-designed toys and other products (mostly with a minimalist aesthetic) for our kids. We avoid mass-market plastic toys for the most part. We support local businesses as much as we can, such as the local toy store and farmer’s market.
I am able to teach my child design elements through art, blocks, gardening, and clean up!
We are showing her the value of recycling and good design. She is getting some fabulous fashionable hand me downs from friends that she loves. Not spending crazy money on outfits is helping us spend more time working on our house as a family.
This is an awesome giveaway. Thanks for the chance to win!
I’m teaching my 2 year old daughter by reusing supplies for our crafts (old magazines etc). Hope to do more in the future.
How are you teaching your green kid the value of good design?
We look to nature- evolution has already already created the perfect designs.
I am a graphic designer, so ‘good design’ is part of our normal conversations! We garden, compost, use rain barrels, go to the art museum, and talk about great product design when we go to the store. I design packaging, so even a trip to Target can spark a great conversation about good design.
I’m working to teach my kid about good design in several ways. But the biggest one is by being a toy designer myself! I can’t wait until she’s a little older so she can have a better understanding of the freelance work I do. Plus of course, I surround us both with as much good design as I possibly can!
I teach them design by using a green lifestyle all around my girls.
We teach our children the value of good design by continually creating houses in our yard out of found objects, typically in our yard for fairies. We all enjoy the process and the time we share and it is all reusing, and renewing. Lots of laughs.
I would definitely not have commented on this post until today, because I just found out v. recently, well this morning that I am pregnant and well on my way to bringing a little being into the world. I am obsessed with sustainable, modern design – and my husband is too. I grew up in a small apt. in Bombay, India where i think design and it’s importance were first impressed into my DNA. My mother was incredible at creating modular, open living spaces for a family of 4 within 600 sq. feet, I still think it is amazing that I grew up with an awareness for well made, space-adaptive furniture that was both minimalist yet always felt homey and luxurious. Today in our home on the west coast of Canada, we’ve managed to furnish it with both vintage and modern mid century pieces – yet I’m always looking to my mother for inspiration on how best to use space both efficiently and easefully. The idea of being a mother myself has not even sunk in as yet, but I know that I want to raise my child with an awareness of beautiful, functional and sustainable design and the MOMA playhouse would be a perfect entry point to that journey. Thanks for the post!
The value of good design is inherit in not only universal design, but the environmental importance. To teach children these concepts can be cumbersome, but it starts with the small things. Buying recycled or biodegradable products, the act of recycling and exposing children to the value of saving an earth for the future. Furthermore, exposing children to the value of color, texture and the feeling associated with color expands their concepts of color. Influencing the arts and drawing (studying artists and their works is a great exposure) is a way to introduce design. I believe children are 50% environmental and whatever you expose your children to (ie museums, cities, travel and home environment) will influence their behaviors and conceptual beliefs.
Talking about his own design choices (art, clothes, food on the plate, music etc.)
As a trained urban planner I try to point out the design elements that make up the foundation of all the spaces we use daily and discuss aspects of those that may not be obvious such as what makes a space inviting, or not, or only for some.
We live green and raise our children this way. Nothing special about it. We just do this from the start. We believe this is the best education. Just live it through and kids will pick it up and make it happen.
my nephew loves to reuse old stuff to make art and crafts
This may surprize and inspire some of you: My 7-year old granddaughter is teaching me. Her mother and I help her by having her be in the Daisies (a pre-brownie Girl Scout program) and they take her to Community Water Services who teach her about water conservation, garden planning and even give her a minute glass to time showers (they also visit fire stations and museums). Now my grandaughter lectures me on doing dishes (don’t have a dishwasher). Then she goes to YMCA for after school care and they teach her about recycling and garbage. The tv teaches her about the inter-relationships between trees and animals and people and the need to protect the environment. She lectures on these subjects at the drop of a hat. Many of her art projects at school are using recycled material and paper. Pretty cool huh? Word is getting around at least with the young in Oregon. (Plan on giving this wonderful prize, if I win, to the YMCA she goes attends. ) I subscribe and post to FB your material.
This may surprize and inspire some of you: My 7-year old granddaughter is teaching me. Her mother and I help her by having her be in the Daisies (a pre-brownie Girl Scout program) and they take her to Community Water Services who teach her about water conservation, garden planning and even give her a minute glass to time showers (they also visit fire stations and museums). Now my grandaughter lectures me on doing dishes (don’t have a dishwasher). Then she goes to YMCA for after school care and they teach her about recycling and garbage. The tv teaches her about the inter-relationships between trees and animals and people and the need to protect the environment. She lectures on these subjects at the drop of a hat. Many of her art projects at school are using recycled material and paper. Pretty cool huh? Word is getting around at least with the young in Oregon. (Plan on giving this wonderful prize, if I win, to the YMCA she attends. ) I subscribe and post to FB your material.
My husband, an architecture graduate student, and I, a Toxic Awareness Advocate, stress to our children, Callie & Jack, that each day presents itself as a new day to improve upon the environment around us. So many choices come our way and asking the right questions and refusing to “just go along” with what we know isn’t always right is a good habit to impart to the next generation. Good design asks, how does this impact all those involved, how can I minimize materials and waste without compromising quality, how can I do more with less space, how toxic are the materials I’m using and how many miles total did it take for me to acquire the materials I will be using. Knowledge is a beautiful thing.
Can you choose if your modern family has a mommy and daddy or a mommy and a mommy or a daddy and a daddy?
We are teaching good design by exploring.The process of design is important to our lives and it touches everything we do, from cooking to traveling.
Less is more. That goes for toys and posts:)
My daughter and I enjoy making playthings from repurposed boxes – a tissue box becomes a horse barn, a large moving box becomes a castle with the help of some paint and crayons, we’ve been cutting out images of food from food boxes for years and serving them up in her play kitchen. At six, she understands that most things have a life beyond their original purpose and that some things “reused” are better than new. We’re still working on developing her “design eyes” but I am confident through continued exposure to simple, beautiful, sustainable surroundings, good design will become second nature for her in time.
The best way I teach my child about good design. He’s still very young, he’s 3 years old. For me it all starts with letting him work his way through colors. I let him be comfortable in using them—to mix it all spontaneously without interfering much. I’m also setting an example to him about taking care of the plants and animals around our home. That is a start.
I try to show my 8-year old son the value of good design by showing him the projects I do for design school and letting his natural enthusiasm be a springboard for his own projects. I encourage him to follow his often wild ideas by offering him a variety of materials and medium, and by showing him how to use various tools. We both work within a tight budget (both financial and ecological – using mostly recycled or recyclable materials), the limitations of which I think spark the most creative designs. We usually talk about his vision and what worked or didn’t work for him and options he might have. When we travel, we also talk about design and what influences it from place to place, and encourage him to photograph things he finds interesting and inspiring.
I showed them beautiful nature, the forests, the oceans and beaches. I taught them about animals, plants and insects. They love it a lot. I once told them if they do not conserve and save the earth now, everything they enjoyed is going to end and their kids won’t be able to see it. They broke down in tears. =P They are only 3-5 year-old.
my granddaughters favorite toy is a rock, sometimes our kids caan teach us about living green and good design!
We recently built an elevated tree/clubhouse on the side of our shed. While we built it I explained that we were using old lumber recycled from other projects and that we can design it using fastners that come apart easily and to make any cuts in the wood at 4 foot intervals or multiples of 4′. By doing these things we can again in the future use the same lumber for other purposes. Of course after she’s outgrown her clubhouse.
Good design starts with realizing what you really need and don’t need…. we’re raising my daughter in a relatively minimal environment, and also teach her to think critically and responsibly about consumer culture.
I have not had opportunity to see the baby for whom I would like to give this toy. But an architect aunt can only wish that her nephew grow up imagining a more beautiful world, a greener world.
We’re using our home and the Cooper Hewitt!
We keep away from as much plastic stuff as we can, our kids are raised with minimal stuff and we do our best to ensure that each item is both beautiful and responsible.
We work with all kinds of children in our practice – we design schools, and incorporate green design into the classroom environment, and are currently working with teachers on green lesson plans. Teachers are themselves eager to learn about sustainable practices. Our volunteer work involves school vegtable gardens: the children are more interested in eating vegtables if they saw them growing in the school yard.
My wife and I are helping out a single mom and her family. The children are now starting to grow vegtables on their apartment patio –
Little things, like seeds from a plant – grow big in the minds of a child
We want to lead by example, learn from mistakes and from example. We are consciously altering the way we live, for ourselves, for the arrival of our baby, and for the rest of the earth and its surrounds.
We teach our two girls the value of GREEN in many ways, but my favorite is with herbal gardening and vegetable gardening, both designing and planting/tending. They also help with all the recycling, and they’re only 2 and 4. But the coolest design relatives we have are far away ~ so we need all the help with modern design we can get. Rules: severe restrictions on pink, no barbie, no frou-frou. This house is perfect! ~
The value of good design for us and our kids, means, little or no packaging, no batteries needed, recyclable, renewable, and life-long enjoyment!
We have a lot of creative friends and are active in the art community and go to galleries and museums often. A lot of our own art hangs in our home and we try to include our kids in our own creative processes as much as possible..
Grandbabies sure would love these.
We try to buy “green” toys and request no gifts at birthday parties. Also, we teach him to put away his toys so that he can see that he has more than enough!
I am teaching my toddler the value of good design by example of us doing our best to have a green household, building our own green house and veggie garden. One day he will be big enough to help and maybe grow some of his own favorite foods in. We would love to win this prize!
Well… we try to teach her by making goog design choices… eco-friendly, nice, and respectfull to nature, animals, people.
Loving your child and being a good example him/her is the most important thing you can do.
Well, as the child I think my parents have definitely driven me to be eco conscious by the way they have never thought it necessary to buy me toys or clothes…that way I’ve learned to use what I have-cardboard boxes, plastic bottles-to create things that I hope will make a difference. I want to be with my family as long as possible, and being greener is the way to do it.
Not thinking like a consumerist changes everything. 
Now I want to be design something green when I grow up and I know my parents willsupport me
Being an architect with my own office this will be a nice environment for my clients who came to our meetings with their children, so they will be able to play wile meeting took place and why not not their parents can play to.
We try to spend lots of time outside, days playing in the woods observing nature, learning about preserving our woodlands and mountaintops here in North Carolina. In our home, and in the playroom, we emphasis simplicity. We try avoid the big box stores and seek out toys that are deliberate in their design and function. The Moma modern playhouse would be a perfect addition!
I’m teaching the value of good design to my kids – nieces and nephews, students as a teacher,
and I hope soon to my children – by playing the game of “Re”: reduce, recycle, reuse, replace,
rethink, recollect, rebuild, recuperate… and replay! So when the’ll grown-up,
they’ll keep the child spirit in their hearth!
I work with children who have developmental delays, especially autism. We are always teaching ‘design’ because most of our children are very literal, visual learners. We teach them to care for our environment and each other. We use Montessori Methods and Philosophy so care for our world is very emphasized. We also teach concepts of logical progression, grace and courtesy, and peace. Playing ‘house’ is something we do a lot of… your give-away house would be so well loved.
Although our son is just a toddler, we are working hard to make healthy decisions from the start so that they become a part of our everyday life. Whether it is buying organic clothes, locally-grown food, or toys that allow for creativity versus inactivity, we model the values that we want him to learn.
In our home, the first rule of being green is to make purchases that are for the long-haul. His first lesson in sustainable design will come when he is big enough to move into a toddler bed, which will convert from his crib, and his changing table becomes his dresser. As he grows, we will teach him about math and science using the solar panels that will be installed later this year. Each time we make a home improvement or major purchase, we will discuss the potential impact that it may have on the environment and how to minimize that impact.
Finally, we will repeat the motto we use in our daily lives: “As much as we can.” ~Dalai Lama
My kids are helping do a green remodel and leaning the value of re-use by rehab. Goes along well with the ultimate design toy which is getting a second run in our house – legos.
I try to explain to my two little brothers the way Nature works with real examples such as when it rains, where the water goes, the effect it does while running off, etc. That way they do free association anytime I am not with them and think about causes and effect in nature, and built environment. Also, I try to ask them what do the think about certain space where green approaches have been applied, compared to more conventional spaces. Usually is more the positive feedback I received from the green ones that the conventional ones.
My baby is only 10 months old, but we’re trying to keep his environment as ecofriendly as possible – from the food he eats to his daily activities.