Christmas is approaching and like a good old feeling of magic, of ritual, strengthening the bond between people... Or on the contrary, a complete rejection in front of the brands that exploit it in every way to share with the consumer this moment when he finds all his naivety to try to create another form of bond with him: selling! Nevertheless, every December, millions of French people tear their hair out to find the gifts that will hit the bull's eye at the foot of the tree. To reconcile everyone, UP' has decided to offer you a small selection of gifts, in line with our convictions.
Selection of Christmas gifts for children
Board game "Otoktonia" : Cooperative and immersive board game to open up to indigenous peoples.
Otoktonia is a co-operative board game in which players work together to save the Earth and its inhabitants from numerous threats such as forest destruction, climate change, intensive agriculture...
Meet indigenous peoples (the Munduruku of Brazil, the Mentawai of Indonesia, the Pygmies of Central Africa...) and team up with them to thwart the threats, notably thanks to their traditional knowledge. This knowledge refers to indigenous uses, customs, practices and traditions. They are your powers to save the Earth and its inhabitants.
This playful and immersive game is for adults and children from 9 years old. Built with the help of experts and Aboriginal organizations, the game places the participants in a process of openness towards others, discovery and respect.
Otoktonia was born from the collaboration of the Fondation France Libertés, the association Les petits citoyens and the Fédération Léo Lagrange. Co-designed with Learn in fun - 42 €
Collective board game "Equilibro A game on water and climate to make children actors in the fight against climate change. A game that raises children's awareness of climate change, a bit like a "Climate Monopoly".
An original approach to climate change: "Climate change is often approached from the angle of carbon dioxide (CO²). " explains Emmanuel Poilâne, Director of France-Libertés. "But it's a complicated approach that doesn't talk. Approaching climate change from the angle of water makes it possible to tackle concepts such as balance, climate and recycling in concrete terms. Moreover, water can also provide solutions, which makes it possible to be more positive. »
The game Equilibro is not a static game! It is around a giant puzzle placed on the ground that children are invited to progress on the path to a "peaceful" planet and balanced uses of water. Two images representing a planet "sick" of climate change will evolve thanks to the affixing of new cards won.
The children's contributions and their proposals to combat climate change were returned and sent to the President of the Republic before the start of the International Conference in 2015 in Paris.
Published by France Libertés - 76 €
Game Cottage Garden Cottage Garden : On a bucolic theme, Cottage Garden is generally described as a "Patchwork" (a game by the same author) accessible to more than two players. Tetris-like arrangement of pieces, tactical thinking, but simple and accessible rules to play with family or friends who are introduced to the game.
In Cottage Garden, gardening becomes a competition. In front of you are two flowerbeds that you will have to garnish with a variety of flowers. Go to the nursery to get your compositions and arrange them harmoniously in your garden. When there are no more boxes of unplanted soil visible on a flowerbed, the latter is completed, you score points, then replace it with a new flowerbed.
A game by Uwe Rosenberg, illustrated by Andrea Boeckhoff - Edited by Blackrock - From 8 to 16 years old - €34
MyMontessoriBox the first Montessori educational box to awaken and amuse children from 3 to 6 years old.
Available by subscription or through a single purchase, this "box" consists of an illustrated accompanying magazine on Montessori pedagogy, concrete and aesthetic educational material, and a new theme to vary learning. The boxes address different themes (mathematics, language, sensory, and discovery of the world) which vary each month in order to broaden the learning horizon. Each box contains an illustrated accompanying magazine on Montessori pedagogy, to understand the method, to absorb it and easily apply it at home, and concrete, aesthetic, playful and reusable educational material.
Developed by a team trained in Montessori pedagogy, composed of parents, teachers and educators with the aim of democratizing this very effective method by spreading it everywhere and making it accessible to the greatest number.
The teaching material has been created to measure, by rigorously selected suppliers, to guarantee irreproachable quality. The games can be stored over time, are solid and can be manipulated endlessly.
MyMontessoriBox is available either as a subscription without commitment or with a commitment of 3, 6 and 12 months from 19€/box depending on the chosen commitment period; or as a single purchase - From 29,90€.
Assembly set Clip it: A game out of the ordinary because it uses only recycled materials, plastic caps, bought back from the association. www.bouchonsdamour.com ! More than a game, Clip it is a real educational edutainment tool, created by two architects from Montpellier, Cyril Rheims and Mathieu Collos, on the occasion of a competition organised by the European Commission on the theme of upcycling.
Starting in the Kindergarten large section, the clips not only allow to work on fine motor skills and creativity, but also to explain in a playful way the notions of overcycling and recycling to the children.
3D clips allow you to create three-dimensional works and are compatible with LEGO products. The "key" for assembling the small recycled plastic clips makes it possible to assemble all sizes of plugs together, to create, and to learn while having fun. From 6,90 €.
Distributed by Pichon in schools, Clip-it is also available at Natures et Découvertes, in Satoriz organic shops or in small independent shops, in addition to the site official.
Watch Pam Tim the 1st kindergarten watch designed to make it easier for toddlers to learn the timeline and help them achieve better school results. The notion of time is not innate to the individual, the child does not possess it when he comes into the world. It is a complex notion that requires mastery of other notions such as continuity and succession (chronology), anteriority and posteriority, simultaneity, alternation, rhythm, cycle, duration, ...
The Pam Tim kindergarten watch with pictogram combinations allows the child to learn all these concepts simultaneously. The perception of time is a human construction that the child builds up little by little under the effect of his psychological maturation but also and above all of his education. It is mainly the school that will help the child to become aware of time, to organize it, to structure it, to appropriate it. This Pam Tim kindergarten watch helps the child to appropriate the first notions of time.
Album Le conte des porteurs d'eau The quest of a young boy, Julien, to save humanity from the disasters predicted by his grandfather. Water... Without it, all life would be absent from our planet. It is water that allows grass, flowers and trees to grow and all species to breathe. It is also the water that inspires our thirst for adventure, reading, knowledge, tenderness, friendship and love.
Before he dies, Julian's grandfather gives his grandson a sacred book that encloses a letter predicting apocalyptic disasters. According to the letter and the grandfather, only a brave and courageous young man can save humanity from these upheavals. Will Julien be able to meet the challenge?
The adventure is brilliantly narrated to us, with its frenzied verve and unbridled imagination by Oscar Castro, in a magnificently and richly illustrated album, accompanied by a CD with the voice of Sylvie Miqueu.
In her preface, Danielle Mitterrand recommends that "everyone should take the time to take ownership of this political, civic and, above all, humanist message and share it.
Published by the Danielle Mitterrand Foundation - From 5 years old. 10 €.
Pampirolo album, the unexpected journey :a charming tale inspired by Italian folklore, deliciously illustrated, which is also a valuable educational tool in the face of a very contemporary social problem: how to manage the use of screens by young people.
Pampirolo (Pampi) is a small character from the Florentine imagination. He lives on rooftops and has magical powers: his vocation is to protect the happiness of families. But Pampirolo can also get angry: he sees family members isolating themselves from each other and becoming obsessed with their screens of all kinds ...
The book, rich in vocabulary, is intended for parents who will read it to their children, but also for older children who will also be able to understand the danger of screens for family life when addiction is on the rise.
Edited by Yvelinedition - Text by Letitia Durand - Illustrations by Edith-Laure Rostkowski - From 3 years old -15€.
Album Les légumes, quelle aventure ! Conceived like a picture book, this great album presents vegetables in a playful way. They come to life, go on a mop, turn into a house, a lighthouse, a police car to form magnificent plant pictures. Demoiselle Coccinelle accompanies the reader from page to page, collecting a merry band of musicians along the way. But where is all this little world going?
From a simple vegetable to a wonderful painting, this is Michela's work as an artist. In great stagings, the vegetables are transformed before our astonished eyes into fantastic landscapes. A small panorama of the vegetable garden, full of images and imagination, which takes us all the way to the kitchen where we will discover the recipe for the soup.
You've got it, a poor book makes vegetables more attractive and easier to identify. To make people want to grow them, cook them and eat them!
Strong points of the work: a very original artistic work that uses three different techniques: sculpture, drawing and photography.
Edited by Rue de l'échiquier - Text by Virginie Téoulle - Illustrations by Michela Eccli - From 3 years old - 16,50 €.
Album Who is it? A Thousand Lives of Human Beings: Who is this creature that is forming before our very eyes? If it has gills, will it become a fish? If it has a tail, will it be a fox later? This poetic and full-colour book is composed in two parts: a series of riddles that lead the child from one surprise to another, ending on a more documentary naked note where everything suddenly becomes clear.
It's the story of life on Earth, of evolution, of our evolution.
Published by Dadoclem Editions - Text by Paola Vitale - Illustrations by Rossana Bossu - Translation from Italian : Danica Urbani - From 6 years old - 14 €.
Beautiful books for older children
Vincent Munier - 100 photos for freedom of the press
Polar bears, musk oxen, emperor penguins... As 2018 draws to a close, WWF France joins Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in supporting Vincent Munier's 100 Photos for Press Freedom album. With WWF's deciphering of the red thread, the adventurous photographer Vincent Munier takes us on a journey through his far-flung quests from Antarctica to Japan, through the African savannah and the forests of the Vosges.
Vincent Munier
Published on 8 November, this book aims to support the freedom, pluralism and independence of journalism around the world by revealing the wonders of nature. The fight for the environment as well as the fight for freedom of information is far from being lost!
Buy theonline album or find it directly in newsstands and bookshops for 9,90 €.
3 minutes to understand 50 outstanding works of Art History by Lee Beard - Edition Le Courrier du Livre - 160 Pages
Famous paintings and sculptures are innumerable, but which one in particular to choose or study? How did art evolve between the classical harmony of the Renaissance and the fragmentation of Cubism? Who were the pioneering artists who dared to break with the past and establish new ways of expressing nature, emotion and the human body?
This small, perfectly illustrated "intelligent popularisation" book invites you to explore 50 key works of Western art, covering the period from the early Renaissance to the present day.
Publisher, writer and art historian, Lee Beard is the author of several books on modern art in England.
History of fashion and clothing Edited by Denis Bruna and Chloe Demey. It is a radically new, open and cross-cutting story that this ambitious work presents by tackling not fashion but fashions in their extraordinary diversity.
Focusing on the historical, economic, sociological and cultural context, this history of fashions from 1330 to the 2000s takes into account uses, lifestyles, materials and know-how. Far from limiting themselves to the formal history of the costume of the elite - from the aristocratic courts to the catwalks of haute couture - the authors have chosen to study also the clothing of the middle and working classes, men and children, counter-cultures and anti-fashion. From foal to tennis, from medieval trunks to contemporary dressing, from braggards to punks and from fashion to giraffes, this collection explores the life of clothing over more than 600 years, but also the body care and accessories that contribute to the construction of appearances.
This reference book of 503 pages and 450 illustrations offers a rhythmic journey of unusual and fascinating discoveries..
Edited by Textuel - November 2018
And don't forget: Seven out of ten toys are no longer used eight months after purchase and forty million toys are thrown away each year, not to mention the packaging, (which brings the figure to 75,000 tons of waste per year), food waste, over-consumption of food and Santa's distribution trips that cost 17.2 tonnes of carbon per year. Before buying, think about sites that promote recovery, reuse and recycling (Rejoué or Emmaüs), with a view to raising children's awareness and educating them about respecting the environment.
Also think about shops specialising in organic and ethical gifts and local products. There is no shortage of places and good addresses that you will find in your regional newspapers and dedicated websites.
Without forgetting "home-made" gifts such as jams, fruit jellies, truffles, preserves, ... for the agape, and sewing, art and DIY activities for the fans. Because the real gift is the time we give to others, the time spent listening to them and sharing, as well as the time spent making some surprises ...
