As promised part two of creating altars with your family. Someone mentioned in a comment that they have a broken buddha statue and that that is enough for them. I think for adults especially this can be true, there is no need for lots of things and often less is so much more. For kids though I think you need to have something that will engage them. Sure my kids enjoy my buddha statues (these are the only ones robust enough for them to handle) but that doesn't neccesarily draw them into using the space that is there.
For the altars that are accesible for the kids I don't put items on there that are very delicate and I like to focus very much on the seaon and nature. I will often tell a story and change the altar to reflect that story. For instance when we celebrate St nicolas (Being Dutch this is a huuuge holiday) I will tell the boys the story of St Nick and the next morning he will have appeared on the altar. Buddha will be there for bodhi day and Jesus appears for Christmas. The Sun will come and say hello for the solstice etc.

I promised some resources and I will say that I use a lot of "waldorf" materials here. I am not an antroposofist but waldorf education is big on celebrating the seasonal festivals and pretty much all the festicals I grew up with so rather than reinventing the wheel I take what works and leave the rest :)

All year round a good general guide on festivals celebrated in waldorf schools. it offers songs rhymes and stories as wel as crafts and decorating ideas
making Flower children little dolls representing the spirits from plants and flowers they appear troughout the year.
The Nature Corner a book on seasonal nature tables. with lots and lots of patterns from mother earth to king winter.
Ravelry there are a number of great free knit & crochet patterns available. My lantern child is one of them an easy pattern representing a little child carrying the light trough winter to spring.
Tineke's doehoek a great resource in Dutch with lots of craft ideas. Most of them easy enough to understand from the images.


I am having a problem accessing the drive that holds my images so I shall come back later to add a few pictures of the childrens altars