Parents and staff have always been happy to collect and recycle rubbish for activities – toilet rolls, cans and cartons are free resources that are easy to refresh. We use junk modelling in many ways, including using it to create enhancements for the environment.
When children contribute to setting up enhancements, it can give them a sense of control and ownership over their environment and may engage them in play in those areas more deeply. One of our small-world areas outside includes a pit of play bark, a secured upright pallet crate covered in a camouflage net, containers designed to go over doors with small-world toys in that hook onto the pallet crate planks, and various loose parts including pebbles, shells, pinecones and sticks. There are also tree stumps for sitting on or using as a platform, and they are numbered to encourage incorporating numbers in their play.
We noticed that the dinosaurs had become a popular choice for the children in this area, so we decided to ask them to help us to make some hills and caves for a dinosaur land terrain enhancement. Given this purpose, the children enthusiastically worked together to select pieces from the junk-modelling box and fix them together using masking tape. They then covered their creation with papier mâché and painted it when it had dried. A group helped carry it out to the outside area and put it in place. This enhancement created a buzz around the area as more children were drawn to it. They used the openings of the mountain as caves for dinosaurs to hide in. The children were overheard making comments such as “we made this for the dinosaurs” and “I can see my box that I stuck down, it is a cave now”.
JUNK LANDSCAPE
Due to the popularity of the outdoor dinosaur enhancements, we set up a tuff tray in the small-world area indoors. It contained natural objects such as a plants, sticks, leaves and pebbles, which children enjoyed exploring. A volcano was placed in the tray along with several dinosaurs and some non-fiction books. A large junk-modelling box was placed next to the tray with masking tape, scissors and pens.
Creating the outside dinosaur land terrain was adult-initiated and guided, but this indoor junk modelling was open for the children to influence. Some children decided to use the various containers as platforms for the dinosaurs to stand on. Others got their ‘mini me’ toys and had adventures with their dinosaurs, discussing and commentating their play with their friends. Some children decided to incorporate the volcano into the storyline of their play and made shelters and boats for the dinosaurs to protect them from the lava.
PROBLEM-SOLVING
The staff in our nursery work together to think creatively about how they can use junk to make resources and activities for the children. This not only saves money but also enables projects not to be held up and can flow with the children’s interests because resources are available immediately. At Christmas time, the nursery teaching assistants came up with the idea of using cardboard tubes sliced up and arranged into a Christmas tree shape on a tall piece of cardboard. Next to the tree was a range of different sized baubles for the children to decorate it. The children developed their physical skills while placing the different baubles into the tubes and carefully getting them out again. This was also a good problem-solving resource because the children had to work out which baubles would fit in the different sized tubes. Some could tell by looking which would fit where, and others used trial and error.
Earlier in the year when the children were enjoying the book That Leopard is so Rudeby Steve Day, I decided to make a resource using junk to develop motor skills. I used a cardboard egg tray that I shaped and painted yellow for the leopard’s body and added the head, legs and tail using yellow sugar paper. The leopard was placed on a covered pallet crate in a small tuff tray which had a strip of leopard fur running along the edge, and a copy of the book. In bowls we had golf balls which were painted black, black pompoms of various sizes, and some scoops and tweezers for the children to pick them up. When the children saw the leopard in the tray, a boy said, “we need to put the leopard’s spots back on, they have all fallen off”. The children happily discussed events from the story together as they played.
Amy Jackson is EYFS specialist leader of education and teacher at Ormiston Herman Academy, Gorleston