Teachers and Recycled Materials

02/12/2007

Teachers and Recycled Materials

The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.
Henry S. Haskins

In the newest Exchange Out of the Box Training Kit, "Recycled Materials," Lella Gandini, US liason for Reggio Children, offers suggestions on using recycled materials to enrich a preschool program. One challenge centers face she observes is getting teachers acclimated with using recycled materials...

"At times there is a difficulty for teachers to use found and recycled materials with young children. Considering the young age of the children, it is understandable that teachers feel uncertain, are cautious, and pay attention to safety.

"Most of the time, however, the uncertainty and difficulty come from the lack of opportunity that teachers have had to pause, observe, reflect, and especially explore directly a variety of materials in their own educational experience or during the course of their teaching. We have little time to observe what is around us in the course of everyday life as possible material to transform, create, and construct.

"Our experience taught us that when we give ourselves the permission to have a shared experience of exploration, reflection, and transformation of materials among adults (teachers and also parents), we discover so much about the properties and qualities of the materials that we start to find strategies for using them with the children so as to invent together new ways of transforming them."

Review and order this latest Out of the Box Training Kit

Toddler Portable Sink: Your Classroom Solution for HOT and COLD running water. A convenient, time-saving way to clean children's messy hands anytime, anywhere.

For more information about Exchange's magazine, books, and other products pertaining to ECE, go to www.ccie.com.