Loose parts

Loose parts offer enormous possibilities and invites creativiity, conversations and inspire stories.   

“The goal is to allow children to become fluent with materials-as if materials were a language.” en to explore freely.  Be a participant, exploring materials yourself!

 Inspred by Beautiful Stuff, educators sampled the activity of collecting, observaing/describing, sorting and categoriing varied materials.  

Sorting into containers; categories consisted of shiny things, metal things, circles, specific objects in abundancesuch as golf t's, tiles...

In the mindset of a prescholer, adults made comments/observations about the objects they collected and then later categorized 

REvisit and REdesign your infant/ toddler program workshop in Rutland

Provoking educators to explore and play with materials used in environments for young children...

Playdough with glass gems, tiles, golf t's, metal baking tins

Flour with tins from an antique shop, wooden pieces, scoops, cardboard tubes

Mixed matched socks and fabric used to create crinkle toys, shakers

Varied materials (keys, buttons, pine cones, spools, paper beads, wood rings, fabric, yarn, shiny metal tabs) hung from a branch to create a beautiful mobile

Observation journals made out of recycled paper and sticks

REvisit and REdesign your classroom environment through the use of open-ended, natural and re-cycled materials. 

Inspiratinal settings and curriculum for infant and toddlers to...

WONDER.  REINSPIRE.  TINKER.  REINVENT.  PLAY.

Someone's Trash is Someone Elses Treasure!

Wonder. Rethink. Tinker. Reinvent. Play.

Just a few collected, found, natural, recycled items can be a treasure, project, beautiful piece that someone elses vision brings to life!   

Looking for some inspiration or guidance with finding, storing and or using such materials in a learning/teaching environment for children and adults? 

Professional Development Opportunities

Needing some inspiration for your classroom or school to stay beautiful the whole year?  Consult individually for your classroom or gain support from other educators in your school to do professional development around environments and curriculum using a variety of materials.

After many months of RE: thinking, playing, inventing, configuring the Tinkering Project VT. has officially launched!  We are a registered non-profit corporation with a board of directors, by-laws, and strategic plan.  Thank you to all who supported the concept and encouraged us to move forward, and make a long coveted dream a reality. There is exciting work and learning ahead ~ for everyone involved!

Our goal, of course is to wonder, tinker, re-invent with recycled, open-ended and natural materials, but another is to tinker with ideas........ as professionals who work with children in multiple contexts; as citizens who want to think creatively about new ways of being; as children who want to tinker and play to make sense of their world.

Status Update

We have some projects in the works:

~ consulting with teachers to rethink their classroom environments

~ preK professional development sessions related to emergent curriculum

~setting up a Re:source studio space in a public school

as well as grant writing….forever......

a few Inspirational Sources: 

Reuseable Resources Adventure Center

remida 

Learning Materials Workshop 

some of our Needs:

*let us know if you have any connections to materials (clean, safe, open-ended); we'll pick them up!

*we are itinerant right now, but are actively seeking  some ideal space to showcase and share our materials and ideas (bartering for materials, professional development is appealing)....do you know a business, school or church with some extra space?

*please SHARE:

your stories, materials, quotes, questions, images of children, families, the community engaged in tinkering. Please visit us on FACEBOOK!

p.s. if this is the first time you're visiting the blog please scroll down and become inspired!