Early Childhood Teachers Invent with Recycling Materials!

On 2-17-2009 at William Paterson University in the Creative Arts and Children's Literature Class we read Leonardo and the Flying Boy/A Story About Leonardo da Vinci by Laurence Anholt. Next we sorted many different types of recycling materials (plastic, wire, masking tape, packaging, fabric, plastic lids, etc.) onto a large table and the students chose whatever appealed to them. They added these materials to the ones they had already collected from home. The goal was to make an invention (a contraption) with at least one part that "moved". Some students worked collaboratively and others alone.

More books about Recycling and Art:
Beautiful Stuff: Learning with Found Materials by Cathy Weisman Topal and Lella Gandini; Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams; Shapes by Philip Yenawine; Round and Round by Tana Hoban; Beautiful Junk by Jon Madian; Wire Sculpture and Other Construction by Gerald F. Brommer

Other Recycling Materials: Twisteez http://www.twisteez.com/
Pipe Cleaners; Styrofoam (several kinds: the packaging supply type works best)

Vocabulary Words: Attach; glue; tape; twist; bend; wire; plastic; receycle; re-use; conserve; invent; create; imagine; kinetic sculpture; found object sculpture


"Creativity seems to emerge from multiple experiences, coupled with a well-supported development of personal resources, including a sense of freedom to venture beyond the known." (Loris Malaguzzi (20th century), Italian early education specialist. Quoted in The Hundred Languages of Children, ch. 3, by Carolyn Edwards (1993).)

Artists To Look At: Alexander Calder's Circus; Jean Tinguely's Kinetic Sculpture; Willie Cole's Found Object Sculpture

Willie Cole Made in the Phillipinnes 1993 Shoes, Pvc pipe 40x38x38 "