Tamariki | children often love to build their own creations using ‘junk’ materials. These resources are cheap and easy to find from the recycled, natural, and manufactured materials in the world around us.
Tips for building with recycled materials at home#
Give your tamaiti | child opportunities to experiment with a diverse range of objects. Adventure and junk play is all about tamariki using their imaginations and exploring their ideas.
For example, shells might be money, and the log a waka.
Tip
Recycled materials you can use for play
- Boxes, cartons, cardboard.
- ladders, planks, tubes, plastic pipe.
- tyres.
- old blankets, hessian carpet.
- dress-up clothes.
- natural materials such as shells, logs, harakeke, driftwood, stumps, rocks.
- paint for decorating.
- glue, sticky tape and string.
Learning with recycled materials#
Using recycled materials can help your tamaiti | child to:
- solve problems, plan, and reason
- develop their ideas and make sense of the world
- play, imagine, invent, and experiment
- work with others, share, and take turns
- learn about mathematical ideas such as fitting in spaces, going under, over, through, and between
- respect te taiao | the natural world
- recycle and repurpose as part of caring for the environment.
Support your tamaiti#
You can support your tamaiti by:
- talking with and listening to their thoughts and opinions
- talking about ideas like sustainability and kaitiakitanga | guardianship
- letting them explore at their own pace and ability (ā tōnā wā, i tōna taumata)
- supporting them to try out their own ideas, without taking over
- helping them practise their social skills and problem solving
- creating a safe environment – for example, no choking hazards, poisonous plants
- providing a wide range of equipment and resources.
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