Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/the-art-of-tinkering/5024572/
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” -Unknown
Did you have a junk drawer or little box of collections growing up? Was it filled with those token items with which you could not part? What treasures did it hold?
A child will pore over the contents of such a drawer or a box. They will turn over old keys in their nimble fingers and peer through the hole punched out of the top. A well-worn rock holds many potentialities in the story yet to be told. Highly coveted items, like a crystal bead or a piece of crinkled, silver paper, have that extra special sparkle. Such treasures can be found in many places. A walk through the neighborhood with a child will yield small troves of cherished, found items. When given time and space, children are natural observers, collectors, tinkerers, inventors, and dreamers.
Educators around the world have ventured back into their childhoods and have been adding found objects and loose parts to their learning environments. Loose parts incite curiosity and invite learners to invent, to create, and to think divergently as children explore limitless potentialities in their play. Teachers, children and families work together to find and ...