Turning Something Old into Something New!

The last few posts have been about our 'Repurposing Days' and I thought i'd share with the children a little bit about the ULTIMATE repurposing place LITERALLY just down the road from our little school. I've contacted the place to see if we could possibly have a field trip there, and :( they said not likely. It is a place that is a bit outside of the 'safe zone' for a larger group of children. Although I know these children could handle it, I respect where they are coming from. So instead I took a few photos.
Our little community has a little gem. It's a haven for people renovating their home, and for an Early Childhood Educator.... it's well.... a bit of a happy place!

It's a new and used recycling centre. It's always new and changing, and it's full of many treasures. If you are renovating your home and looking for that EXACT bathtub... you may luck out, or you may need to rethink your plans, it's really whatever is available. It's a place that old kitchens go in the hope of becoming someones new kitchen. It's a toilet graveyard, door collection, and window waiting area.

So when I went there a few months ago, hoping to find some patio stones, what I found was a place that would quickly become a threat to my bank account.

The children looked long and hard at the photos and spotted items that would be useful to our school. So mommies and daddies, if you are redoing your tile and making a trip to this glorious place, I know of a child that would be UBER excited to tag along!

So when I said I went to look for paving stones, who knew that I was going to leave with THIS MANY PAVING STONES???

My dad's poor trailer.... it didn't know what hit it!

What did we do with those paving stones? Take a look.....

The paving bricks themselves were rubber, so the children were only too eager to help, and it was easy for them too!

The finished product.... so nice!

Tubes are for what???

Last week I scored the mother load! A parent drove past these out front of an industrial building and immediately called me! They have now been transferred to our outdoor space. The best part of it all, is a few days later my mum and I drove past the building again, and BOOM! there they were again, so we picked them up, and now we have 11! I think we are going to have to send the industrial company a thank you note, and perhaps a note to let them know to keep 'em coming.

The children have noticed them over the last few days, but I think that some of the children were a bit overwhelmed by the enormous size of them. So last week I layed them out like this:

The children were still not too interested in them, yes, there were a couple takers, and the odd child went through one or two tubes, but quickly went onto something else. It takes patience and creativity to draw attention to things. I was beginning to think that the children were not as interested in them as I was... and that's ok.

BUT, today, with it being rainy and wet and the tubes being cardboard, I wasn't as eager to set them out, so I left them on the pallets, in a stack, under some poly plastic. 

Often not doing anything purposeful leads to something more inventive. That's what happened today!

The children immediately started climbing into the tubes.

They discovered they made great hiding spots. The thing that surprised me most of all, and you can just see it in the top right hand corner of the picture, was that this hiding spot evolved into a giant game of  'whack-a-mole'! It was with our plastic bat, and the children on the receiving end of the bat found that it hurt, but still wanted to play the game. I remembered I had some pool noodles in our storage room, so I rushed to bring them out, and the game continued and developed into a full attendance game. The pool noodles were great replacements and ensured no trips to the ice packs!

I tried to capture what I saw when it was my turn to be the whacker.

After a while the children got really into climbing in and out of the tubes and started to test how many children could fit in a tube together.

2 children....

3 children... then I was invited in, and that was not a good experience for both myself and the children... so no pictures!

We then brought them down on to the grass and rolled them around a bit.

And even rolled inside them....

The children made comparisons in the size to our biggest ball...

And climbed in and out of them again and again!

Then came the time that I got in the tube and the children rolled me down the hill. I tried to get a 'rolling photo series' of what I saw when I went down the hill! 

Rolling others down the hill is part of the fun! 

The tubes are making their way into our outdoor play... what other shenanigans will we get up to with these? You'll have to check in and see! 

I also wanted to share these two photos, because now that spring is here, we are able to spend a little more TLC on our outdoor space, and here's step one. 

This corner area was overgrown with weeds and random bits of garbage. So we fenced it off with the intent of getting to it at a later date. Well, the later date has arrived! It was rototilled and ready for grass seed and wood chips, so stay tuned for the progress to this little area and the rest of our yard. There's some exciting plans a foot!