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!

Repurposing Days

As I mentioned in a previous post about our new tradition of Repurposing Days, we've been bringing an object from home that is far from a 'toy' and reinventing it's purpose as a play thing. We're into our second week, and it seems to be hitting off well. It's a challenge for some of the children and their families as it's hard to look past the surface and find a new function for things. What I find makes this easier, is that I don't think too hard about it. That's the job of the children. There have been so many times that i've put something down in the classroom, not really to motivate the children to play with it, but often that item becomes such a big hit, that it's become a fixture in our classroom. For example, our dustpan has become many things in our classroom over the last year. So the trick is.... don't think too hard about it (as long as it's 'safe', it's a plaything ;))
But it's been fun so far. I've decided to hold off on the photos, until we have a little more experience under our belt, then we'll share what we've 'repurposed'!
In the ECE community we use terms such as loose parts, and open ended play, these are all ideas that build from the foundation that we are trying to achieve through the repurposing days. The hope is that children will start the revolution to look at an item and give it a new life. It's similar to the upcycling that people have taken to. Really it's not a new concept, but rather a bit of an endangered concept. So let's encourage those infants who go through the tupperware drawer!!!!

So with that in mind, I wanted to share a video with you. It's from two guys that I can't seem to get enough of these days. They are the 'Piano Guys'. Quite often we listen to their music at daycare, and the children love their music probably as much as I do. I wanted to share this video because they seem to get the whole point of repurposing! It's a new way to look at a piano, and look what they did with it! It's truly outstanding