A Glimpse into Classroom Kits

We delivered a classroom kit of found and repurposed materials to each class in our second Play/Create/Build session. Each kit contained groups of seven different items, all collected and presented with a lot of thought and intention. To give you a glimpse of some of the things in our minds as we created these kits:

Notice the different materials these objects are made from. We always try to include a range of materials (e.g., cardboard, plastic, metal) in each set up we present to children.

Do you recognize any of the items? Most of the objects can be found in any home or neighborhood, but each kit includes one “special” collection of items reclaimed from a workplace (like an architectural firm, for example. Or a laundromat, or a restaurant or a factory), AND a collection of buttons (we happen to have a LOT of amazing buttons in the Materials Center at the moment thanks to a donation from a store that closed down because of the pandemic). 

Notice how it feels to see many of each type of object together rather than a collection of individual, different objects. As Wendy loves to say, “When you have more than one of something, it becomes valuable!”

Notice how new and clean these objects look. We take a lot of care with this part of collection building. All adhesive is removed, everything is washed, we check for anything that is rusty or broken and remove those items. 

Imagine what kind of container you might put each collection of objects in that would highlight their inviting qualities. Each kit comes with containers that we think work well for each collection of objects, and we have sent you a picture to show you our choices. However, you can use whatever you like, or change which container holds which objects.