Getting Creative with Natural Resources

This week at Little Cherubs we will be embarking upon an exciting play based experiment! As you know, our passion is outdoor learning and the use of natural objects within play, which is why we have decided to dedicate a week to precisely this! There will be no conventional toys being used at Little Cherubs Nature Kindergarten.

Th

e girls have worked really hard to incorporate all things natural and stimulating into their planning. This will mean they will not use any of the plastic and manufactured toys, only the things that the children have thought up and hand made themselves, how exciting!

Why are we doing this? Well this is truly what freedom to play is about! Being creative and relying on pure imagination and available resources to stretch the children’s creative limits and make good use of those all important problem solving skills they possess in abundance. Fairy-tale castles and knights? No problem! Let us dive into the cardboard and create a kingdom full of tinfoil, paint and loose parts! The satisfaction of putting it all together will be priceless and the skills learnt will last a lifetime.
It is no secret that scientists, scholars, teachers and educational enthusiasts have written numerous books and articles on the importance of free play and choice within the early year’s settings, and the immense benefits that bringing play back to its basics has on the mental wellbeing of children, so we would like to see this f

or ourselves! Throughout the upcoming week we aim to dig deeper and really learn what our Little Cherubs are truly capable of so week after week, we can make sure the children are truly being stimulated and catered for.

We need to remember that a man made dolls house will always be a man made dolls house, which is great! But a cardboard box and long tube could be anything! And that’s the key, the ability to play pretend and adapt any resource into anything the child could possibly dream of.

You may have noticed some posters around the nursery recently, depicting the ‘Theory of Loose Parts’ and the benefits of outdoor p

lay and education, please take a closer look at these next time you are at Little Cherubs, and any spare junk modeling items you have at home will be gratefully received, not just throughout this week, but for continuous creative provisions.
Thank you for your support

The Little Cherubs Team