GOT JUNK?

GOT JUNK?

By: Kisha Reid

The beauty of a child-lead classroom is that the children set up their own learning. We, the adults provide an environment rich with open-ended loose parts and allow the children to explore, play, and imagine their many uses. Permission, time, space, support and a genuine interest in their process provide the bases for limitless learning.

This is why the "junk" method works well at our school. Junk provides so many possibilities, has no rules and does not hold much value to the adults in the room; therefore we have less attachment to it, we worry less about it getting broken, ruined, or misused.

It's cheap and you can get it anywhere! In fact, in many cases it's FREE! I once had someone pay me to take their junk!

Its other value lies in its ability to force children to be creative, to make something out of nothing. To reimagine a typical use for an item to make it work for their own ideas. Children are inventors, engineers, and designers in their pay with open-ended loose junk.

When using "junk" children must communicate their ideas and plans, they often collaborate to build up their play. This sparks a need to collaborate, share, and accept the ideas of others.

Play scripts grow and change and are as creative as the loose junk its self. Each new open-ended junk piece makes way for new ideas, new ways of thinking and new opportunity to express ideas with others. 

So knowing all of this makes "JUNK" a very valuable part of a child-lead play-based childhood. 

GOT JUNK?