Activity 3.4 | Curriculum Making with Materials

Curriculum Making with Materials

“How might a shift in perspective on materiality – including our own – change how we interact with materials, with young children, and with other educators? And how might such shifts in perspective change the nature of our engagement with society and the environment?” 

(Kind, 2014)

Children’s engagement with materials is deeply influenced by the contexts in which they live, reflecting the environments, relationships, and cultures that surround them. To support meaningful exploration, we can ask: 

• How can we use materials to connect children with their unique experiences and their immediate world? 

• How might we invite children to learn from the land by integrating natural and found materials that reflect the places where they play and grow?

Engaging with materials offers children opportunities to deepen their understanding of their environment. Loose parts like sticks, stones, leaves, and water allow for open-ended exploration and encourage connections to the land. 

By providing materials that reflect the textures, colours, and shapes of their surroundings, we invite children to notice, wonder, and experiment. This approach nurtures a sense of belonging and helps them form relationships with the land and its stories.

Listening to children as they interact with materials is equally important. Their use of materials—how they combine, transform, and make meaning with them—can offer us profound insights into their thinking, creativity, and understanding of the world. By observing and responding to their actions, we can co-create learning experiences that are dynamic and emergent, allowing children to lead with their curiosity and agency.

Read Material Encounters (Kind, 2015) 

Reference

Kind, S. (2015). MATERIAL ENCOUNTERS. International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, 5(4.2), 865-877. https://doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs.kinds.5422014