Beautiful Stuff

Beautiful Stuff is a term I learned on my first day of college studying to become an early childhood educator.  Generally these are materials you should already have around the home like bottle caps, ribbons, paper towel rolls, buttons, mismatched puzzle pieces and other recycled materials.

What’s so great about all this “stuff” that isn’t looking so beautiful yet?  There is something pretty special about giving your children materials instead of toys to play with.  Before your eyes, they will begin creating and imagining!

Today we made our own “beautiful stuff” art centre.  I used an old egg carton to hold the materials that we found.  You could use a muffin tray as well.  We carried it around the house looking for objects we could put inside.  We also used some natural items like leaves and pinecones that we had collected the day before.

Once we filled up the egg carton, I put out scissors and glue.  I let Mishael play with all the objects we had collected: ribbons, buttons, cardboard boxes, etc.  He began gluing pinecones and buttons together first.  I’m not really sure what it was that he made at the end of it all, but that’s part of the beauty.

There’s no limitation to your child’s imagination when you provide them with such a wide variety of materials.  Be sure to ask your child lots of open-ended questions while they work (stay away from “yes” or “no” answers).   Mishael and I had some pretty fun conversation about what he was creating. 

You now have your own art station! I plan to keep ours out for a few weeks as we add new treasures to it and create new “stuff”.  Of course, be sure to remove any small objects if you have a baby!

I’d love to know some of the conversations you had with your children or what they created in the comments below!