Yoghurt container building - using recycled items for play
A Different Experience!
There are so many benefits to building with blocks and connecting equipment. Children learn so much when they engage in building play. Some examples of the possibilities of learning including:
Balancing objects
Developing concepts about gravity
Trying out ideas
Persevering with a goal in mind
Developing spatial awareness
Thinking creatively
Developing control and coordination
Strengthening finger and hand muscles
Learning about cause and effect when the building tumbles
Experiencing play that includes geometry, maths, architecture and engineering
Watch children who love building and you can see the joy in their learning. We love any kind of building or construction and that includes using blocks and connecting equipment. We also love using recycled items for building and constructing too. Children are often stimulated because recycled items off the possibility of different experiences and different learning outcomes.
We collected yoghurt containers, both big and small, which we used in a video to show how much fun it is for children to play with them. Watch the video below to see the fun inaction.
Yoghurt containers are light and can be tricky to build with. They topple over at the slightest bump and that means taking extra care when building with them. There is another difference. The top is open. Well, that poses a lot of new problems to be sorted! How do you build a tower with objects that have one side open? The children in the video repeatedly solved that problem by turning the containers upside down and by being extremely precise with how the open part balanced on another container. All of the above list could be seen in this play experience and much more. Highlights for us included the children sharing the space and containers happily. Also, the children loved breaking down their towers and were delighted every time there was a tumble. They made the decision to break only their own towers which was a great decision but it also required self-control to stick to the decision. The pyramid design was used the most but the children also used their creative thinking and explored other ideas. Fantastic!
Adding other things to the tower building extended the children’s creativity and enthusiasm to play longer. They decided to add material and balanced small pieces of material on their buildings. What a great idea and of course we love it when loose parts are used! Again, the children had to work slowly and gently to get the material to stay on top or fit into the containers. The material also had to be the right size and shape for what they planned. In the video, the material represented a bridge and fountains of water. Great imaginative play there!
The children continued to extend their play by adding toys. One added cars and the other dolls. Two different play scenarios required two different stories to be told. Most importantly, we had two very happy children! Yoghurt containers are great for children’s play but so are grocery boxes and other containers. Before you throw them out, maybe add them to your children’s play collections. When they are done with the items, most times they are still good to be recycled. An extra bonus is that recycled items are mostly okay to be taken outdoors and used in play. For children, that is a big bonus!
