How to teach children to respect resources

“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”

― Alexander Den Heijer

For those of you that have been following me for a while now you’ll know that I spent a long period of time working in a challenging Bradford school Nursery. Many children were vulnerable to learning, they started with us typically well below average and they needing a high level of support and nurture to thrive.

At the time in our setting we had a mixture of plastic and natural resources. When I worked in the setting I would find that the resources would be mixed up, transported around the room or children would often walk away from an area without setting it back up for the next person. I often found that the plastic resources were the ones that were dropped on the floor because there was no real consequence of the resource breaking.

This would frustrate me greatly… especially when I looked on Instagram and Facebook and saw such beautiful invitations to play I thought…gosh why can’t I achieve this. I was so inspired by loose parts provision but when I tried introducing some open ended materials they were just not being used how I expected. Or the beautiful beads I brought in would disappear home and into children’s pockets.

Watch this free masterclass to find out how we got through this challenging time.

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