Introduction

This blog has been started to document findings from a small-scale project designed to explore how reclaimed resources are used to support children’s learning in local early years settings. The project is being organised by the Early Childhood Research Group at Anglia Ruskin University with funding from the Children and Youth Research Institute (CYRI).

Our research stems from an interest in early childhood education for sustainability and is also inspired by work in the REMIDA recycling centre in Reggio Emilia, Italy, where reclaimed materials are used as a basis for creative activities with children. We are aware that there is a long tradition of using recycled resources in early years education. In our experience, early years practitioners collect boxes, kitchen roll tubes, egg cartons, yogurt pots, shiny sweet wrappers, off-cuts of material, cotton reels, and anything else that could be used for creative play. Similarly they encourage parents to contribute unwanted items from homes and workplaces that could be used with the children and often frequent scrap projects to source additional resources.

We are interested to find out more about practice with reclaimed resources in early years settings. We would like to know: What resources are used? How do children play with reclaimed materials? What do adults consider to be the importance of these resources? With this in mind, we have been visiting nurseries and doing the following, with staff:

• Looking at the reclaimed resources in the setting and creating an inventory / list;
• Observing children using the reclaimed materials and documenting what they do;
• Discussing the inventory and observations with nursery managers and hearing their ideas about the uses of reclaimed materials in early years settings.

This information is currently being gathered together and analysed to begin to answer our questions about how and why reclaimed resources are used in early years settings.