Early years activity: Making it up as we go

Here’s a creative activity that firmly puts process before product. Children explore loose parts and recyclables with only their curiosity and freedom to change their minds and no fixed outcome expected.

Making it up as we go learning aims

Explore materials and experiment with ideas, testing what does and doesn’t work
Develop fine motor control
Build confidence in decision-making and problem-solving
Use language to describe choices, changes and ideas.

Resources you will need for this activity

Collection of recyclables and loose parts (boxes, tubes, lids, bottle tops, fabric, wool, other natural materials)
Joining materials: Masking tape, glue, split pins, hole punch
Scissors.

Making it up as we go activity outline

Offer children a mixed assortment of materials and joining materials (see some suggestions above)
Request that they look at the objects and joining resources carefully and encourage them to share their observations
Offer an open invitation to explore the materials with no instructions or suggestions about what they could do with them to allow the freedom for them to choose what to use and how to engage with the activity
Narrate what you see, for example, “You’ve turned that around to look at it from the other side, what do you notice”, “You took that off and tried a different piece.”
Ask open questions such as, “What would happen if...?”, “What happened when you tried that?”, “What are you thinking about trying next?”
Encourage the children to evaluate how well their experiment went and if they would try anything differently next time.

How to extend this activity

Take photos of the emerging artwork at different points - this keeps the focus on the process. Display or share the photos and invite children to discuss their thinking behind the choices they made along the way
Do the same with other materials such as paint, modelling clay etc. by offering the materials without any instructions or expectations about outcome.

NDNA products to help you with this activity

Expressive Arts & Design nursery training - Face to face training

Disclaimer: Activities with children must always be risk assessed, including for allergies or choking. Children must always have adequate supervision. Resources and materials must always be appropriate for children’s age and stage of development.