Sort – what does that mean?

All year long we’re witnessing as children build, create and EXPERIMENT with a variety of MATERIALS both inside and out. While these materials are OPEN-ENDED, they are generally designed to be assembled using a certain technique. In an attempt to further children’s thinking and inspire them to CONSIDER the ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES in materials we have begun to find and collect interesting natural and recyclable objects. Our hope is to encourage children to see these items in a different way and in turn experiment, DISCOVER and CREATE in ways we have yet to IMAGINE.

On our walk last week each child was given a collection bag to gather anything interesting they found in nature. Today we set about the task of organizing all of these new found treasures so we could look a little closer at what we had. We provided trays and asked the children what it meant to sort these objects.

To tell what they are. ADDIE
Put them in the right place. PARKER
It means to put everything where they all are. That means rocks go in the rock pile, sticks
        go in the stick pile, and acorns go in the acorn pile. VIOLET
I sort them in piles that’s right. I look and know where it goes. ELLIOTT

While this activity helped us to organize new objects to add to our studio collection, this process of sorting also helped us to notice the more subtle details of a double acorn cap, moss covered stick and the varying sizes of our rocks. What other discoveries will unfold as we further explore all of our “BEAUTIFUL STUFF?”