Pure Play Tip Sheets
Easy Ideas for Using Recycled Items to Create Play Opportunities
#RecycleforPlay – Empty Bottles
Click here for our quick tip sheet. Welcome to our series: #RecycleForPlay. In this series, we will describe how household items that are regularly discarded can be reused and recycled for play. We want our children to learn. We want our children...
#RecycleforPlay – laundry soap containers
Water is necessary to sustain life, and so is play. So, it’s only natural that water should be something extremely attractive to utilize for play. But often water isn’t available where a child is playing, now it can be! Those wonderful...
#Recycleforplay – small plastic containers
small plastic containers – tip sheet (1) So much of our food comes packaged in plastic containers: yogurt, sour cream, butter, margarine, cereal, nuts, fruit, icing, etc. And once we use the product, we toss the container into our recycling bin. But what could...
#RecycleforPlay – cardboard boxes
cardboard boxes – tip sheet You have likely already experienced this…the toy you’ve purchased is laying on the floor while your child uses the box as a drum (or however else they have been inspired). Why is it that cardboard...
#Recycleforplay – coffee cans
Those bright red, blue, green and yellow plastic coffee cans are valuable play things! The coffee cans store things and stack neatly because the lid fits so nicely. They are also durable for banging on, dumping into, and pouring out of. Since they are so playfully...
#repurposingforplay – Kitchen Utensils
A Window into a Child’s World She opens the cabinet and chooses. The treasure is transported into the living room and placed on the coffee table. Then she returns and selects again. Back and forth, she works her plan until there is enough to begin. I watch, knowing a...
#repurposingforplay – Folding Tables
What is a table, really? The eyes of an adult and the eyes of a child see differently. So a child can look at a table and see more than a place to sit and eat a meal. Can you think of ten different things a table can be? A child can surpass most adults on the amazing...
#repurposingforplay – Bed Sheets
Do you remember using sheets to make forts as a child? Blankets and sheets became the roofs and walls. Chairs, tables, and couches were the frames. Building was only one part of the fun. After making the fort or castle, then we imagined adventures both alone and...
#repurposingforplay – Cut Logs
Unleashing Creativity from Leftover Logs A tree gets cut down. It becomes wood for a fire or chopped into mulch. The pieces could be used for so much more. Have you ever thought of how it could be used for play? Cut into slices, the “tree cookies” become loose parts...
#repurposingforplay – PVC Pipe
PVC Pipe: Who’s ready to Build? We have a big bin full of various sizes of PVC pipe and buckets of connectors. Next to it are bedsheets and clothespins. The lids are open and ready for children. Children peek in, curious. “What can you make?” I ask, priming the pump....
#repurposingforplay – ADS Pipe
What Can ADS Pipe do to Make Play Amazing? What is ADS pipe? Before I became a play advocate, I had nothing to hang my hat onto with those words. Thems construction words. I’d let the person use the word and hope I could figure out what it was later....