Early Childhood Play With Reclaimed Resources: Potential Benefits for Young Children

Sustainable play practices offer many benefits to young children, developmental and cultural, and these are examined in an English context. The authors claim a shared European heritage for children’s play practices; one that has been eroded with the commodification of play materials, the manufacture of commercial toys and games accessible only to the wealthy child. After demonstrating the value of education for sustainable development, the chapter considers how reclaimed resources can be used to promote this end. It discusses a small-scale research project that visited four English early years settings to see whether and how the staff followed sustainable principles. It was found that the approaches of the four settings varied considerably, using resources that spanned the spectrum from commercial to natural, and concluded that more should/could be done to encourage play with reclaimed materials to set children on the path to greater environmental awareness and intercultural harmony.