Offer Agency in Learning by Making a Collage Cart
What kind of makers do you have in your classroom? Do you have collectors, arrangers, or attachers? Read on to find out what we mean. Plus, let us show you our favorite ways to offer collage in the classroom to support all kinds of learning and prioritize agency and choice-making while we’re at it.
A tray of paper scraps and a stack of construction paper are the only materials needed for a colorful, child-led collage experience. Add gluesticks to attach, and offer scissors to practice essential fine motor skills if children are ready.
Collectors notice, observe, find, gather. Do you know a child who loves to collect? Tiny shells, sturdy sticks, or maybe little Lego bits and other treasures that end up in pockets? Let’s explore this play instinct with collage. Invite children to dig through a bin of scraps and delight together in what they find!
Tape a piece of contact paper sticky side up to an easel. Offer a variety of lightweight bits and bobs as well as fabric and paper scraps to create a collaborative collage over the course of several days.
Arrangers explore, sort, move around, compose, iterate. Maybe you know a child who loves line-up play or makes intricate transient art creations with loose parts. Collage is a wonderful process for this child too. There is something meditative about sliding the cut pieces of paper around a surface and figuring out the best composition.
Fabric and yarn scraps are fantastic collage material. Save them in a large ziplock bag to add to mixed media creations.
Then there are the attachers.. and we know lots of those! Attachers ground, connect, make permanent. Offer tape and glue with repurposed paper scraps, cardboard, and other cast offs and support children in deep flow. Squeezing glue, ripping tape, connecting, attaching, grounding… this is where childhood memories are made.
A collage cart is the easiest way to give children a choice to use the materials in the classroom.
Support children in building a routine that allows them to decide when, where, and how they will create a collage. Store sturdy cardboard bases on the bottom shelf of a cart. Add essentials like glue sticks and scissors on the middle shelf. Offer small berry baskets or similar to “shop” the scrap bin on the top shelf.
Do you need help reimagining your classroom as a hub of creativity where children share ideas and feel seen, known, and celebrated? Learn more about our Materials Matters course and Professional Learning Workshops and transform your creative practice today.