We recently had a large donation of office supplies given to RisingOaks | John Sweeney. We immediately thought, “Wow, the kids are going to love these!” As we were organizing the boxes we came across an entire box of coil bindings that ranged in a variety of colours and sizes. Some of the coils were tight and spring-like and others were loose and bendable. As soon as Educator Emily brought them into the School-age 2 classroom, the children gravitated towards them. The children lifted their arms above their heads and began to swing the coil bindings around, ensuring not to hit anyone with them. As the coils began to tangle, each child would bring it over to Emily and she would assist them in the untangling process. This process took a lot of patience! Sometimes the coils were tangled within themselves, other times they were tangled with another coil binding. After a few days of Emily assisting in the untangling process, she encouraged the children to complete this process independently or with a buddy. A few children took it upon themselves to set up an “Untangling Station” where you could drop off your tangled coil binding, go play and they would call you when it was ready to play with again. Several children took advantage of this service. The coil bindings were also used as measurement tools. The children would measure to see how far they could stretch. We observed that the loose coils stretched further then the tight coils. Some coil bindings were able to stretch to be as tall as the children while others were only able to stretch about 1 ft. Inside, we decided to hold a competition to see how fast the children could place the coil bindings in a line from one side of the room to the other. When they were finished, they counted to see how many coil bindings were used. They chose to have a prize for both the longest line and the fastest completed line. However, all of the children who participated in the event received a prize as there was a lot of encouragement and team work involved in the competition. The coil bindings were also brought outside as loose parts during our planned outdoor time. The children explored the maximum spring action as well as how fast and far the coil bindings could swing around their heads. It was such a great experience to watch the children take ordinary coil bindings and create so many experiments, activities and learning opportunities.
