Find resources / Activities / Te whakaemi – Collecting Activity

Starting collections of outdoor objects helps your tamariki to:

• have fun and enjoy exploring places and finding things
• strengthen their observation skills by looking for things in their environment
• learn new or different words and use them in conversations
• become familiar with what lives in different places like te ngahere, te moana, the garden and the beach, and how those creatures are connected to their environment
• learn to care for their environment and other living things
• explore early maths skills like sorting and grouping when looking through what they’ve collected

All that is needed is a willing adult, a container and some time.

• Wherever you and your tamaiti go, have a container or two to put things in. An ice cream container or bucket is ideal.
• Talk about leaving living things where they live and only choose things that won’t be harmed by being put in a container.
• Encourage your tamaiti to look for a variety of different things.
• Whatever goes into the container can be a prompt for interesting conversations when you stop and explore your collection together.
• At the beach you may find a mixture of natural materials like shells, stones and seaweed, but there might also be pieces of glass, metal or plastic. This is a good time to talk about caring for our world.
• Talk about and decide whether you leave the things behind when you go or whether it’s okay to take some things home to keep exploring and learning about.
• Collect things that are the same but different, such as a variety of different leaves, twigs, shells, stones, flowers, bottle tops and lids.
• Ask them for their ideas about how to group things. There will be lots of different ways to categorise them: by colour, shape, size, length, weight, and what things are made of or used for.
• Use open-ended questions to help them make groups of things that can ‘belong together’ or ‘be a family’ (sorting). Ask questions about which items are:
  • heavy or light
  • big or small
  • dry or wet
  • rough or smooth
  • have a smell or not
  • used to move or have never moved
  • from nature or made by humans, and so on.

Other ideas — Ētahi atu whakaaro

• How about grouping your collection(s) according to the atua the things that are connected with? For example:
  • Tangaroa — god of the sea
  • Tāne-mahuta — god of the forests and birds
  • Tāwhirimātea — god of weather and storms
  • Tūmatauenga — god of war, hunting, fishing and agriculture
  • Rongo — god of peace and cultivated plants
  • Haumia-tiketike — god of wild food plants
  • Rūaumoko — god of earthquakes, volcanoes and seasons.
• Focus on a characteristic such as colour or shape, for example:
  • Have a ‘red day’ when you wear red clothes and eat red fruit and vegies.
  • Go for a walk and look for things made out of, say, wood or metal.
• Make collage pictures with things you and your tamaiti have collected. Use glue or double-sided tape. An example theme could be ‘All the leaves we found in the garden’.
• Sort the laundry with your tamaiti: match pairs of socks and sort clothing according to who wears it.