I found our old stamp collection last week. It reminded me, as I was thinking of how children learn about systems of organization, that starting a collection of just about any interesting stuff can be a great summer activity.
We have had several "in progress" that are worked on from time to time. Almost all collections have in common that they involve classifying — putting similar things together according to some system — and can be as much fun for adults who help as for the children involved.
Collections of baseball cards are common but there are lots of other things around the house that young children can organize into a collection. Old buttons can be sorted by color, size, shape, and even glued on paper or fabric to make a design. Stamps can be saved from envelopes and arranged by color, size, kind or amount.
The old standard leaf collection takes on new meaning when Mom or Dad helps identify leaves found and take an interest in working with their child to make a book.
A fun-derful teaching activity involving young children is to cut magazine pictures that fit a category. Ask your child to cut out all the food pictures or all the toy pictures or all the car pictures, etc., and paste them to make a book. Help them identify and label the pictures and their vocabulary will skyrocket.
Rock collections can be made of the most common rocks and sorted by color, size, texture, and shape. A wonderful collection most of us have is family photographs but few of have them in books to share and enjoy. Older children can help paste the photos in books and work with Mom or Dad or Grandparents to identify and label the pictures,
Some collections are simple, such as bottle caps or postcards from far places; others are more expensive, like electric trains and paintings. What is of most importance is that adults and children are doing something creative and interesting together.
Things are not the only kind of collections. Remember when you traveled as a child and “collected” license tags in a game? The object was to be first to get all the states by keeping an alphabetical list of the cards from each state. Collections of birds and wildflowers can be made the same way.
Children learning to write need lots of chances to write and keeping a list of all the birds they have seen or the wildflowers they have identified encourages classifying and gives them a reason to use writing skills. One of our children collected words. We kept a small spiral notebook handy and as she learned a new word, she would write it down. The pride of "ownership" was really motivating and her spelling and writing skills really took off.
As most collections are made over a period of time, plan to keep stuff in a box or cat litter pan. Use scissors in the kitchen where adults can help and scraps easily clean up. What children remember most are the good times they shared with their parents. Making special collections is an interesting and creative way to spend time with our children and help them learn valuable skills.
Darby Kethan has a master's degree in child development, and has experience as a social worker, educator of young children, educational consultant, and as a professional trainer for a national educational foundation providing professional development to teachers. Visit her website at darbykethan.com.
