With a tin can, you can…

 we can have some fun with them before they go in the recycling bin.

The average UK household buys 600 steel cans a year – most of which contain food – so there are plenty of empty tin cans to go round.

While there are endless creative and fun activities you could offer, they become meaningless if you cannot link them to your curriculum. Think about what you want your children to know and learn next, remembering that planned experiences with specific learning objectives must enable a child to make sense of the information they are presented with. This happens when children have existing knowledge to build upon, and opportunity to represent their own ideas as they play and explore.

Tin cans with original labels – In role play areas, labelled tins will provide children a sense of belonging (PSED), as they recognise familiar items from their home environment and incorporate them into their play.

• Ask for empty labelled cans in children’s home language to encourage vocabulary and to enable children to communicate in their home language and talk about their local community. (Communication and language and Understanding the world)

• Explore labels with children, looking for symbols, numbers and letters in environmental print to encourage children’s awareness that words and images have meaning. (Literacy)

Put it in a can – Encourage the characteristics of effective learning as children decorate empty cans with paint, collage, or fabric for a range of storage solutions that are durable, more personal, and more sustainable than plastic:

You ‘can’ be scientific – Compare and contrast with older pre-schoolers by experimenting with a tin of peaches and a fresh peach. Begin by sampling fresh and tinned peaches at snack time, how do they taste, look and smell? Leave for a week or so and revisit.

Next, place a fresh peach and a tin of peaches to one side where the children can observe the gradual decay of the fresh peach, pose the question as to whether the tinned peaches will still look and smell the same as the fresh peach?

Another challenge could be to look at the ways tin cans are opened to flex the characteristics of effective learning. Compare tins that have no ring pull with those that do, how can the tin with no ring pull be opened? Some children will know that a ‘can opener’ is used, which, in turn, introduces children to other forms of technology with electric can openers and manual ones. (Understanding the world)

You ‘can’ be artistic – An empty tin can make a fantastic paint roller! Stick some foam, sponge or similar in different shapes to a can. Roll it into a tray of paint and then on a clean sheet of paper. Watch how patterns are formed and sequenced as the can revolves.

To encourage creativity, provide a range of small items to fill cans to make sounds in different ways – try rolling marbles inside a can for an interesting noise and compare it to the sound that they make when rattled. Before you know it, with the addition of ‘different’ small parts, you’ll have a tin can orchestra! (Mathematics and expressive arts and design)

You ‘can’ play games – Why spend precious funds on plastic skittles when you can make your own with decorated cans. Pile them into a pyramid and babies through to your oldest children can have endless fun knocking them down by rolling or kicking a ball or tossing beanbags as they develop gross motor skills and hand eye coordination.

Make tin can puppets by adding faces and pipe cleaner arms and legs. An adult will need to secure string to the top of the tin through a pierced hole. Puppets can then be used for storytelling and role play. (Physical development and expressive arts and design)