Encourage your kids to express their creativity as they discover, collect, sort, arrange, experiment, and think with found and recyclable “stuff.” The real-life experiences of teachers and children will inspire ideas that you can try at home: choose objects and turn them into a display, transform materials into a face, build and glue wood scraps to make constructions. Appropriate for children four years of age and older.
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Cathy Weisman Topal has been an art teacher for over 20 years. She teaches three- to eight-year-olds at the Smith College Campus School, and also teaches art education at Smith College. She is the author of Children, Clay, and Sculpture and Children and Painting.
Lella Gandini is an author, a correspondent for the Italian early childhood magazine Bambini, and adjunct professor in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She serves as Reggio Children Liason in the United States for Dissemination of the Reggio Emilia Approach.
Other Books by This Author:
Children, Clay, and Sculpture
Children and Painting.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In Beautiful Stuff!: Learning With Found Materials, Cathy Topal and Lella Gandini collaborate to share how real teachers in Reggio Emilia, Italy use ordinary and diverse materials found in any home to stimulate their student's imaginations, inspire storytelling and interactions between children, and serve to launch children into such creative activities as drawing, collage making, sculpture, and construction. Beautiful Stuff! is a marvelous, practical, inspiring, and easy-to-read compendium of ideas and suggestions for nurturing the innate creative of a child and adapting within the context of a classroom.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you are a Reggio inspired teacher as I am, you will love this book. It takes you through the wonderful process of sharing the joys of all those little treasures that young children find and love. You will be amazed at how clever the children in your class become at sorting and classifying through the kinds of experiences that working with 'Beautiful Stuff' involes. I just love this book, it has changed the way I view the materials that I put out for the children, and how I use them. My friends also love this book and all ask, "where did you get it?" Thank you Cathy Topal Weisman and Lella Gandini you are inspiring.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By britneyxyz
Format:Hardcover
I am not a teacher and I was not experienced in the Reggio Emilia approach to preschool education (project approach) before reading this book. I sought this book for handwork ideas with the items my girls collect on their nature walks. I could not put this book down!
Beautiful stuff outlines the projects developed with found materials at the pre-school in Reggio Emilia, Italy. It starts at the beginning with the ideas of the teachers, the method of including parents and increasing children's awareness of everyday objects. (This book is full of details - they mention how the teachers scan materials and remove inappropriate / dangerous materials).
The book is filled with photographs from beginning to end. The photographs themselves show the story. I especially like the different approaches to sorting suggested in this book and the amount of time the children were permitting to sort, touch, feel, enjoy, and organize the materials. I also liked the three-dimensional project where the children first drew what they were going to build.
The children are quoted throughout the book. The quotes are memorable and sweet and show the children's enjoyment of this entire project.
I would recommend this book to pre-school teachers, day care centers, people who baby-sit in their home or parents looking for ideas for found objects. I loved it!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Extremely valuable resource for teachers
I have recommended this book to teachers countless times. It is a brilliant accounting of an intentional plan for using found objects in an early childhood program. Read more
Published 3 months ago by SANDRA BURWELL
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Teacher Resource
Beautiful Stuff documents the learning and teaching process of found materials which children collected from home with the help of their parents. Read more
Published on March 14, 2011 by Cecilia Ko
5.0 out of 5 stars
A treasure trove of ideas for preschool teachers
This book contains many ideas for storing and using things that we ordinarily throw away! It makes one stop and think before discarding anything at all. Read more
Published on August 14, 2009 by M. Ericson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book
Great book for early childhood teachers, especially those interested in the Reggio Approach. Fast reading and well worth the cost.
Published on July 16, 2009 by Cheryl P.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very inspiring
If you are working with early childhood are children, this book is a wonderful resource! I plan to put many of the ideas into practice. Read more
Published on June 27, 2009 by Lola
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simple but good
This book was short, simple but was a great book. I highly recommend it for any teacher, grades K-21.
Best in ideas of where to get supplies and save money.
Best in ideas of where to get supplies and save money.
Published on June 14, 2009 by Michael Kurland
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Stuff Book
A beautifully illustrated book with easy to read suggestions on working with recyclables in your classroom. Very inspiriing!
Published on August 31, 2008 by S. Porter
4.0 out of 5 stars
I like this book
I took a lot of ideas for working with my kids at school.
Published on November 9, 2006 by Martin Lucas Goya
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful book for caring teachers of young children!
This book is a great way to ease yourself into Reggio or to inspire others on your team. You do not have to be "Reggio inspired" to know that young children love small,... Read more
Published on August 6, 2001 by P. Heaphy
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