Materials Creation

Construction paper covers every surface of my apartment. Small strips of colored paper, large pieces of poster board, and children’s books are everywhere, sometimes to the dismay of my roommate. The amount of materials we make for Jumpstart sessions every week has increased significantly as my group has realized the importance of quality materials in the classroom.

As we prepare for our fifth session plan, we’re eagerly anticipating making materials for dramatic play – grocery shopping and item sorting. We’ve collected empty food boxes to use for grocery shopping, and we’re making fake money and cash registers so the students can interact with different aspects of the grocery shopping experience. And although it might seem like a trivial situation, it’s hugely important for developing vocabulary. Words and concepts like grocery lists, cash registers, and supermarkets are concepts that are embedded in everyday life, but aren’t topics that are conventionally covered in school. By incorporating it into dramatic play, we allow students to interact with important daily activities in a fun and entertaining way.

When we first went through Jumpstart training, our site manager stressed the importance of high quality materials. But it wasn’t until I got into the classroom that I realized how important they really are. Our students are incredibly tactile-based in their development right now. Interacting physically with materials increases their desire and ability to learn. For example, one of our most popular puzzles centers has been Alphabet Matching Boards. I was very purposeful in making large, colorful and interactive boards so that our students would be interested in learning their letters. Learning letters seems to basic to me now as an adult, but for my preschoolers, it’s a fundamental building block of their learning, and without these fun games, they might not be as interested in learning the alphabet.

It’s awesome to see our students get so excited to play with puzzles or engage in Circle Time because of the materials we’ve made. It helps create these small moments in the classroom – moments when students finally realize what an uppercase letter A looks like, or can relate our core storybook back to washing dishes in dramatic play. It is these moments where I see Jumpstart making a difference in the lives of children, and that makes all of the work we do entirely worth it.

~Sarah Floyd
Team Leader
Team Determination