Curious objects

(Pre-school and Reception)

You will find curious objects hidden in different places around your home. Look through your garage, loft or shed for interesting objects.

Look in grandparents' homes. They are sometimes a great place to start your search for objects of curiosity. The older generation are a source of fascinating stories about how they used to live.

You may want to travel further afield and visit antique shops, car boots and museums.

You will need:

Examples of curious objects (find the old and new if you can):

• iron
• cassette player, record player
• compass
• camera
• binoculars
• ink pens, blackboards, and chalk
• old edition of a comic
• a handwritten letter

What to do

When exploring your curious object at first you won't need to say anything. Place the object in front of them, let them explore it and wait for their questions. Later you may ask your child open-ended questions such as:

• I wonder what this could be?
• What does it feel like?
• How do you think it was used in the olden days?
• Do you think grandpa/grandma would know?
• Will it still work?
• What do you think this will look like inside? (Often you can take apart old unused items and allow the children to tinker with them. Supervise this activity. Remember to remove batteries and plugs that could be harmful).

Skills your child will learn:

• begin to use historical based language – language associated with the passage of time
• a sense of uniqueness and of belonging to a community
• developing a sense of historical enquiry
• learn to compare – talk about similarities and differences
• begin to have a sense of chronology