Natural and waste material as an initiative for an active learning experience

The bachelor’s thesis presents the course and evaluation of the project of active learning, encouraged by means of natural and waste materials in the group of two-year-old children. In the theoretical part, I summarized explanations of several authors on the child’s learning and development. The authors emphasize the significance of encouraging learning environment where a child can learn actively. I described the role of a child and a teacher in the process of active learning. Then, I presented a process-development curriculum which also puts a child and his process of assimilation of the knowledge in the foreground. The educational concept Reggio Emilia also attributes an active role to a child in the process of the learning. The empirical part of the bachelor’s thesis is based on the process-development planning. I enabled the children to play with the unstructured materials (boxes of various dimensions, tubes, corks, and autumn fruits) in the encouraging learning environment. Thus I encouraged them to active learning through researching and manipulating with the offered materials. I encouraged them to search for their own solutions and strengthened their desire to be creative. In the conclusion, I ascertain that the set objectives of the project were achieved. The children were motivated internally. The offered material stimulated a desire to research. A better social and cognitive climate appeared in the group. The reverse evaluation of the activity proved that some important cognitive objectives were achieved through playing and the activity of the children in various fields of the curriculum