Educating Young Children Volume 2 - Summer 2026 July 1, 2026 | Sparking Creative Expression Through Community Connections

By Jennalee Johnson

The Trash Art Project

As I push open the classroom door and slide in a heavy black garbage bag, I’m spotted immediately.

“She’s here! Jennalee saw Kaelyb!” Lilah calls from across the room.

Noah leaves the block area to grab hold of the bag and pull it across the floor to the art table. “Miles, help!” he says. “This is heavy.”

 The classroom door clicks shut, and the 3- and 4-year-olds hoist the bag onto the table.

“I did see Kaelyb this weekend,” I say, referring to my partner in this project, “and I picked up this trash!”

Carefully, I pour the trash (which has been sanitized) into the center of the table. The children begin pulling items out. I see Miles’s hand dart for a metal flower. Amara slowly slides a plastic bowl out of the pile.

“What is this thing?” Forrest asks as he picks up a pipe. I can’t help but think that these discards are quickly becoming treasures in our classroom.

Where adults may see ordinary items, children often see limitless possibilities, connecting everyday moments to the creative arts. Painting, sculpting, building, and creating in other forms or modes support them to express their ideas, emotions, and growing knowledge and skills. As they create, children share their thinking, explore aspects of themselves and others, and work to make sense of new concepts and experiences. When planned as part of an integrated curriculum, the creative arts can promote skills across domains (physical, social, and emotional) and content areas (literacy, math, and engineering). 

Creative arts also offer an entry point for community involvement—a key part of high-quality early childhood education. By actively engaging children with their broader community, educators can help to foster children’s sense of belonging, purpose, and agency as they communicate their ideas, emotions, and understandings about the world around them. 

I am an early childhood educator and former teacher at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Children’s Center. This Reggio Emilia-inspired program, which has been NAEYC-accredited since 1992, focuses on building relationships with children and their families through a project-based approach. The center follows a continuity of care model, meaning I stayed with one group of children from infancy through kindergarten.

Several years ago, my class began partnering with the Merrill Community Sharing Garden in Beloit, Wisconsin, to create a four-paneled mural for display there. During this multiyear project, children focused on depicting what they called “a layer of Earth”—sunshine, the sky, the soil, and people. For the panel depicting people, children created a sculpture from trash that was collected from around the garden and its nearby neighborhood.

In this article, I share how art and community involvement are part of developmentally appropriate practice. I also describe how our project supported and advanced children’s creative expression.

Community Involvement as a Component of Early Learning

One standard of quality in early childhood education includes community connections. NAEYC’s “Early Childhood Program Standards” position statement notes that early childhood programs should be active members of their larger communities and build on community resources to support learning goals. This aligns with developmentally appropriate practice: No matter where an early learning setting is located, it is surrounded by a community that is rich with assets that can benefit children. When educators learn about and engage with their neighborhoods, towns, and cities, they help to ensure that children’s and families’ contexts are represented.

In my work, I continually seek opportunities to connect children’s interests and experiences to community initiatives. The children in my class had long exhibited an interest in trash. They liked to use it during art activities. As they learned to take their first steps, walk, and then run, they would peek under benches or look along stairwells for a stray piece of trash to collect. But because of our program’s focus on the environment, there wasn’t much, and the children were frustrated.

Then, during an online, nature-based education course focused on gardening and outdoor classrooms, I met Kaelyb Lokrantz, the director of the Merrill Community Sharing Garden. This organization works to transform vacant lots into public gardens. While my class struggled to find trash, Kaelyb and his stakeholders could find it in abundance.

Through our discussions, the idea for a garden mural was born. This would enhance the garden landscape and allow children to work together to explore their artistic expression, collaborate with peers, and engage in meaningful work connected to our broader community. My goal was for children to learn to express themselves creatively through experimentation and our shared sense of purpose.

Creating Art from Trash 

To begin, high school students who spent some of their educational hours at the Merrill Community Sharing Garden collected trash from the garden and surrounding neighborhood. After it was collected, I sorted through it and sanitized what I wanted to share with children. Most of what we received was recyclable.

Our idea was for children to create a three-dimensional sculpture and attach it to one of the paneled boards that would be displayed at the garden. Earlier in the year, they had made small sculptures using the limited litter we found on our grounds. Most of this was lightweight, meaning they could use glue to create their artwork. However, the trash from the garden was much larger and heavier. This offered an opportunity for children to explore new tools and new ways of sculpting.

“Getting everything to fit on this board is like a puzzle,” I say.

The children are working around a table, adjusting pieces of trash and making suggestions on how to make each piece fit. Miles shifts a piece of turf, then begins watching Amara try to place a bottle onto our sculpting board.

“It keeps sliding,” she says, brows furrowed. “I want it to stay.”

As I look around the table, I decide it’s time to introduce tools for us to work with. “It took four of you to get the bag up onto the art table,” I say. “This stuff is heavy.” I reach into my box and pull out a drill.

“Remember when we used the electric drill for our greenhouses?” I ask. Noah nods and instantly chimes in. “We need to be focused, and you are right by our side.”

Weston spins a red soda cap on the table, scanning the board. “I want to start with the drill,” he says. “The cap can fit right here.” He reaches for the drill as the other children hold the board securely. The drill hums as Weston secures the cap in place.

Over the next several days, children worked to create their three-dimensional structure, problem solving their way through the construction of an intricate piece of art. They examined the visual aspects of each piece of trash, including its colors, shapes, and textures. They worked together on the sculpture’s design, finding ways to fit each treasured piece into it and seeking out each other’s ideas and perspectives. Because they could approach the sculpture from different sides, the children expanded their understanding of physical space. Over multiple days, I observed as they created, negotiated with one another, and built empathy and appreciation for others’ approaches.

Finally, children brainstormed how to attach their sculpture to the board it would rest on. This included deciding which tools would help them. Throughout my time with these children, I had intentionally planned opportunities for them to use tools, such as hammers, drills, and screwdrivers. These activities began when the children were toddlers, and our sensory table tube became clogged. Two of the older toddlers and I had used a wrench and screwdriver to remove the tube from the table, then the younger children joined us at the sink with wood skewers and pipe cleaners to help unclog it. But for this project, more sophisticated tools were required, including drills and saws. (For more on using tools in early childhood settings, see “The Wonder of Woodwork in Early Childhood: Exercising Imagination, Creativity, and Problem Solving,” by Pete Moorhouse, in the Winter 2025 issue of Teaching Young Children.)

Once the children are satisfied that our sculpture is complete, we move it outside and begin to decorate it. I provide the children with different colors of acrylic paint and glue, so they can create the layered effect they want for the sculpture.

“You brought us big cups for this board!” Rowan says, lifting one in each hand.  

“I want to use the red paint first!” Noah calls.

“This one is too solid,” Miles says, swirling the cup in his hand.

“Too solid?” I ask.

Miles looks into his cup. “It’s just colors. I need more glue.”

“I can add some,” Rowan offers.

“I’ll help you pour,” Miles says.

As children worked together to finish their trash art, the same energy that filled our classroom the day I delivered that first bag of trash echoed across the play yard. After the sculpture was decorated to the children’s satisfaction, I delivered it to the Merrill Community Sharing Garden, where it’s still on display.

Observing and Documenting Children’s Creative Expression and Learning

My goal throughout this project was for the children to create and collaborate—with one another, with people beyond our classroom, and with materials that invited curiosity and joy. I wanted the children to see that trash was not the end of a story but the beginning of a new one: The objects we collected became part of an art installation that connected our class with the Merrill Community Sharing Garden and the high schoolers who helped gather our raw material.

This project also supported children’s learning. Besides offering opportunities for creative expression, our trash art construction and painting sessions extended into other learning areas and domains. For example,

·      Children practiced oral language skills as they engaged in meaningful conversations, described and explained their ideas, and listened to peers during collaborative decision making.

·      Children engaged in mathematical thinking as they manipulated and arranged materials. Sculpting required them to investigate spatial relationships, balance, and measurement.

·      Through hands-on experimentation, children engaged in science as they tested hypotheses, observed outcomes, and adjusted their approaches when specific materials did not behave as expected.

I observed and documented this learning by taking photographs and video footage of the children working. I included these artifacts in our classroom’s documentation panels and sent them to families through our electronic communication system.

Early childhood educators are called to build reciprocal partnerships with multiple stakeholders as they plan rich, engaging activities for children. What began in our program as a longstanding interest in trash ended in a shared artistic experience with our community.

About the Author

Jennalee Johnson, MSEd, is a 4K educator with the school district of Fort Atkinson in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. She is dedicated to fostering play-based learning environments that support children’s development and strengthen social and emotional literacy skills.

Photographs: courtesy of author. Copyright © 2026 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See permissions and reprints online at NAEYC.org/resources/permissions.