Workshop creating toys inspired by

the toy making activities

of Moroccan rural children
A photographic impression

Higher School of Education

Institute Polytechnic of Lisbon
Lisbon, Portugal
June 18, 2019

Jean-Pierre Rossie
On June 18, 2019 in the morning the students of the final year of the master
degree in preschool education first viewed a short series of slides showing
the natural and waste material used by Moroccan rural children until today
to make the toys they use for their games of make-believe. As a lot of
waste material was already available in the room, the intention was to show
them the kind of natural material these children collect and use.

After this brief introduction the group of students together with some of
their professors and the author walked to a local ecological park to collect
different kinds of natural material to be used in making toys. The result of
this expedition is shown in figure 1.

Once this natural material was exposed, the participants in the workshop
choose waste and natural material to create the toy they begun to
conceptualize (fig. 2).

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Some students combine natural and waste material (fig. 3-5).

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Other participants rely largely on using natural material (fig. 6-7).

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A few made toys with only or almost only waste material (fig. 8-9).

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After a while two professors of this master degree in preschool education
wanted to participate and created a large doll. As a companion for this
female doll the author made a large male doll (fig. 10-11).

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The following photographs show most of the finalized toys (fig. 12-20). At
the end of the workshop the participants grouped their toys on their own
initiative to build up a story (fig. 21).

In the afternoon the author held a seminar in the same institution (see
poster on the last page).

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