Tidying Up The Beach

This small world activity for toddlers and children is inspired by the story Clem and Crab. This aim of this activity is to have an honest conversation about the damage that rubbish causes to our environment and the creatures we live amongst.

Set Up

We had created our Rock Pool small world the day before, so I very simply added pieces from our recycling on top of it until the rock pool was completely hidden.

I explained that the crab and starfish needed our help as there is loads of rubbish in their rockpool and they don’t like it. We had a discussion about why rubbish was bad for the animals and my son said “oh it makes them sick then?” He then quickly and efficiently cleared the rockpool putting all the rubbish into the basket.

When we finally reached the crab and starfish he took each one, inspecting them and saying to them “it’s all better now.”

My son enjoyed this small world activity so much he asked to do it again and again.

This was a really important activity to enable my son to see and to begin to understand how peoples’ carelessness has a negative impact on our environment.