We Love Loose Parts!

9/5/2024

“Children learn most readily and easily in a laboratory-type environment where they can experiment, enjoy and find out things for themselves.”
Simon Nicholson

What are loose parts?

For generations children have used found materials in their play from rocks and sticks to tin cans and wire. In his article “How NOT to Cheat Children: the Theory of Loose Parts,” the British architect Simon Nicholson coined the term “loose parts” to describe open-ended materials that can be used and manipulated in many ways. Environments, he believed, offer many ways for children to interact with variables such as gravity, sounds, chemical reactions, concepts, words, and people.

In a world where we are preparing our children for all kinds of unknown professions, it is important to engage children's curiosity and their natural joy for learning. This love of learning along with communication skills, self regulation skills, and the ability to problem solve leads to life long success no matter the profession. Some might think that learning these skills will only happen behind a desk in a typical school environment, but Dimensions Educational Research Foundation's research tells us that children who spend time in well designed, nature filled classrooms with many opportunities to engage with open ended materials and loose parts develop skills across all learning domains.

“In any environment,” Nicholson writes, “both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it”. When children play and create with loose parts, they can move around, making use of any or all of the found objects, devising spaces and structures that can entertain them for hours. They become more creative and flexible in their thinking while satisfying their ever-growing curiosity and love for learning.

Loose parts is an invitation to play without rules or an expected outcome. It is great for children to develop motor skills, communication skills (through working with others or sharing about their process), imagination, autonomy and independence, and develop their own purpose and meaning with the objects they are engaging with.

When children have some intentional time to create without direction and expectation of a specific end product, their creativity has a chance to blossom and grow. Their confidence soars as they create something on their own and with their own imagination and two hands. They grow in their independence and sense of self with the opportunity and space given for them to explore. Problem solving skills are developed through open ended projects, as they figure out how to make their ideas come into reality.

Loose parts is so simple and yet offers such complex and amazing benefits.

Playing with loose parts can build on children’s learning through:

Increasing physical activity
Enhancing cognitive skills
Increasing focus and engagement
Boosting natural curiosity
Inviting conversation and collaboration
Developing higher levels of critical thinking and problem solving

Clay and dried bean mosaic crafting.

Some fun "loose part" crafts where the kids had objects they could put together and use their imaginations. They ended up making little monster puppets with the supplies provided.

Coffee filter turkey crafts the children made. They glued turkey bodies, eyes, and beaks on the coffee filter and painted the filters with water colors!

And while we LOVE loose parts, we also love to balance the projects that are offered with more classical academic projects too.

Handprint cut out turkeys! We wrote something the children were grateful for on the back of the turkeys. We named them "gratitude turkeys".

"I am the best I can be". Self-portraits with things we love drawn in. Practicing gratitude for ourselves and all the things we love about ourselves and enjoy in life.

We made this awesome pipe cleaner and bead "corn on the cob" craft. This craft was amazing for hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. The children laced all the beads on 7 different strands of pipe cleaners. They even counted out the beads for each pipe cleaner. We then did the math to determine how many beads would be in the whole project if there were 20 beads on each pipe cleaner and 7 different pipe cleaners. This craft was all around fun and the children got very into it.

Paper plate and pinecone turkey craft!

Kindness and Gratitude trees.

Washi tape and loose part craft turkeys out of toilet paper rolls. We wrote things we are grateful for on the turkey feathers!

Loose part Alphabet board in the making. The children created letters of the alphabet from loose part materials and they will be made into a big board/poster that will be hung in the classroom.

Circling Together

During circle time the children have been going over boundaries and personal space. We played a game where we would be in our airplane bubbles and have our arms stretched out as airplanes. The kids would have to fly around without touching one another and practiced asking one another before entering into their personal space "bubble".

We talked a whole lot about gratitude this month. The children are all so grateful for their wonderful parents (and we are too!), their families, friends, and themselves.

We have been practicing a lot of breathing; the children have been working on their deep breaths in and long breaths out. Exhaling longer than the inhale is very grounding and a great reset for the nervous system. It is the ultimate breathing tool to calm your body down. We have been doing our "heart" breaths, where we hold our hands over our hearts as we take deep breaths and. As well as, our "s" breath, where they breathe in deep and breath out making a long "sssssss" sound, we also call this the "snake" breath.

The older children have been working on mini meditation practices. They have been doing such a great job and even ask for our meditation time in circle! I think their favorite part is saying and humming "Ommmmmm" as we begin our meditation time.

Yoga and Stretching time! A wonderful way to get our bodies moving gracefully in the colder months and the children love it. We have been doing a lot of cross body stretches (midline crossing), bringing our right hand to our left foot and vice versa. These kinds of movements are great for developing brains, eyes, and bodies; these movements connect the hemispheres of the brain.

Meditation Zone

Tinkering Shed Fun!

The kids got really into nailing wood together and decorating their pieces with so much fun glitter.

They also practiced with sawing! These skills are building their independence and self-confidence. They're all learning how to be careful with tools and building new skills with sawing, nailing, and so much more.

Time in the Kitchen!

Helping to make popsicles! The kids helped juice the lemons, add stevia, pour the liquid into the popsicle molds, and add the sticks!

We know how much your kiddos love these popsicles, and as it gets colder and colder we have moved to raisins as our afternoon snack. So, we would like to share the recipe with you so you can make these simple and healthy popsicles at home!

Lemon Popsicle Recipe

2 lemons, freshly squeezed / juiced
~15 drops of stevia
-add these ingredients to a quart size mason jar and add water to fill the jar. Add less or more water to your liking of dilution.

Math, Science, and Literacy

Math, science, and literacy really come up throughout the day all the time. We are always counting, adding, learning to identify numbers and letters, learning how things work (these kids ask all the questions!), and building pre-writing skills (and a lot of kids are writing their own names). Even though these subjects naturally present themselves in our daily rhythm, we still carve out special time for them.

Math

We rolled these dice, counted the dots on each die, and learned how to write addition equations. For instance, this roll above would be 3+1= ?. The children would practice writing their numbers and work on their addition skills.

We added in some marbles to give us a visual on our addition problems. If one die said two, we would count two marbles, then we would count out the next number on the die and count that many marbles. To find the answer we would count all the marbles together.

Reading / Writing

Putting letters together to spell our names and more!

Developing pre-writing skills through tracing letters with our fingers and other objects. This helps build fine motor skills and letter recognition.

Writing their names in the sand! Some kids can write their own names in the sand, others we write their names for them, and they learn to recognize the letters in their names and can trace their letters with their fingers or a stick.

Science

The kids learned what happens when you add baking soda and vinegar together. They created a hypothesis about what they thought would happen when the two were mixed. Then we wondered, "What would happen if we added soap?" They formed a new hypothesis and then we tested it again. What happened is that it become a much thicker foam and stayed foamy for longer!

Additionally, they explored color mixing and how much you have to use of food coloring for it make deep colors vs light colors.

Piggy backing off our lesson of mixing baking soda and vinegar, we experimented with what would happen if we mixed them in a bottle and closed the lid tightly? The children again formed a hypothesis and tested it. They took turns adding vinegar to the bottle, then we wrapped baking soda in a napkin and added it to the bottle, then quickly screwed the lid on tightly. The reason for wrapping the baking soda in the napkin was so it wouldn't dissolve all at once and release all the gas before we could close the lid. Once the lid was on the kids took turns shaking the bottle up!

What happened? The bottle got full of gas and popped out and became really tight. We observed how the bottle was able to be squeezed and crinkled up before, and after there was no room left to push the bottle.

Then, Ben unscrewed the cap and we heard a "POP" and watched the lid go flying!