What Can you Make?
Recently my toddler and I have become fascinated with loose parts play. He loves it because his favourite activity is taking things apart and building them back up. I love it because it is so quick and easy to set up, mess free and my son is learning so many valuable skills while he plays.
Some of the skills that are developed during a loose parts play activity are: problem solving, creativity, independence, exploration / curiosity, imagination and speech and language.
Set Up
So for this activity I used wooden colourful buttons, natural coloured building blocks, spices, berries, pine cones and corks. Loose parts play is just a collection of any materials which can be moved, combined, put together, taken apart, lined up, stacked. So you can really use anything you have to create a loose parts play activity for a child.
So a loose parts play activity for a child should be open ended and ideally there should be no adult direction in how and what a child does with the collection of materials. This bit is hard for the teacher in me that is itching to teach and impart some knowledge. What my toddlers creates with the loose parts doesn’t need to look pretty or functional. This activity is all about getting his imagination flowing.
My son absolutely loved this activity. He was building, knocking down, balancing rolling. Loose parts play is so easy and the learning is so valuable we repeat this type of activity regularly.