Loose parts and Nature Play

Seasonal Focus: FALL

    I am a very big advocate for loose parts.  I love the idea surrounding loose parts and how children have the liberty to choose what they want to do with those parts, while including them in their play.  That every time they play something new those loose parts evolve with them.  They are such a dynamic piece for any type of environment.  Let’s include loose parts and nature play, playing outside with loose parts.  While it is fall, I’ll focus more on the current season during this blog post.  Let’s talk about what loose parts are best for fall, and include why they are such a great incorporation to children’s play. Here are some I found that could be a great addition to where children play outside:

• gourds, mini gourds, pumpkins, mini pumpkins

• straw bales, corn stalks, acorns, acorn caps

• sunflowers, sunflower stalks, garden clippings/ dried flowers or dried leaves

• buckeyes, pinecones, sweet gum balls

• leaves, mums and other seasonal flowers

All these loose parts can be used to do many different kinds of games, activities and crafts. The mini gourds, pumpkins can be used to do some crafts or playing loose parts outdoors. Even cutting open a pumpkin, looking at them with tweezers, magnifying glasses and they can use their hands to manipulate the insides of the pumpkins, pick out the seeds with the tweezers. This is a great sensory activity that allows children to look more closely into pumpkins. Leaves during the fall is also a very interesting part, and a great visual representation for children of what "Fall" is in my opinion. The changing colours of the leaves, all the different colours are amazing. Leaf art of an kind, getting really creative with what you can do with the leaves and other natural fall loose parts. Colour matching using colour swatches, sensory bins and sensory experiences, Halloween loose parts and other seasonal Items, including play dough and mixing loose parts are all great ways to encourage children to play with loose parts. All these can be done outside, and in my opinion

Loose parts encourage children to:

• Problem solving, engineering and creativity

• Concentration, hand-eye coordination and fine motor development

• Gross motor development, language and vocabulary building

• Mathematical thinking, scientific thinking, literacy and social/emotional development

All these promote play that supports invention, divergent thinking, problem solving and offers a sense of wonder to children. They are materials that can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, lined up, and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways. They are materials with no specific set of directions that can be used alone or combined with other materials.