Loose Parts Learning in K-3 Classrooms

Carla Gull, Suzanne Levenson Goldstein, Tricia Rosengarten

• Publisher: Gryphon House Inc.
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780876599273
• eBook ISBN: 9780876599280
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Loose parts. You have heard the term, probably in the context of promoting engaging play with open-ended, natural, and manufactured materials that can be manipulated with limitless possibilities. In this book, discover how a loose parts mindset promotes active learning in the early elementary classroom, enhancing curriculum and ensuring connection to state standards.

Offering inspiration and guidance on developing, applying, and teaching a loose parts mindset, the authors break down common myths of using loose parts for learning and walk you through getting started in the classroom and on the school grounds. Examine your role as an educator, address safety concerns, and explore how you might evaluate and assess loose parts in the classroom.

The inspiring photographs in this book showcase ways to apply the loose parts mindset to science, technology, reading and literacy, engineering, art, and math lessons. Use this book as a smorgasbord of ideas—pick and choose ones that work for you, your students, and your community. None of us is too old for a little loose parts play!

· Chapter 1 ·
An Overview of Loose Parts

Loose parts are often associated with play, but they are also vital components to learning and growth. As philosopher and education reformer John Dewey (1942) states in his book The School and Society, “Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself.” The distinction between educational learning and play begins to vanish as we allow learning and development to take place with the use of loose parts.

Using open-ended materials is an age-old practice, starting from the first time a human picked up a rock or stick and used it in a creative way. Today’s older generations often mention that playing with found materials—scavenging for natural and discarded objects outside for play and inventing—is just how they grew up. Additionally, theories and practices by education thinkers, including Friedrich Fröebel, Maria Montessori, and John Milton, had roots in manipulating objects as part of learning, as did the adventure-playground movement after World War II.

Open-ended materials create opportunities to interact and manipulate with both natural and manufactured items and challenge children to think, build, and create. As educators, it is important that we “encourage children to take risks, explore, and investigate while engaging in active, sensory, collaborative, and dramatic play” (Carr et al., 2017).

Loose parts can intrigue and captivate students at any age and in any subject. Dewey argues that education and learning is an interactive, experiential, and engaging process. The experiential approach to education is founded on the idea that growth takes place when students are actively (physically, socially, intellectually, emotionally) involved in their learning rather than just being receivers of information (Stanchfield, 2016).

Exploring the Theory and Intent of Loose Parts

While many educational theories and practices have influenced open-ended play, architect Simon Nicholson coined the term loose parts. Nicholson’s perspective, which he explains in his 1971 article “How NOT to Cheat Children—The Theory of Loose Parts,” is that “in any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it.” Nicholson believed that children can be creative and imaginative when incorporating loose parts in their play and learning. In his article, he defines creativity as “playing around with the components and variables of the world in order to make experiments and discover new things and form new concepts.”

Peter Gray (2013), author of Free to Learn, admits that “play would be more respected if we called it something like ‘self-motivated practice of life skills,’ but that would remove the lightheartedness from it and thereby reduce its effectiveness.” Of course, many life skills and personal qualities are essential to students’ future academic, personal, and professional success. Loose-parts explorations support important skills such as divergent thinking, decision making, creativity, problem solving, self-confidence, adaptability, self-direction, and motivation.

Divergent thinking is a process of creating many ideas and solutions related to a concept a person is attempting to understand or a problem she is trying to solve. Unlike convergent thinking, the divergent approach encourages students to think cognitively, critically, and creatively. Using loose parts in classrooms supports this learning process and creates “a spontaneous, fluid, non-linear mental approach based on curiosity and nonconformity. In fact, it is also a type of thinking very common in children, where joy, imagination, and a fresh perspective make their reasoning more free” (Exploring Your Mind, 2018).

Play is an essential aspect of the learning process. As Gray (2013) puts it, play is how students can learn to take control of their learning and lives. What important skills do children learn from play? In his 2019 article, “The Decline of Play—Peter Gray,” Ying includes the ability to solve problems with creativity, imagination, and innovation; getting along with peers; social and emotional skills; and risk taking in the list. Along these lines, Nicholson (1971) suggests that loose parts move beyond playing with sticks and cardboard boxes (although both are important!) to a more complex understanding of engagement in education.

We pulled ten principles from his theory to rethink Nicholson’s intent:

1. Limit the restrictions.
2. Involve children in using, planning, and building spaces and learning.
3. Blur the lines between inside and outside.
4. Create a lab-like environment.
5. Solve real-life problems.
6. Allow children to learn through experimentation.
7. Use a variety of approaches to loose-parts play.
8. Just add water.
9. Use what you have.
10. Play

Limit the Restrictions

How can we have a “yes” mentality in classroom and outdoor learning? We put many restrictions on children throughout the day, as Nicholson points out: “Young children (often) find the world incredibly restricted—a world where they cannot play with building and making things, or play with fluids, water, fire, or living objects and all the things that satisfy one’s curiosity and give us the pleasure that results from discovery and invention.” While children may not be playing with fire in our classrooms, there are ways we can lessen the restrictions and say yes more often to children’s curiosity and experimentation.

Involve Children in Using, Planning, and Building Spaces and Learning

Nicholson advocates for making children a part of the planning and environment of the learning space. He says that if environments such as schools, playgrounds, day-care centers, and museums do not work, it is because the adults (artists, landscape architects, planners) have had all the fun playing with materials, concepts, and planning alternatives—all the fun and creativity been “stolen.” Children can be part of the design process of our classrooms. We can give that creativity and fun back and allow them to be integral in creating learning spaces. Children can give suggestions on class layout and how a space is used if we offer them choices both within the classroom and outside on the school grounds.

Blur the Lines between Inside and Outside

We often just think that learning only occurs in our individual classrooms; however, we might extend education to our entire school building, the schoolyard, and beyond. Nicholson suggests switching things up, allowing learning to take place outdoors and fun and games to occur indoors. He advocates letting the distinction between education and recreation begin to disappear. Think of the outdoor spaces in your school—the courtyards, school gardens, playgrounds, asphalt, and green spaces. Integrate nature into your classroom, and incorporate loose parts into outside recess. Think of ways to use outdoor spaces for learning and to bring more play inside.

Create a Lab-Like Environment

If we turn direct-teaching lessons into experimentations where students can explore and produce their own understandings, Nicholson says children can “enjoy and find out things for themselves.” This laboratory-like space can be more than just the physical aspect and include exploration and experimentation in the learning process. For example, an outdoor space might become a mud kitchen. Inside, consider having a nature table to explore. Offer a makerspace, which is a prime example of a lab-like environment.

Solve Real-Life Problems

Meaningful learning is often tied to investigating and solving problems in our environment. As educators, we can pose problems and use place-based education practices to promote creativity. Nicholson points out, “Children greatly enjoy playing a part in the design process. This includes the study of the nature of the problem; thinking about their requirements and needs; considering planning alternatives; measuring, drawing, model-making and mathematics; construction and building; experiment, evaluation, modification and destruction.” Project- and place-based education centered on solving a problem allow children to be fully immersed in the learning process.

Allow Children to Learn through Experimentation

While it’s great to study information and gain knowledge, hands-on experience goes a long way in learning. Nicholson shares an example of how loose parts can connect with experimentation and learning, referring to the generally accepted idea that children like being in small, cave-like spaces. He then expands on that idea to say, “when children have the opportunity to play with space-forming materials in order that they may invent, construct, evaluate and modify their own caves . . . we have a perfect example of variables and loose parts in action . . .” Students can use loose parts—and all the possibilities they offer—to construct their own knowledge and learning, connecting play and experimentation.

Psychologist James J. Gibson (1979) developed his theory of affordances t...

Table of contents

• Copyright
• Introduction
• · Chapter 1 ·An Overview of Loose Parts
• · Chapter 2 · The Importance and Benefits of Loose Parts in Early Elementary Classrooms
• · Chapter 3 ·Obtaining Stakeholder Buy-In and Building a Loose-Parts School Culture
• · Chapter 4 ·Getting Started: Sourcing, Storing, and Managing
• · Chapter 5 · Safety in a Loose-Parts Environment
• · Chapter 6 · Refining the Role of the Educator
• · Chapter 7 · Loose-Parts Applications
• · Chapter 8 · The Class Environment
• · Chapter 9 · Science
• · Chapter 10 · Technology
• · Chapter 11 ·Reading and Literacy
• • Chapter 12 • Engineering
• · Chapter 13 · Art
• · Chapter 14 · Math
• · Chapter 15 · Celebrations with a Loose-Parts Mindset
• · Appendix A · Tools and Resources
• · Appendix B · Assessment Options