Nursery World - Enabling Environments: Collections

Loose parts resources, which can be found, recycled or bought,
empower children's creativity and inventiveness, particularly in the
outdoor environment. Nicole Weinstein gives some tips.

Children's imaginations thrive when they are given the chance to play with open-ended materials that have no specific purpose. Take a cardboard box, for instance, which might become a rocket, a tent or a bus. Playing with 'loose parts' such as this, along with water, sticks, sand and ropes, allows children to be more creative than they would be playing with a fixed-purpose toy such as a small-world car.

This type of play also allows the child to have greater control over their play and is why practitioners should not overlook the endless possibilities that come with giving children a vast selection of natural and synthetic loose parts, particularly in the outdoor environment.

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