Loose Parts Play Ideas

This time of year I get to thinking about spring cleaning, and whether it’s at home or in a classroom, one of the great things to do as the seasons change is to change out centers or materials that kids have access to for creative play and learning.

Having seasonal sensory activities is a lot of fun for kids (and I always had fun doing different sensory boxes for holidays and seasons, too), and one of the easiest ways to change up your offerings is through the use of loose parts.

What are loose parts? They’re basically any little thing that you can collect that kids can play with in lots of different ways.

Things like buttons, coins, washers, beads, plastic jewels, those little counter teddy bears, plastic tokens, rocks, pompoms, just to name a few. My daughter’s preschool had a whole box of old keys.

You can buy loose parts or collect them from around the house or classroom, but of course you can use natural materials as loose parts, too. We used seashells a lot because we have a ton of them. This post from My Teaching Cupboard talks all about natural loose parts and how to use them.

Community Playthings also has a post about natural loose parts and ideas for using them with math activities such as counting and making shapes and patterns.

Why would you want to use loose parts at home or in the classroom? They encourage open ended thinking and creativity, putting things together, experimentation and investigation. In group settings they encourage creative play and working together. They can be used for math, language and art purposes, and they’re fun for kids and adults to tinker with. Picklebums has a good post on the why and how of loose parts with more good ideas of items you can collect.

Our Playful Learning Journey has easy loose parts ideas for using plastic gems and buttons, including with playdough or doing color sorting on a hundreds board (which looks so pretty I kind of want to play with it).

I love small parts for small world play situations, like gathering a little tube of ocean animals with some blue fabric, blue glass gems and other small items so kids can make up their own little world. Play Learn Inspire has a great list of these kinds of ideas, plus some even easier ones like magnets and stringing things.

And if you’re wondering how in the world you’ll store all these little bits, Cultivating Confidence has some great ideas.

I’ve shared a lot of loose parts ideas on my blog through the years, most recently this loose parts mandala project, which is as simple as gathering some loose parts and a shape to build off of.

Do you use loose parts in your playful learning at home or at school? I’d love to hear about it!

Last month I shared some tips for teaching the alphabet to kids and why going in alphabetical order isn’t the best way to do it. Honestly a lot of learning at this age has to do with play, so let’s look at some fun alphabet activities that kids can do that will help them learn the alphabet.

Activities that get kids moving and learning at the same time are ideal for preschool, and Forward with Fun has a few great ideas, like this fly swatter letter recognition game (which you could also use for numbers, words, all sorts of things you’re learning) and a beginning sound stomping game.

Another fun alphabet game you can do at home or adapt for wherever you are is this printable alphabet scavenger hunt from Play Party Plan. They’ve got a list of items to find and also a blank printable you can write your own list on, or let kids write down what they find for each letter.

Or do a literal letter scavenger hunt like this one from Happily Ever Mom. This one uses the letters from an alphabet puzzle but you could also use magnet letters or just cut out shapes of letters. It also adds the fun of doing it in the dark and hunting with a flashlight, but you can also do it with the lights on if you want.

This alphabet sensory bottle from Parenting Chaos is made with a set of alphabet beads and would be fun to keep in the classroom or have in the car or for quiet times.

Use what you have to make an alphabet learning activity, like this one made with Duplo blocks from Playtivities. You can stick letters to the sides of blocks (or write them on) and just play with them, use them for letter recognition and talking about sounds, and eventually spelling and reading, too.

Turn letter learning into craft time by making a big letter out of a bunch of little letters with this activity from Meaningful Mama. If you don’t get magazines anymore check with your local Buy Nothing group, or your local library may have some they’re looking to get rid of.

I think most preschoolers love dot markers, so these free alphabet dot marker worksheets from Daydream into Reality would be a great thing to download and print out. This is a great set because it includes uppercase and lowercase letters, and some have letter tracing practice while others include something that starts with that letter that kids can color. Work with one letter at a time or the letters in the child’s name and then provide the whole set as a quiet time activity.

Another great set of alphabet worksheets that isn’t free (and would also be good for older kids) is this set from My Nerdy Teacher. These worksheets include letter tracing and recognition activities, as well as objects to color.

I also love these alphabet roads printables from Messy Little Monster, which kids can use with cars to trace the letters (they could also be playdough mats you use to form the letters in the shape shown, or trace with a dry erase marker).

Have you read?

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