As preschool teachers, it’s in our nature to hold onto things. We just can’t help it, we might be able to use that for something! I know how deep this runs, I’ve been out of the classroom for almost two years now and I still have a collection of empty containers in one of the cabinets in my office – they might come in handy one day! Collecting loose parts plays to this piece of our “hold onto that” mentality. The most difficult thing about loose parts is that you often need a fair amount of whatever item you want to use. You need enough that the children can actually…

I am a huge fan of loose parts for a couple of reasons; They encourage creativity – if you give five children a basket of pebbles, a bucket of twigs, and a collection of old keys they will all find different ways to use the items. They are easy to gather – loose parts are usually natural or recycled. They won’t cost you a lot of money and often the children can be involved in collecting them, which motivates them to explore these items after they’ve been gathered. They fit into so many different centers – use your loose parts as counters in your math center, materials for exploring weight/volume/mass…