Loose Parts & Preschoolers

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Welcome back to another episode of From My Perspective: Taking Theory To Practice.  This is the third video in the loose parts series and we are going to talk all about “Loose Parts and Preschoolers.”  Earlier I asked, “What is your biggest struggle with planning?” This is a big topic and usually a maze of confusion for many educators.  Today I am going to answer your questions and provide strategies to move through the confusion so that you can find the path to planning with ease.  

Make sure to grab your “Plan for Planning Checklist” in the show notes - this will help support you to get and stay organized with all the loose parts for creating learning experiences. 

Let’s get started!

I remember the frustration, confusion, and doubt when it came to planning.  Am I choosing the right interest? What 20 activities can we do around this for the next few weeks? How can I make my entire environment look like this interest? These were my overwhelming thoughts around planning.  I would spend hours searching for ideas, prepping materials, recreating my environment. And don’t get me wrong, I love to create setups and learning environments, but I was doing it all wrong and with the wrong intentions.  But this is how I was taught. I thought I was doing the right thing but it didn’t feel right inside. And the children definitely didn’t fully engage or benefit either. I took a step back and said, “This isn’t working. Why am I continuing to engage in this kind of experience when no one is benefiting from it?” ​

PLAN FOR TIME

Planning does not need to be complicated or frustrating.  Instead, it should be an experience that is collaborative, sparks your own questions, and  is a learning journey for both you and the children. We are taught to plan around children’s interests and, while this is true, educators are realizing that children, especially preschoolers, have multiple interests which rapidly change.  I remember my group going from pretending to be cats to creating a castle for the princess to making a picnic for friends and then back to being cats. Aneeza asked, "My biggest struggle is how to plan out the activities, which ones to do, how to choose! It’s so confusing at times. It’s too much to plan for."   I answer by going back to theory. David Hawkins notes in his theory of messing about that he first proposed children needed 2 hours of uninterrupted play to make meaning of their world through play. What he realized is that children actually needed months.  You can read his theory in the link below. With that being said, leave the one invitation to play or provocation out for a couple days, a week or a month and see what happens. This allows you the opportunity to create learning experiences around multiple interests because you have allocated time and space for each interest to evolve.  As the educator you now created many opportunities to go deeper into your observations and have more time to reflect on what occurred​.

You are taking the pressure off to plan a new experience each day when all children need to repeat, repeat, repeat in order to continue developing connections in their brains. This also allows you the opportunity to create new learning experiences around individual children or small groups.   This might sound overwhelming but, when you give more time and space for children to engage in their play and interests. it gives you more time to observe, reflect, and intentionally plan.

PLAN FOR FLEXIBILITY

Another common observation amongst educators is after they have setup the learning experience, the children don’t play with it.  First of all, that is okay. As I mentioned before, their interests change rapidly, so give it time as it will probably come back.  If it doesn’t then you need to reflect on why. I learned this the hard way by spending hours creating a small world setup on an interest about water.  I spent hours creating this setup. I even lugged rocks in from my backyard. I enjoyed it and was so excited for them to see and play with it. Well, that was not at all what happened.  

They didn’t engage with one item and it was never touched by my preschoolers. I was shocked and, to be honest, a little frustrated. But I decided to reflect on why they weren’t engaging with it.  My group of preschoolers needed to be immersed in their role play, not use small pieces to act out their ideas. It took me a long time to finally get this and, when I did, their imaginative play went to whole new levels for weeks. I was mesmerized by this.  Embracing our emotions, reflecting on what is and isn’t working, and using these insights will aid us to grow as educators and plan learning experiences with deep meaning and intention for our group of children.

PLAN FOR ACCESSIBILITY

Now that you are planning and collecting all of your magical loose parts, you may be asking yourself if you are a hoarder or just need to get organized. I’ve been there!  Thank goodness I have a very loving husband who accepts what I bring home and goes with the flow.  Rebekah asked, "How do you stay organized when the loose parts are not out at the moment?"
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For organizing your materials to be able to create setups with ease, I found that I needed to curate a “teacher’s area” where I kept my most useable materials for easy access.   I also kept my must have items such as mirrors, placemats, table cloths, and other greenery on this shelf as well. This allowed me to quickly grab what I needed and setup an invitation to play or add new materials to an existing one or to a learning centre. To take this organization to another level, I used clear containers from the dollar store that were stackable (for saving space) and gave me the ability to easily see what was in them.   While the children were actively engaged in play and I was sparked by curiosity I could plan and set up another learning experience with ease, in little time, and without spending personal time after hours.  For those that may not have the space to do this, I would look at a rolling cart that has your most used items. I suggest this for roll-away programs as well. My “teacher’s area” was also visible to the children which made these items requestable as well.  We had plenty of loose parts out in the environment but sometimes they asked for a specific item. 
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Planning for planning will go a long way. Loose parts are magical and, with the vast kinds of items, getting organized is a must. Take inventory after some time and see if any items can be rotated into deeper storage that is not as accessible and replace it with other items.  We change out materials in the learning environment, so why not in our teacher areas as well?

Well that is it for this episode on “Loose Parts and Preschoolers.” I encourage you to leave your setup out for a week and to see how the play evolves and what new ideas might emerge. This will allow you to plan for deeper play and other interests that come up.  Make sure to grab your “Plan for Planning Checklist” for this episode and share your curated teacher areas in the Facebook group. If you liked this video, please give it a like and share, and subscribe to get all the episodes. You will find all the resources I talked about in the show notes below.  I will see you next time for the fourth video in this series, “Loose Parts & School Agers.” Thanks for watching!

LINKS MENTIONED

Plan for Planning Checklist 
​Messing About Theory - David Hawkins

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