24 Jun Loose Parts Play at the Hub
Loose Parts Play was featured as a Hub station for four weeks. Would kids be attracted by the ‘it can be whatever you want’ aspect, or skip it for more typical Hub projects? Kids liked it – many liked it so much! – so Loose Parts will be back at some point with new parts.
Loose Parts Play is an unstructured, creative way for children to play using assorted things and their imaginations.
It was interesting to see how many children sat down and stayed for a long time, often until their adult made them go. Sometimes the adults were part of the creative fun.
One child created a garbage truck and brought it over to show the staff at the desk. It was one of those wonderful excited “LOOK LOOK! Look what I made!!” interactions.
Other children sat down and created small elaborate worlds. Sometimes those looked like random piles of lids, fabric, metal washers, and pine cones. But if we wandered by and said “Hey cool, tell me about this,” there was always a story already in the child’s mind – these are the mountains and this is the tower and…
If you have kids around you, wander around together putting small random things into a bin, then dump them out on a table and see what they become!
