What all can be done with some loose parts you ask?!
Loose parts are open ended materials that give children the opportunity to play around with more than one focused idea. They are a great way to let your child explore and use their imagination naturally and freely.
These specific containers that we explored have two halves that push together to close. The toddlers at first, explored how to open them. Penny, George, Theo and TongTong tried to open the containers by pulling the sides apart. This wasn’t working so we explored other ways. We found that if they pushed them onto the floor in the middle of the containers the two sides would split apart. Lloyd, Penny, Ava and Evie used the container halves to build towers.
Leila pushed her container against the floor to close it up.
TongTong, Evie and Jackson used the containers to hide their toys like cars and coins.
George and TongTong put the containers up to their ears, I wonder if they were interested in the sounds it made. (Sort of like a seashell to the ear).
Levi, Jackson, Raelynn and Adelyn enjoyed carrying the containers around the room. Ava, Nihal and Penny rolled their containers along the floor which made Dean laugh.
Penny put a hat on her fox’s head, she said, “look at fox’s hat!”
Containers are a great loose parts material for toddlers. There is so much they can do with them like open and close, hide toys, explore their sounds and more!
To expand, we can try bringing the containers outside to see what the toddlers do.
