Loose Parts

My kids have a lot of toys. I mean A LOT of toys. But what do they play with most often? Sticks, rocks and sand. Oh, and broken toys. And when they play with their regular toys, as often as not they aren't using them quite in the way you'd expect.

The propeller from a cheap plastic airplane, half of a plastic Easter egg, one die from a set of dice, and a straw, and they'll be off making 'inventions.' In the tub, nothing is better than an empty syrup bottle. They have kept an old t-ball stand in the sand box all summer - it's a necessary sand toy for some reason.

Although I'll probably keep buying toys for my kids, I now have a better understanding of why they play with these seemingly odd items. A friend passed me an article created by the Penn State Better Kid Care Program. In it, they talk about 'loose parts' and 'open ended play.' Apparently, all those little bits are loose parts that can be moved from one context to another and recombined in unique ways.

The article does a better job of explaining the concept: http://betterkidcare.psu.edu/TIPS/Tips1107.pdf

I found myself chuckling when I realized what it meant for play to be 'child directed.' Of course what my kids had been doing was child directed. No sensible adult would give a child a t-ball stand and tell them to go play in the sand box.