Tag Archives: loose parts

Creativity, Expressive Arts, Froebel, Imaginative thinking

Colour Mixing Playdough.

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We have been learning how to make playdough all by ourselves. The playdough area is a self-serve area designed to promote the independent skills of all our children.

We have been selecting our ingredients and we are learning about the different quantities of these ingredients that we will we need for our recipe. (Following on from the new government guidelines we have been using heat treated gluten free flour in our recipe).

All our children aged 2-5 have the opportunity to make their own playdough and enjoy doing so independently.

This week in our Playdough area we have been exploring and experimenting with colour mixing.
First we made our playdough, by each collecting the bowl, spoon and ingredients we needed. We each choose a primary colour to make our playdough to start with. We had red, yellow and blue.

We were able to see if our playdough was ready, by testing if it was too dry and needed more water or too wet and needed more flour.


“more water”


“Too sticky,  need more flour”

”it’s ready”

Once our playdough was perfect we set up our playdough station and invited our friends to come and join us.

We each took a pinch of two or more colours and mixed them together to see what colours we could make.

We used our gross motor skills as we rolled the playdough together to mix up the colours.

We were amazed at the colours we were able to make.

“I’ve made so many”

“I’ve made pink and purple and orange”

We discovered that we got green by mixing red and yellow. Purple by mixing the red and blue. And a pinky orange if we mixed red and yellow. We even ended up with a rainbow playdough mix.

Once we made all our new colours we got to work creating playdough masterpieces using the loose parts.

“I made a unicorn”

“A birthday cake, blow out your candles”

We also used a variety of different tools to help us mould our playdough such as scissors

rolling pins

and even used the loose parts to make patterns

We have been so busy at our playdough station. I wonder what we will make tomorrow.
Here is some of our playdough creations so far….

Article 29 – I have the right to an education which develops my personality.

 

Expressive Arts

Shell-tastic Friday!

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Today in the garden the children have enjoyed exploring our magic bag full of special shells! No peaking!

We looked closely and noticed that there was lots of different patterns, colours, textures and sizes. The children had lots of interesting observations about the shells…

“That’s like a unicorn!”

“Look, I made a wee clam shell bed. It’s for a pearl fairy!”

The children used lots of mathematical language while exploring the shells, it was interesting to see the different ideas they all had. Some children enjoyed imaginative play and others liked sorting them into different groups…

“They’re the biggest. Because they’re so pointy!”

“Let’s put all the wee baby clams over here. The big ones can go over here with the unicorn horns. This is the pink side!”

The children had so many descriptive words to describe the shells including…

“It’s swirly whirly”

“Ooooohh it’s so jaggy!”

Loose parts is a great way to explore many areas for learning as it is such an open-ended experience. You can talk about size, shape, colour, patterns and much, much more. Make it whatever you want it to be about! What loose parts can you find in your home to explore?

Have a great weekend everybody! 🙂

Expressive Arts, Technologies

Upcycling project

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This week the children have been working very hard to start their up cycling project at the tinker table.

They began by  looking for something around the playroom that they could ‘Up cycle’. They found an old storage drawer that had missing handles on the boxes. They collected loose materials such as buttons, pipe cleaners, beads, bottle lids,  small wood chips and twigs to use as new handles for the boxes.


They used skills they had previously learned at the tinker table to join the new handles to the box.

“I can use the hammer and nails to put this wood on”

 

Once all the new handles were on the children noticed one of the drawers were missing. Using their problem solving skills one of the older children suggested making a sign to let everyone know that the new up cycled storage drawers belong to the tinker table.

The next job on the list is to up cycle our broken wormery, we are looking for longer pieces of wood if anyone has any lying about that they no longer need.

Expressive Arts

Let’s explore loose parts.

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Today in the Discovery Room, we were exploring the loose parts. We set up the loose part area with some natural materials and some familiar objects that might spark some interest in our children’s creativity.

We had objects such as shells, wooden disks, bottle lids, wooden pegs and wooden rings.
Our older children decided to have a loose parts tea party.

They used the loose parts and pretended they were foods such as burgers, pizza  and cups of tea. The older children were able to use their imaginative skills to add the loose parts into their role play, making connection with objects, relating them to real life scenarios.
Some of our older children used the loose parts to turn into different objects and shapes.

We recreated shapes such as love hearts and faces.

Our younger children were using the loose parts to stack, line up and  using containers to fill and empty with them.

The children were making long bridges with all the different types of loose parts adding each one to make the bridge longer.


The 2-3 year old children were enjoying exploring each of the loose parts seeing what can be done with them. We could balance the wooden disk on the large screw.

We could stack them on top of each other.
We enjoyed looking at the different shape, size and texture of each of the loose part materials.

Our children are all at different stages in their play with  loose parts and it is wonderful to see how the creative minds of each of our children works. Each child has their on unique way of using the loose parts.

Article 31 – every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Loose parts fun 🤩

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Today the children have enjoyed being creative in the loose parts area. We explored different patterns including numbers…

Shapes…

and some letters too…

“I want to do a S. That’s in my name”

“The pipe cleaners will work, because they’re straight lines.”

Some children even loved making something completely different all together, like the Scotland flag!

“the peg is for the wee stick on the flag. How can I do the triangles for the inside? I know, why don’t I squish the pipe cleaners?”

The children loved being creative with their patterns, and showed really great problem solving skills when choosing their materials. They were able to recognise patterns that included straight lines as well as more curved lines, and choose their loose parts to explore this. Great work everyone!
What can you make out of loose parts at home? We would love to see your ideas.

 

Expressive Arts

Rangoli Patterns

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Today in the Discovery Room we have been talking about Diwali, in particular Rangoli patterns.

We learned that Rangoli patterns are traditionally made using coloured rice or dry flour which was mixed with turmeric and other natural colours. They can be created using different geometric shapes in the form of flowers, petals, stars or lanterns.

Families celebrating Diwali create beautiful Rangoli patterns and place them near the entrance of their homes to welcome Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, in the hope this will bring them good luck and prosperity.

We decided we would use our fabulous knowledge of shapes, patterns and positioning to create our very own Rangoli patterns.  We had a look to find some Rangoli patterns to give us some inspiration!

It was lots of fun choosing which loose parts we would use to create our patterns.  Of course we had to make sure we  chose lots of different colours and the shiny shapes and coloured gems were definitely our favourites!

Using the patterns as a guide, we carefully chose which loose part would fit best and carefully positioned them on our patterns.


“I’m using the gem. It’s a circle.”

”I like the shiny shapes. That’s one’s a diamond.”

”I put the button in the middle. It’s a big circle.”

“I like the buttons the best.”

”I found a shiny one.”

It was a bit tricky to fit some of the loose parts in as they were the shape! Working together, we were able to solve the problem and use some of our triangles to make a diamond!

Don’t our Rangoli patterns look beautiful.  Next time we are going to draw and create our own!

 

 

Expressive Arts

Patterns and Positioning

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This week in the Discovery Room we have continued to explore our interest in shapes and loose parts.

We have selected from a wide range of loose parts to create our beautiful pieces of transient art. This sparked lots of interesting conversations where we shared our views on which loose parts are our favourites! Most of us decided we like buttons the best!

“
”I made a cat. The lollipop sticks are the whiskers. The triangle blocks are the ears.”

”I made a T for my name”

”I made a wee mouse.”

To add a little challenge and further extend our shape knowledge, we decided to use loose parts to see if we could continue a simple pattern, and create our own.

“Cork, circle, cork, circle”.

”cork, button, cork, button”. “The cork and the button look the same shape. They are circles.”

A number of us are demonstrating an interest in the schema of positioning.  We have demonstrated this through arranging objects, lining up items and sorting items into different boxes.  This helps us develop our concentration, be able to recognise differences and similarities in objects and to explore patterns and problem solving.


“Look I used a shell, then a cork, shell, cork, shell, cork, shell, cork. I putted a button on the top. Blue, green, blue, green. I putted a cork on top of the corks. It’s so high.”

Loose parts are a great way to developer creative, problem solving and numeracy skills.  Why not have a look and see what loose parts you can find at home.  We would love to see your wonderful creations!

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Snail trail

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This morning one of the boys brought in a snail from his garden to show all his friends. We built him a little home with grass, pine cones, shells, a log to climb on and also gave him some cucumber to eat.


“I give him shells.”

One of the boys decided to build him an extra home using the 3D modelling materials from the studio.

“There’s a space at the top for the big snails and a secret bit at the bottom for the baby snails.”

We investigated the snail’s shell and noticed there were lots of spirals on it.

We created our own spirals using loose parts and drawing on the mirrors.


“It goes round and round and round.”

Look out for snails in your garden and you could have some super slimy fun too!

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Who is that in the mirror..

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Today the children have been very creative in the Discovery room. They have used loose parts in many different ways.

After discovering their own reflections in the mirror they decided to use some loose parts to recreate their features using the different pieces.

“

‘eyes and nose’

“that’s my face, I can use these stones for my eyes and this small one for my nose”

The children used the loose parts to sort and match by colour and practice their counting skills.

”blue like your eyes”

We counted together… “1,2,3,4,5”

Loose parts are a great way for children to use their imagination and learn in lots of different ways.  They are able to arrange and rearrange, sort, match and create their own images focusing on the process instead of the end product.

Expressive Arts

Creative Clay Creations

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Today in the Studio we continued our experiment with clay. We have been learning about the difference in textures between clay and playdough, as well as the difference between wet and dry clay. So, today we took our learning one step further to investigate what we can make, by adding loose parts to our clay station.

We added some buttons, wooden sticks, paper straws, corks and our clay tools and markers as a invitation to spark the creative minds of our early learners.

We used our gross motor skills to roll out the clay, using the large rolling pins. We even tried using the other end of the rolling pin to make marks and indents into the clay.

Some of us used the clay hammers to create marks or flatten the clay to make it more malleable.

We each selected the loose parts we wanted and got to work creating our model, and look what we created! A hedgehog using the wooden sticks.

Others used the wooden sticks to make candles for a birthday cake.

We also created a robot, adding detail with paper straws.

We used the corks and wooden letters to make clay people.

We worked together to share our ideas and inspire each other.

We used our fine manipulative skills to select and place buttons onto our clay as part of our design process.

We even used the clay tools and loose parts to extend our mark making skills.
We learn best when we are having fun through play.
I wonder what will be at our clay station tomorrow?