Tu B'Shevat Loose Parts in Play

Ok, so you have all of your tree and Tu B'Shevat themed loose parts out and ready, but now what? Today I will take you through a few fun and simple ways our loose parts have come into play here this week! Some were entirely child-led while others were invitations or provocations I set up for the boys. Feel free to use these ideas in your own home or classroom and I always love seeing the way others are using loose parts in play and learning as well.

Both of the boys have taken a liking to our STEAM Cart drawers
and S especially loves the scrap wood drawer for building houses. He has created several intricate designs and adds in various peg dolls when he's done building. We've so far not created any permanent structures with the scrap wood and one of the ways I offered to support S in preserving his houses was to take photos of buildings he particularly likes and create a building journal together. I love the template provided in Pocket of Preschool's All About Building bundle but you can also make your own journal or blueprints book using graph paper, a photo album, a notebook or stapling together scrap paper. This is a great way to give value to your young builders' process, to incorporate writing and literacy, and to encourage planning, critical thinking and problem solving! It has also helped S to feel more secure in building his structures in shared play spaces (where Y can also get to them) and not to whisk away his materials to a solo location. Y is working on not knocking over structures without asking and S is working on sharing our many resources in common play areas.

Y has really enjoyed designing and tinkering with our tree loose parts collection. He loves getting a mirror tray to design on or even just transferring small parts in and out of the wooden bowls. He knows now how to carry a bowl with two hands to the table and also how to return them to the shelf when he's done. S even likes to use the snowflakes and flowers to add to the "tree" in the back of the shelf! While both of the boys have come up with great ways to use our loose parts on their own, I also set up a few simple table time activities for them over the week.

 Incorporating playdough or clay with loose parts can add a sensory component and all kinds of unique new design opportunities. What gravity may have previously prevented is now possible with a temporary medium to connect loose parts in novel ways. To set up a simple playdough invitation, you can use a sectioned tray along with some of your loose parts and some favorite clay or playdough tools. We used our current batch of homemade playdough, but you can use store bought or use clay or kinetic sand or whatever type of dough you like best. This activity is just right to stand on its own or you can incorporate a themed playdough mat for added inspiration. I love the free printable tree playdough mat from Picklebums.
It made a great backdrop for our playdough invitation and was just as much fun to use with loose parts and no dough! Y especially enjoyed it this way and returned to the table repeatedly throughout the morning to play.

The dead of winter may not be a time that many of us outside of the framework of Tu B'Shevat think about trees, but it is a time that many tree related products are on super sale at craft stores. That's where I found a couple of unfinished wooden tree decorations on major discount (not to mention the tree shaped cookie cutters you saw in our playdough invitation for 10 cents a piece). We have used one wooden tree for a collaborate process art project that I will post on shortly and the other, intended for hanging small pictures on looked like the perfect tree shaped weaving loom! I already have visions of it in our play garden holding bits of strings, ribbons and materials for bird nests in the Spring, but for now, it is a great indoor activity for weaving ribbons and working those tiny little fine motor muscles pinching miniature clothes pins.

 My favorite thing, perhaps, about using loose parts with my boys is that so often I am inspired by their play. It is a lot less of me setting up activities from my own ideas or ideas I see elsewhere and a lot more of me supporting activities that they create from their own ideas. Join us next time for a great family collaborative process art project for Tu b'Shevat and until then...

Happy Playing!