Loose Parts with Lisa Daly & Miriam Beloglovsky

Saturday we had the pleasure of learning from Lisa Daly and Miriam Beloglovsky, both Early Childhood Professors and authors of the book "Loose Parts: Inspiring Play in Young Children" during their presentation "Loose Parts to Promote STEAM". This post is a small portion of their presentation, focusing on why loose parts inspire intellectual learning. 

Leaders and key faculty from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism conducted consultations with 75 senior executives, from a broad range of industries and from Fortune 50 companies (the top 50 most prosperous & progressive businesses within the Fortune 500 list) to inquire about the talents and attributes they look for in potential employees. This working paper discusses the types of talents these executives expressed as attributes in potential employees to ensure the continued innovation and growth of their companies. The skills desired were: intellectual curiosity, 360-degree thinking, cultural competence, empathy and adaptability. Workers with these skills and modes of thinking will have more successful careers than their peers with the same intellect but lacking these soft skills. 

Dr. Lilian Katz discusses intellectual versus academic goals in her publication Lively Minds. She recommends early childhood programs take an intellectually rather than academically focused approach with the goal of school readiness. Through intellectual learning experiences, children learn self-regulation, initiative and social interaction. Early academic learning (memorizing the alphabet, days of the week, names of the month, rote counting...) can actually be harmful in the long run as it bypasses and divests children of rich intellectual learning experiences. 

Loose parts naturally afford children intellectual learning opportunities. According to Lisa Daly & Miriam Beloglovsky, Loose Parts is an education philosophy wherein the educator selects loose parts and determines when and how to set them up to provoke their use based upon observations, the children's current interests and their developmental stages. Loose parts allow for a depth of critical thinking and problem solving that structured activities and toys can't provide. Using loose parts, children learn through investigation and active exploration by solving problems, developing new ideas, collaborating with partners, forming theories and testing hypotheses as well as observing an reflecting. Children using loose parts also take more risks since much of their play with involves building on trial and error (not failure). Risk taking is a needed attribute for innovation and growth of the individual and their work.

Working with loose parts integrates knowledge across all disciplines and encourages children to think in a more connected and holistic way. Using loose parts naturally allows children to learn in a complex way by combining many intellectual concepts of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math as well as strengthening social-emotional skills. When exploring loose parts children learn to negotiate, sharing ideas through language and communication, develop persistence, and increase engagement and curiosity by exploring endless possibilities. The result is children who think in a more connected and holistic way. 

Using loose parts also increases children's creativity and increases the occurrence of symbolic play which is needed for reading. Working with loose parts also provides opportunities to use their large and fine motor skills, strengthen their social skills by using language and learning to negotiating with others on group projects. They are also naturally differentiating for groups of children of varying age and abilities as the children use the materials on-hand in line with what they already know. As there is no instructional expectation, there is no fear of failure for the child. The adult can help expand children's knowledge base by asking open ended questions and the children themselves can be another source of knowledge as they share new ideas with their peers. 

Loose parts are also financially feasible as most are free, are great for the environment as they are often re-used or upcycled materials, and are readily available in our environments and communities. 

Give resources (access to loose parts & time to investigate), be present as a play partner, and watch the learning unfold.