In PHQP_0016 Concepts As Loose Parts, Jeff explores concepts as loose parts. For example, kids use bubbles, kites, and tossed handfuls of sand to discover and learn about the wind.

Watch Now: PHQP_0016 Concepts As Loose Parts

Welcome to the Playvolution HQ podcast. I’m Jeff Johnson. Thanks for pushing play on with the show.

So I’m out about in the neighborhood the other day and I hear from a secondary balcony, I hear this toddler voice yelling, look. And so I looked and there this little guy is blowing bubbles and he’s very excited about it. He’s visiting his grandma and grandma’s got him this little bubble gun thing and he dips it in the bubbles and squirts it, squeezes the trigger and bubbles fly up in the air.

And he doesn’t have a lot of language. And I don’t speak toddler as fluently as I used to, but we managed to communicate with each other that yes, he’s making bubbles and yes, they’re flying up in the air and yes, they’re going fast and he’s shooting them. And he’s very excited to tell my dog Gigi about the bubbles too.

And I was very happy for this interaction because one, I love the joy of discovery in young children, especially toddlers, because we forget sometimes how brand new to the world young kids are. Even six, seven, eight, nine, 10 year olds are still experiencing some things for the first time. And so when we can take a little bit of joy out of their discoveries, we should go for that ride.

But also his exploration with the bubbles had a lot to do with what we’re getting into this week, which brings us to topic number one, concepts as loose parts. So here’s the deal. He was playing with bubbles and so they were loose parts, I guess for him, because a loose part is an environmental variable with which we can interact.

And we did an earlier episode, I believe, about loose parts where we dug into that a little bit deeper. But loose parts don’t have to be physical objects. And for him, what he was really playing with was the wind.

Because the bubbles are great, but look, he’s too, he’s played with bubbles a lot in his life. But from later conversations with grandma, this was his first outdoor bubble experience. And it turns out, bubbles move a lot differently, a lot more actively when they’re outside in a nice subtropical breeze.

And so he was really using the bubbles themselves as a way of exploring the movements of the breeze. And that’s kind of what we’re going to be talking about, about physical objects, or loose parts not having to be physical objects. And I think it’s amazing, because this is a way we can help kind of kids explore deeper and increase their understanding of the world around them.

So, well, he was using a physical object, the bubbles and the bubble gun, to explore the wind. What he was really exploring was the wind. So loose parts can be concepts.

Concepts like, oh, I pushed the wrong button. Concepts like gravity, up, cold, fast, windy, heavy, are all ideas they can explore with physical objects. And so talk about the wind.

Now, his experience, there was quite a bit of a decent breeze this particular day. Now, someday he’s gonna go outside with his bubbles, and it’s not going to be breezy, and the bubbles are going to move differently. And then someday, maybe, if he’s lucky enough, Grandma’s going to take him outside on a really windy day, and he’s going to see how fast the bubbles move in those conditions.

And so there’s lots of variables in the way we explore these. And so thinking about exploring ideas with physical objects, how do we go about, for example, exploring fast, or heavy, or windy, or gravity, or up, or cold, with physical objects? And so what our job as early learning environment curators becomes in those situations is we decide, okay, here’s a concept that the kids have bumped into, or may be interested in, or I need them to learn about. Because sometimes there are cases where we need kids to understand up, down, in, out, on, those kind of things.

Instead of sitting down and doing worksheets or group discussion times, one of the things we can do is we can introduce materials into our environment that are going to help kids discover those concepts. We really want to create environments where we allow kids to bump into new ideas. That’s really one of the ideas of operating a environment, a play space, where kids have big blocks of self-directed time for play and exploration.

We can just pepper the environment with those materials. And so if we’re going to help kids bump into the wind, maybe we have bubbles outside. Maybe we have a flag or a windsock outside.

Maybe we have whirligigs outside, those little pinwheel things that they can play with outside. Maybe we experiment with just helping them notice the way the tree branches move on a windy day. Maybe having light fluffy stuff that they can toss up in the air, whether it’s puffing on the end of a expiring dandelion, or throwing a handful of leaves up in the air, or, I mean, sand.

All those kind of things are a way for kids to understand that wind exists. Putting a weather vane on top of the shed on the far end of your playground that kids can kind of notice that, oh, when the wind blows, that arrow moves in different directions, those kind of things. And so instead of beating them over the head with the concept, we’re creating opportunities for them to discover it themselves, to bump into it, is the terminology I really like.

This play with concepts, with ideas, encourages abstract thinking, which is a developmental benefit. It’s a chance for them to expand on the way they think beyond just the physical objects, and they can think about the relationships those objects have with each other and with the world around them. It also supports the exploration of intangible ideas.

Up, down, in, out, fast, hot, cold, slow, those kind of things. It fosters creative problem solving as well, because there’s a lot of what-if and if-then thinking going on when they start exploring these ideas. They might notice the wind and they’re trying to figure out how it works and what exactly it is, how it moves.

There’s a lot of creativity that goes into trying to solve those things, trying to figure them out. Kites, that’s another thing I was trying to think of when I was thinking of a physical object that would help you bump into the wind. And it’s also helpful in your planning.

Like I said before, if you’ve got an environment and you want kids to understand some of these concepts, the big thing you can do in a playful environment is to just pepper the environment with loose parts and materials and opportunities to bump into those concepts, to discover them on their own and experience them, like this little guy the other day did with the wind.

And that’s a whole different approach to lesson planning than sitting down and doing some sort of teacher-forward lesson planning situation where you’re going to do a lesson at the kids and they’re going to sit there crisscross applesauce or maybe it’s a canned experience. Because what this does, just having those materials that allow them to bump in to these inanimate concepts, inanimate, non-corporeal, these concepts in their real world, is they bump into them at their leisure.

When you try to force an activity on kids, they’re probably not all going to be interested in what you’re sending their way, but if the environment just has those things in it, when it sparks their interest, they’ll explore it. And that’s a fundamentally different way of introducing concepts to kids. So that’s pretty much all I got on that, although I’m sure the topic will come up in future episodes.

So wrapping up, loose parts ideas. If you’re looking for physical or concepts or any other kind of loose parts, we’ll get into more of those in the future, you can check out the loose parts area of the Playvolution HQ website. I add a new loose part on a weekly basis and there’s hundreds of them over there now.

And my master list I think is five, six, seven hundred things. So I’ll be adding them for the foreseeable future. So check those out if you’re looking for ideas to spark your interests.

Amazon idea of the week here is, I love this. Somebody used my Amazon link to order this for some lucky little human child, a child-sized bike helmet, goggles and gloves, which I think is really cool. I like the layout there.

If you happen to be the person who ordered this, please send me pictures of the little human enjoying this great safety gear. I think that’s wild. Again, that Amazon link helps support the show, helps support the website.

And all you got to do is use it to enter the Amazon, use that portal to enter the Amazon experience. And again, share the show if you like it. You can find me on X. I’ve been doing a little bit there, not real active, but there’s new posts and some thoughts, some things I bump into are posted there if you’re interested.

And you sharing stuff is the way we keep things going around here and it’s much appreciated. Next week, we’re going to dig into the idea of doing the scary thing. I teased that a little bit a while back.

I teased I was going to do a 50-mile walk. Well, within 24 hours of recording this episode, I’ll go do that. This episode will post a few hours after I’m done.

And in the next episode, I’ll let you know how this scary thing for me went and why you should look at doing scary things and supporting kids and doing scary things as well. Dad joke of the week, as we wrap up, what did the grape say when it got stepped on? Nothing. Just let out a little whine.

This here has been Playvolution HQ podcast. Thanks for listening. Back soon with another episode. Bye-bye.

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