Most adults, whether they are parents, early childhood educators, or teachers, would prefer order over chaos, but, as Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “out of chaos, comes order.” Traditional education systems have provided meaningful, stimulating activities and learning centres for years. But what if we gave children some power and responsibility instead of the teacher having all the control? What if we move away from some traditions, go outdoors, and learn through active play?
What Are Loose Parts?
Simon Nicholson is often cited for conceptualizing affordances of loose parts, but loose parts in educational settings have been influenced by early theorists such as Froebel, Montessori, and Malaguzzi. In 1971, Nicholson coined the term “loose parts” and provided a definition that remains in use today.
All children love to interact with variables, such as materials and shapes; smells and other physical phenomena, such as electricity, magnetism, and gravity; media such as gases and fluids; sounds, music, motion; chemical interactions, cooking, and fire; and other humans, and animals, plants, words, concepts, and ideas. With all these things all children love to play, experiment, discover and invent and have fun. All these things have one thing in common, which is variables or “loose parts.”
The setting and available loose parts can influence play. The imaginative potential of an object becomes the object’s affordance (Gibson, 1977). A stick can be a magic wand or a horse to ride—the affordance of the stick is limited only by the imagination of the child. The goal is to let children experiment, manipulate, and interact with materials using their creativity and imagination.
Children perceive the potential of affordances differently than adults (Heft, 1988). While adults tend to identify nouns (a tree), children will often identify the affordance as an action or verb (climb). Loose parts can be natural, manufactured, or environmental.
Natural: tree cookies, rocks, leaves, flower cuttings, herbs, sticks
Manufactured: muffin tins, buckets, sturdy milk crates, wooden planks
Environmental: wind, water, fire, soil, snow, ice
At times, the abundance of materials and loose parts may seem messy to adults. However, to children, learning and play take place at the same time as they form, implement, and evaluate their own ideas about how to interact and solve problems. The setting also becomes part of the loose parts available. Children see the possibilities in trees, soil, clouds, buildings, playground structures, fences, ramps, and other aspects of the natural and built environment.
Getting Started
When starting to use loose parts, it may feel messy. Start with the loose parts that you have, let go of control, and have fun watching the children! “Loose parts play encourages children to explore, experiment, design, create, and construct. It gives them the opportunity to figure out that there are different ways of doing things” (Gull et al., 2021).
Loose parts help children “to develop and increase their ability to perform better in school and later in life when they face personal and professional challenges” (Gull et al., 2021). Using loose parts influences the 21st-century skills of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication (Gull, 2022). When using loose parts, children are involved in multi-sensory experiences, planning, designing, problem-solving, decision making, learning, imagination, and inclusive play. It is developmentally appropriate for all, and the students have ownership.
Current Approaches
Loose parts are often used in children’s outdoor play in school settings, especially during elementary school recess, focusing on increasing students’ physical activity (Frost et al., 2018). However, benefits related to students’ opportunities to learn with the environment have also been noted (Rotas, 2019). Open-ended materials can support the curriculum and learning goals within schools. These play experiences may be more teacher-directed but offer choice and challenge for children to freely engage with curated materials, or they may be more child-directed and linked to emergent learning opportunities (Zeni et al., 2024). Loose parts are also acknowledged as an important material within outdoor or community-based programs, such as forest schools, adventure playgrounds, and playpods (Almon, 2017).
Using loose parts outdoors can be complex or simple but most importantly, is child-driven. When adults relinquish control, not of the situation, but of the learning, children are able to navigate their needs and their levels of cooperation, and are able to use critical thinking and problem solving skills while involved in play, with the health benefits of being active and outdoors. Providing children with opportunities to learn and grow outside of the traditional classroom, using tools that are earthbound, nature-found, and sensory-forward, enables the youngest of our population to practise competencies that cannot be developed using technology or screens.
Resources
Outdoor Play Canada: Support for leaders and organizations in promoting outdoor play.
Pop-Up Adventure Playgrounds: Try a pop up approach with tools and resources.
Play Wales Loose Parts Toolkit & Loose Parts Play: A Toolkit Practical, hands-on guides for loose part play.
Playing it Up With Loose Parts, Playpods, and Adventure Playgrounds: Approaches to outdoor loose parts.
Outside Play: Parent & Teacher Tools Videos and modules to support getting outside with children, nested within themes of Outdoor Play and Learning in Schools.
Outdoor Play and Learning: Loose Parts by Evergreen Canada Video highlighting cooperative, inquiry-based outdoor play and learning using loose parts.
Scrapstore Playpods: Video of elementary school scrap play in action.
References
Almon, J. (Ed.). (2017). Playing it up: With loose parts, playpods, and adventure playgrounds. Alliance for Childhood.
Frost, M. C., Kuo, E. S., Harner, L. T., Landau, K. R., & Baldassar, K. (2018). Increase in physical activity sustained 1 year after playground intervention. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 54(5), S124–S129.
Gibson, J.J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gull, C., Levenson Goldstein, S., & Rosengarten, T. (2021). Loose Parts Learning in K-3 Classrooms. Gryphon House, Inc.
Gull, C., Levenson Goldstein, S., & Rosengarten, T. (2022). STEM Learning and Loose Parts in Early Elementary Classrooms: A Scoping Review. International Online Journal of Primary Education, 11(2), 279-292.
Heft, H. (1988). Affordances of children’s environments: A functional approach to environmental description. Children’s Environments Quarterly, 5(3), 29-37.
Nicholson, S. (1971). How NOT to cheat children, the theory of loose parts. Landscape Architecture, 62(1), 30-34.
Rotas, N. (2019). Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL): Activating “loose parts” in undisciplined childhood environments. International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education, 7(1), 73-85.
Zeni, M., Schnellert, L., & Brussoni, M. (2025). Pathways for outdoor play and learning: Pedagogical decisions and curricular intent in elementary school outdoor classrooms. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning [in press].
This article has been compiled as part of the 10th Anniversary of the Position Statement on Active Outdoor Play from Outdoor Play Canada by Carla Gull, EdD, Goshen College, Indiana; Tricia Rosengarten, PhD, University of Phoenix, North Carolina; Suzanne Levenson Goldstein, EdD, University of Phoenix, California; Kimberly Squires, PhD, University of Guelph, Ontario; Megan Zeni, Phd Candidate, University of British Columbia; Rebecca Forte, MEd., Education Consultant, Toronto.
This article is featured in Canadian Teacher Magazine’s Spring 2025 issue.
