Defining Loose Parts takes center stage in this Playvolution HQ Podcast episode. Jeff breaks down Simon Nicholson’s Theory of Loose Parts, highlighting how versatile materials inspire creativity, exploration, and open-ended play. He also examines why educational toys often fall short and shares why loose parts are a better investment for play-rich environments. And, in a random twist, Jeff reflects on his recent deep dive into bagpipe music. Episode Video Watch Now: PHQP_0003 Defining Loose Parts Episode Notes The Theory Of Loose Parts The Theory Of Loose Parts | Quote 01913 Simon Nicholson Loose Parts Articles Loose Parts Ideas Loose Parts Handout 8 Eye-Opening Reasons Young Children Are Messy The Defining Loose Parts Transcript Welcome to Playvolution HQ podcast. Thanks for pushing play. I'm Jeff Johnson. On with the show. First up, bagpipes. I've been listening to a lot of bagpipe music lately. I didn't know where there are so many bagpipe tunes and playlists and artists on Spotify, but I've been digging into them. I guess get a hold of me if you wanna, if you're a big bagpipe music fan and have somebody you wanna recommend, get a hold of me, let me know what you think. I've listened to more bagpipe music in the last couple of weeks than I have in my entire life, for what it's worth. Probably not much. First, topic one, our continuing series of core value. So core value, part three, is that play environments are not enhanced by educational toys, educational toys. So what I'm talking about when I say educational toys, I'm talking about things like this and this. These things are lacking in a truly play environment, and we buy them with good intentions, but they really don't measure up to other things that we could be providing kids. First off, they have fixed functionality. It's very limited. They have a very limited scope of what they can do. This thing, you read through the little picture book and you push the buttons and you flip the things around and you put the little shapes in the right holes and you spin the dial, and then you're pretty much done with it. Kids get bored with this stuff very quickly because it's very limited in its functionality. Also, the focus of these products is on outcome over process. They want you to learn letters or learn colors or learn numbers or whatever it is, and that's their main focus, and that is baked into them to the extent that these products have very, it's very hard for a child to use them in a different way because they are so locked in to that function. And we, in a play-based environment, play-thinking people, are more often, not more often, just about always more focused on the process over the finished product, the outcome. It's the doing of the thing where the learning is, and educational toys don't measure up to that mark. And then finally, there are poor investment of resources. For the 20, 30, 40, 50, $150, you're gonna spend on some learning toys for your early learning environment. You could buy more paint and more construction paper and things like that, more consumable supplies. You could build a bigger collection of loose parts, which we'll get into in a moment. And so, really, the payoff for those kind of things isn't, I mean, it's just not there. And so, parents might like to see them. You might think these things are a good thing to have in your program, but they really are lacking for those three primary reasons when it comes to early learning. On to topic two, defining loose parts. Now, this is a big thing where loose parts are gonna come up a lot on this show, but I wanted to start out with a very, well, the definition of what a loose part is in an early episode here, so we've got a foundation to build on with future episodes. So, when it comes to defining loose parts, a couple things you should know. One is, Simon Nicholson is really the go-to guy here. Now,
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Feb 17 202518 mins