31/07/2026
🌿 Loose Parts Play: Supporting Learning and Development Across the EYFS 🌿
Loose parts play provides children with rich opportunities to explore, create, investigate, and develop skills in their own unique ways. From babies and toddlers to older children, open-ended resources encourage curiosity, creativity, and deeper learning through play. ✨
By offering materials such as natural objects, recycled resources, fabrics, boxes, tubes, blocks, and everyday items, children are encouraged to become active learners who make their own choices, follow their interests, and develop their ideas.
Through loose parts play, children demonstrate the EYFS Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning:
🔍 Playing and Exploring
Children investigate materials, explore possibilities, and discover how things work through hands-on experiences.
💡 Creating and Thinking Critically
Children develop problem-solving skills, test ideas, adapt their creations, and think creatively as they plan and build.
🌱 Active Learning
Children become motivated and engaged, showing persistence as they overcome challenges and work towards their own goals.
Loose parts play also supports children’s wider development by encouraging:
🧠 Cognitive development — experimenting, reasoning, and solving problems.
🤝 Personal, social and emotional development — sharing ideas, collaborating, and developing confidence.
💬 Communication and language — discussing plans, explaining ideas, and developing vocabulary.
💪 Physical development — strengthening coordination, balance, and control through building and manipulating materials.
The beauty of loose parts is that there is no single outcome. Each child can explore in their own way, creating experiences that are meaningful, purposeful, and led by their imagination.
By providing time, space, and carefully chosen resources, we support children to become confident, curious, and capable learners. 🌈
