Let’s Play! Making and Tinkering with Loose Parts, by Beth VanMeeteren, ED.D. and Dr. Allison Barness

Play is becoming increasingly valued for its role in how children to learn about, themselves, others, what is in the world, and how it works. Children have an intrinsic desire to play and is most powerful when they can make their own choices about what to play with, and how they will play with it. Young children often get lost in play with open-ended loose parts as they roll objects to see how they move, build structures out of almost anything, use loose parts to move water, cast shadows, and explore how they balance. Through play familiar objects are creatively used in new ways, serving unique purposes as children tinker with them.

You will learn to closely observe children playfully tinkering with open-ended loose parts. Bath and Allison will to notice how they creatively position them to design systems to make something happen and use their intrinsic desire to try again until they figure it out. What you will be amazed to learn is that this process is the beginning of engineering!

Join this exciting and inspiring webinar by Beth VanMeeteren, ED.D. and Dr. Allison Barness, authors of the STEM for Our Youngest Learners Series to play as we explore loose parts, and how children might tinker with them. We will discuss ways we can support their ideas by asking a productive question or adding a new material.

Participants will be able to:

• Identify what children use to tinker

• Describe the resulting artifacts of children’s tinkering

• Identify sets of loose parts that invite children to tinker

• Explore ways of asking questions that support and deepen children’s work in tinkering