Outdoor Learning: Engaging with Open Ended Materials and Loose Parts.

What is Outdoor Learning with Loose Parts?

Outdoor environments encourages more physical literacy, activities and movement, unstructured play and creative thinking, stronger self-confidence, & better connection with nature.

Canadian research indicates that rich outdoor play and learning experiences contribute
to each of the developmental domains: Cognitive, Social,
Emotional, Physical (Tremblay, 2015).

One strategy is for children to have exposure to outdoor play environments that have a variety of natural and synthetic loose parts (Flannigan & Dietze, 2017).

OUTDOOR CLOTHING: If a student needs outdoor clothing (e.g., rain boots, rain pants, snow pants, mitts, hats) we have extras! Please ask a teacher or office staff.

Loose parts

Loose Parts were described as “open-ended materials that can be used and manipulated in many ways” (Daly & Beloglovsky, 2015, p.5) and should be:

Captivating,
Open-ended,
Mobile

The School Council has created a new initiative at John English to encourage more open ended play and learning outdoors using loose parts. Loose parts, are any types of materials (recycled or new) that can be used in multiple ways to encourage students to play, explore, create their own adventure, and learning. This is a fantastic way to promote imagination, ingenuity

Is it risky? Maybe….but that’s a good thing!

POSITION STATEMENT from Canadian Pediatric Society (Jan. 25, 2024) Healthy childhood development through outdoor risky play: Navigating the balance with injury prevention

Articles on the importance of play

Children’s anxiety and the decline of play

How can you help?

The School Council is always collecting loose parts! Look at some ideas from TDSB School Grounds Improvement.

Safe, sturdy, gently used open-ended, loose parts such as:

Small Items: Pots, pans, baking tins, large utensils.
Large Items: PVC pipes/fittings; nail free wooden planks/pallets; rimless tires; tree stumps/cookies; sturdy kid-sized shovels/gardening tools; ropes & ratchet straps; cable reels/spools; sturdy milk crates/pails/buckets/bins; tarps.

If you have something to donate please reach out to sacinfo@johnenglish.ca and we would love to include your loose parts for our students at John English!