6 The Early Childhood Educator Summer 2016

O ne of the benefits of using social media for professional learning is that you can con-

nect to others near and far. When I was asked if I’d be interested in presenting a keynote address for ECEBC’s Pre-Conference Leader-ship Day on the topic of maximizing stories through social media, I was thrilled and quickly agreed. A few days later when I was contacted again, about presenting an all-dele-gate workshop in a ballroom of 350 participants, I was a little more hesi-tant. I believe professional learning should be interactive and hands on. I see a correlation between the ways children and adults learn, so all my workshops are experiential and involve loose parts.

It’s not like I haven’t done an in-teractive loose-parts workshop to a large group in the past. There was the time that a colleague and I packed up both of our cars and drove to a venue 15 minutes away to present to 400 delegates. This past winter, I ventured out alone to a lo-cal school board and did the same

Hands-on Learning for a Crowd: The Engaging Power of Loose Parts

DIANE KASHIN

workshop to 200 participants. I am an advocate for using loose parts in early childhood education and have a basement full of materials that I share to create hands-on pro-fessional learning experiences for educators. However, this time, was it going too far? After all, it’s 4,379 kilometres from Richmond Hill, Ontario, where I live, to Richmond, British Columbia!

Loose parts are open-ended mate-rials that can be combined, trans-ported, and transformed. Simon Nicholson, a landscape architect, coined the term “loose parts” in 1971 in the article “How Not to Cheat Children: The Theory of Loose Parts.”

Loose parts have a long history. For centuries children have played with sticks and stones. Indoors, we played with our grandmother’s button collection or with the empty boxes left over from presents that we quickly lost interest in but real-ized the potential of the packaging. Loose parts can be collected from nature or scrounged for in junk drawers and cupboards. They can be materials that would otherwise end up in recycling bins, and it is amazing how easy it is to amass a collection of bottle caps and plastic lids. Loose parts can be sourced at second-hand shops or garage sales. They are easy to find and collect, and they cost very little. Loose parts can encourage children to use their creativity in ways that we cannot

sometimes imagine; the materials are conducive to their ingenuity and capacity.

I love challenges and soon came up with a proposal for ECEBC. If they would source out the loose parts, I wouldn’t have to worry about fill-ing up my suitcases with materials that might cause airport security to wonder! ECEBC agreed to collect loose parts, and soon a call went out on social media. Posted on Fa-cebook with a lovely photo of one of my favourite loose parts—beach glass—was this request:

At the May 2016 annual confer-ence we are hosting a fabulous

The experience was to demonstrate that children should be creators not consumers. It was transient, focused on process with the product.

Diane Kashin at the conference.

Focus: Conference 2016

The Early Childhood Educator Summer 2016 7

It was an amazing experience to watch

a ballroom full of 350 delegates

silently create with loose parts.

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2 3

4

5

6

8 The Early Childhood Educator Summer 2016

workshop, Experiencing Loose Parts and Documentation by Diane Kashin, for the full delegation during session 1 on Friday May 6, 2016. We are asking for support in collecting the following materials. This is a coordinated effort to ensure we have enough of each of the materials to host such a large activity.

Items include: Glass beads; Acorns; Pinecones; Beach glass; Small rocks; Small pieces of driftwood; Small sticks; Gems; Mosaics; Leaves; Feath-ers; Platforms—round place-mats, empty frames, mirrors, cork shapes.

Thank you all for your contin-ued support!

The day before my loose-parts workshop, I asked the conference organizers if I could see what had been collected so that I could prepare. I soon found myself in loose-parts heaven and was grate-ful, inspired, and impressed by the collaborative and collective effort to amass this amazing array of materi-als. (See photos 1 and 2.)

On the following day, I was excited to share this twist to my loose-parts

experience. As with past workshops, I asked the participants to use the loose parts in silence. I invited those seated at tables to first collect baskets of loose parts and platforms. When they returned to their tables, one person at a time quietly added to the platform. The silence allowed the experience to speak; it was a powerful demonstration of collabo-ration and non-verbal communica-tion. (See photos 3, 4, and 5.)

The experience was to demonstrate that children should be creators not consumers. It was transient, focused on process with the product, and the entire experience was captured digitally. By not providing glue, the loose parts lived to play another day. It was an amazing experience to watch a ballroom full of 350 dele-gates silently create with loose parts. Equally powerful was how uniquely and creatively they documented the experience, making the learning that had occurred visible. Of course, this was done after the veil of silence was lifted. (See photo 6.)

As I walked around the tables watching the experience unfold, I was so proud to be in a room full of amazing early childhood edu-cators—there was such joyful and playful collaborative professional

learning. I thank the ECEBC and all the wonderful educators who took part in the workshop for giving me the opportunity to spend a few hours in loose-parts heaven. I hope the experience inspires educators to introduce, continue, or expand the loose-parts opportunities they provide for children (of all ages).

Diane is a registered early childhood educator in Ontario. She provides workshops, consults, and teaches ECE part time at Ryerson University.

references

Nicholson, S., (1971) How not to cheat children: The theory of loose parts. Landscape architecture 62, p. 30-34.

http://media.kaboom.org/docs/docu-ments/pdf/ip/Imagination-Playground-Theory-of-Loose-Parts-Simon-Nichol-son.pdf

Equally powerful was how uniquely and creatively

they documented the experience, making

the learning that had occurred visible.

Conference 2016