When Valerie talks about loose parts, she doesn’t begin with curriculum goals or learning outcomes. She begins with the materials themselves.
She remembers how children were immediately drawn to them—not because they came with instructions, but because they invited curiosity. Unlike many classroom materials that have a single purpose, loose parts ask children to wonder.
“Children are drawn to interesting materials,” Valerie reflected. “They naturally want to investigate them.”
Over the years, she has watched children transform collections of seemingly ordinary objects into stories, inventions, structures, and worlds. A handful of buttons, a basket of fabric scraps, or a collection of wooden pieces can become something entirely unexpected.
And that’s exactly the point.
The Power of Not Knowing
One of the things Valerie loves most about loose parts is that no two children use them in the same way.
Given the same collection of materials, children bring different ideas, experiences, and questions to the work. Some begin by sorting. Others build immediately. Some create elaborate narratives, while others focus on patterns, balance, or design.
“Every child makes something different,” she shared. “That’s what I love about it.”
For Valerie, loose parts have become a reminder that learning doesn’t always need to begin with a predetermined outcome. Sometimes the most meaningful learning emerges when adults don’t already know what children will create.
Instead of asking, Did everyone make the same thing? the question becomes, What did each child discover?
Learning Through Choice
As Valerie reflected on her experiences, she returned again and again to the importance of choice.
Children are constantly making decisions when they work with loose parts. Which materials should I use? What happens if I combine these? How can I solve this problem? What could this become?
“The choice piece is huge,” Valerie explained.
That freedom gives children ownership over their learning. It allows them to test ideas, revise plans, and develop confidence in their own thinking.
Rather than following directions, children are learning how to make decisions.
Books as Invitations
Many of Valerie’s favorite loose parts experiences begin with a story.
A picture book can spark an idea, raise a question, or introduce a new way of seeing the world. But for Valerie, the goal isn’t to recreate the story exactly. Instead, books become invitations.
“Books are a wonderful spark,” she said.
A story might inspire children to build a setting, create characters, retell an event, or imagine what happens next. Beautiful illustrations often lead to rich conversations about color, shape, pattern, and design.
The materials allow children to respond to stories in ways that go beyond words.
Thinking Differently About Materials
As her work evolved, Valerie noticed a shift in how she thought about materials themselves.
In the beginning, collecting materials felt exciting. Over time, however, she became increasingly interested in curation.
“I think much more intentionally now about curation,” she reflected.
She began paying attention to how materials related to one another. Did they offer different textures? Different possibilities for construction? Were there enough pieces for collaboration? Did the collection feel balanced?
The goal was no longer simply to provide materials.
The goal was to create invitations for thinking.
Teachers Need Time to Play Too
One of Valerie’s strongest beliefs is that educators need opportunities to experience loose parts for themselves.
Too often, professional development focuses on how to manage activities or connect them to curriculum. While those things matter, Valerie believes something powerful happens when adults are simply given time to explore.
“You have to experience it first,” she said.
When teachers sort, build, experiment, and create with materials, they begin to understand the possibilities children see. They become more comfortable with uncertainty and more willing to follow children’s ideas.
In many ways, the process asks adults to rediscover their own curiosity.
Looking Back
As Valerie reflected on years of practice, she found herself thinking about documentation.
While photographs captured children’s creations, she wished she had collected more of their words—the conversations, questions, observations, and theories that emerged while they worked.
The materials mattered.
But so did the thinking behind them.
And perhaps that’s what Valerie’s story reveals most clearly. Loose parts are never really about the objects themselves. They are about the possibilities those objects create.
Possibilities for creativity.
Possibilities for connection.
Possibilities for discovery.
And as Valerie has learned time and again, when children are given meaningful materials, time, and trust, they often take us somewhere we never expected to go.
“Children will always surprise you.”
