The play kitchen comes to life
Loose parts are a wonderful way to expand a play kitchen.
Balls become:
-Berries
-Soup garnishes
-Sweets
-Water or lemonade
Strings turn into:
-Spaghetti
-Noodle nests
-Strips of vegetables
The discs in the stacking tower become:
-Plates
-Doughnuts
-Lemon slices
-Hob hotplates
Semicircles can be used as pizzas and topped with small pieces to create new combinations time and time again:
-Balls as tomatoes
-Rings as onions
What’s particularly lovely is that children can constantly change their dishes. Today it’s pizza, tomorrow a birthday cake, and after that perhaps a huge vegetable soup for all the rainbow friends.
A lemonade stand for hot summer’s days
With a bit of imagination and a few loose parts, you can create a lemonade stand. Children love mixing drinks, taking orders and having little sales chats.
Loose parts are perfect for:
-Lemon slices
-Ice cubes
-Fruit
-Decorations
-Play money
The little store is filling up
A shop doesn’t have to be big at all. Often, all you need are a few baskets, bowls and small items that can be sorted and put on display.
-Beads become fruit or sweets.
-Rings become biscuits or pretzels.
-Small stones become sweets or vegetables.
It becomes particularly exciting when children:
-sort the goods
-set prices
-go shopping
-pay
-stock the shelves
This creates lots of little everyday situations in a playful way.
An ice-cream stall with lots of flavours
Which flavour would you like?
Cones and building blocks become waffles, and balls turn into different ice-cream flavours:
-Strawberry
-Lemon
-Blueberry
-Pistachio
Small bowls can be used as cups, and little glitter stones turn every ice-cream sundae into a special dessert.
It’s particularly popular when children invent their own ice cream flavours or prepare orders for family members, cuddly toys or toy figures.
Playing without set rules
The special thing about loose parts is that they’re never just one thing. Today, balls are used for cooking; tomorrow, they’re being sold; and the day after tomorrow, they’re treasures in an imaginary world.
Children decide for themselves what to make with the materials. And that is precisely what keeps their play ideas alive.
Often, it doesn’t take much at all:
-a few open-ended materials
-a little space
-and the freedom to let their own ideas take shape
Because sometimes the most wonderful world of play begins with a single ball on a small wooden plate.
