Early years activity: Exploring our amazing planet with loose parts
Children are naturally curious about the world around them, and open-ended play with loose parts provides endless opportunities for exploration, creativity and discovery. Our planet is full of fascinating environments, from lush rainforests and sandy deserts to icy polar regions and rocky coastlines. This activity introduces children to some of the diverse habitats found around the world, encouraging them to explore, create and talk about the different landscapes they discover.
Learning aims
- Develop curiosity about the natural world
- Use descriptive language to talk about the natural world
- Work collaboratively, sharing ideas and respecting the ideas of others
- Build confidence in making independent choices during open-ended play.
Resources you will need for this activity
- Maps, photographs and non-fiction books showing different environments around the world
- Provide a large selection of natural loose parts for children to freely explore, e.g.
- Pine cones, sticks, pebbles, shells, leaves, fresh or dried flowers, seed pods, feathers, wooden slices, acorns, conkers, etc.
- Enhance the invitation to play by adding baskets, wooden bowls, magnifying glasses, mirrors, small-world animals, natural fabrics etc.
Exploring our amazing planet with loose parts guide
- Begin by sharing books, maps and photographs of different environments around the world, such as tropical rainforests, deserts, mountains, oceans, woodlands, grasslands and polar regions. Begin with environments that will be familiar to them, then extend their learning by introducing new and exciting landscapes they may not have seen before
- Invite children to explore the natural loose parts independently. Encourage children to use the loose parts to recreate the environments they have explored or invent an entirely new landscape. They might create transient art inspired by nature, a rainforest filled with small-world animals or a desert using pebbles and sand-coloured materials
- Throughout the activity, adults should model curiosity and extend children's thinking by commenting and wondering aloud, for example:
- "I wonder how we could make this look like a rainforest?"
- "Which natural materials would you find in a desert?"
- "I wonder which animals might live here?"
- "How could we make a home for the woodland animals?"
- Offer meaningful praise that recognises children's ideas and effort rather than the finished product
- Take photographs of children's creations before they are dismantled, celebrating the creative process and encouraging children to talk about what they have made and why they chose particular materials.
How to extend this activity
- Nature hunt – Go on a walk around your nursery garden or a local outdoor space to collect additional natural loose parts. Encourage children to think about what they might need to complete or improve their environment. They may decide they need more sticks, leaves, stones or bark to bring their ideas to life
- Storytelling – Invite children to use the environments they have created as a backdrop for storytelling. They could invent adventures for small-world animals or create stories about the people and creatures that live there.
NDNA products to support you with this activity
Disclaimer: Activities with children must always be risk assessed, including for allergies or choking. Children must always have adequate supervision. Resources and materials must always be appropriate for children’s age and stage of development.
