This month in the Loose Parts Play Hub you can play around with drawing portraits of yourself or those you came to play with. You can create silly faces with loose parts. Plus, you can get to know each other with some conversation cards!
Here’s what you will find in the Loose Parts Play Hub this month:
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Stainless Table:
Self Portraits
Self portraits are a fantastic way for us to reflect on ourselves. They allow us to look closely at our beauty inside and out as we observe the features of our face and the color of our eyes and hair. We can reflect on our uniqueness, things we like about ourselves, and our place in the world!
Play around with different types of mark making and drawing materials to create textures. Try out blind contour drawing – this is a drawing technique where you draw yourself (looking in a mirror) or another person, but you don’t look at your paper! Hint: Don’t pick up your pencil. When you’re done with your portraits, take it home or feel free to hang it up on the wall!
Stump Table:
Conversation Cards
Gather round! Tell me a little about yourself. In combination with some fun manipulatives is a basket full of conversation cards. Get to know a new friend, or learn something new about an old one.
On the Shelf:
Ramps and balls
These materials relate to many of the play schemas- connecting, deconstruction, trajectory, enclosing, dynamic horizontal, and going through a boundary. Children repeat play actions to fully understand how things work in the world. They are scientists and engineers from the minute they are born!
Guests can use these materials to create a ball maze. Use the blocks to hold things in place or act as walls. Grab more tubes from the bin and experiment with different sizes and weights of balls.
On the Desk:
Rock Investigation
Do you like to hunt for rocks? We do! These rocks were found locally along the LeSueur River, just south of Mankato. Along shallow creeks and waterways are great spots to hunt for rocks. Rocks can tell us the geological history of our area, like how the land has changed over time and what types of plant and animals used to live here! Rock are beautiful and fascinating – do you see the different lines, layers, colors and shapes? Using the books, see if you can identify the rocks!
