Loose parts cross the boundaries of gender, age, abilities, and socioeconomic challenges. This book helps teachers make a conscious effort to create culturally sustainable environments that allow children to grow and to conquer a dynamic world.

Use loose parts to spark children's creativity and innovation Loose parts are natural or synthetic found, bought, or upcycled materials that children can move, manipulate, control, and change within their play. Alluring and captivating, they capture children's curiosity, give free reign to their imagination, and motivate learning. The hundreds of inspiring photographs showcase an array of loose parts in real early childhood settings. And the overviews of concepts children can learn when using loose parts provide the foundation for incorporating loose parts into your teaching to enhance play and empower children. The possibilities are truly endless.

Loose parts capture children's curiosity, give free reign to their imagination, and encourage creativity. This form of play allows infants to be in control and recognize the power of their bodies and actions. A variety of new and innovative loose parts ideas are paired with beautiful photography to inspire safe loose parts play in your infant and toddler environments. Captivating classroom stories and proven science provide the context for how this style of play supports children's development and learning. This book is perect for Montessori and Reggio-inspired programs and educators.

Loose parts are natural or synthetic found, bought, or upcycled materials—acorns, hardware, stones, aluminum foil, fabric scraps, for example—that children can move, manipulate, control, and change within their play. Loose parts capture children's curiosity, give free rein to their imagination, and encourage creativity. In the newest installment of the wildly popular, award-winning Loose Parts series, Lisa Daly and Miriam Beloglovsky focus on including families and competency building. With inspiring full-color photographs Loose Parts 4 is organized around competencies and life skills children need for success in the future: knowingness, engagement, risk, connections, leadership, innovative thinking, and creativity. Lisa and Miriam explain the value of loose parts, detail how to integrate loose parts into the environment and children’s play, and specifically focus on loose parts for children in family environments—helping educators engage families and extend learning beyond the classroom.

Loose parts. You have heard the term, probably in the context of promoting engaging play with open-ended, natural, and manufactured materials that can be manipulated with limitless possibilities. In this book, discover how a loose parts mindset promotes active learning in the early elementary classroom, enhancing curriculum and ensuring connection to state standards. Offering inspiration and guidance on developing, applying, and teaching a loose parts mindset, the authors break down common myths of using loose parts for learning and walk you through getting started in the classroom and on the school grounds. Examine your role as an educator, address safety concerns, and explore how you might evaluate and assess loose parts in the classroom. The inspiring photographs in this book showcase ways to apply the loose parts mindset to science, technology, reading and literacy, engineering, art, and math lessons. Use this book as a smorgasbord of ideas--pick and choose ones that work for you, your students, and your community. None of us is too old for a little loose parts play!

For graduates, for their parents, for anyone facing change, here is a gorgeously illustrated and stunningly heartfelt ode to the challenges of growing up and letting go. A story of the seasons and stepping stones as poignant for parents as for their kids, from the creator of Otis the tractor and illustrator of Love by Matt de la Pena. "Long’s gentle but powerful story about a young tree who holds tight to his leaves, even as everyone else lets theirs drop, takes on nothing less than the pain and sorrow of growing up. . . . As in Long’s unaccountably profound books about Otis the tractor, a pure white background somehow adds to the depth."—The New York Times Book Review In the middle of a little forest, there lives a Little Tree who loves his life and the splendid leaves that keep him cool in the heat of long summer days. Life is perfect just the way it is. Autumn arrives, and with it the cool winds that ruffle Little Tree's leaves. One by one the other trees drop their leaves, facing the cold of winter head on. But not Little Tree—he hugs his leaves as tightly as he can. Year after year Little Tree remains unchanged, despite words of encouragement from a squirrel, a fawn, and a fox, his leaves having long since turned brown and withered. As Little Tree sits in the shadow of the other trees, now grown sturdy and tall as though to touch the sun, he remembers when they were all the same size. And he knows he has an important decision to make. From #1 New York Times bestselling Loren Long comes a gorgeously-illustrated story that challenges each of us to have the courage to let go and to reach for the sun. Praise for Little Tree * "The illustrations are beautifully rendered . . . Understated and inviting, young readers will be entranced by Little Tree’s difficult but ultimately rewarding journey."—Booklist, starred review "Long’s gentle but powerful story about a young tree who holds tight to his leaves, even as everyone else lets theirs drop, takes on nothing less than the pain and sorrow of growing up. Season after season, Little Tree clings to his brown-leaved self until he can take a leap and shed his protection. He feels ‘the harsh cold of winter,’ but soon grows tall and green, and it’s not bad at all. As in Long’s unaccountably profound books about Otis the tractor, a pure white background somehow adds to the depth."—The New York Times Book Review * "[Long's] willingness to take his time and even test the audience’s patience with his arboreal hero’s intransigence results in an ending that’s both a big relief and an authentic triumph. Long’s earnest-eloquent narrative voice and distilled, single-plane drawings, both reminiscent of an allegorical pageant, acknowledge the reality of the struggle while offering the promise of brighter days ahead."—Publishers Weekly, starred review "Long is sparing with the text, keeping it simple and beautifully descriptive. Brilliantly colored illustrations done in acrylic, ink, and pencil stand out on bright white pages, with Little Tree taking the center position in each double-page spread. Tender and gentle and altogether lovely."—Kirkus Reviews "Children will see the tree facing the scariness of change; adult readers may well feel wistful as the story underscores the need to let their babies grow toward independence. Beautiful. Grade: A"—Cleveland Plain Dealer

Pull on your mittens and head outside with Lois Ehlert for a snowball day Grab some snow and start rolling. With a few found objects, like buttons and fabric and seeds, and a little imagination, you can create a whole family out of snow. "Ehlert uses collages of cut paper and vibrant, textured objects to dazzling effect in her tribute to building a snowman--and snowgirl and snowcat. Her inventive designs extend the reader's perspective and tweak the limits of the picture-book format."--Publishers Weekly