Eat, sleep, breathe, repeat
To set up your loose parts stock initially, you will eat, sleep and breathe loose parts (not literally, you’ll choke!) and you’ll start to see things in a different light - the light of loose parts!
Loose parts are basically a quantity of an object which can be natural or synthetic (I steer towards natural because of the variety of colours, textures, weight, and because they are mainly free!)
Where do you start?
Surprisingly, once you start looking, you’ll see objects you can use everywhere!
In Autumn, when you’re taking a leisurely stroll in the park (that’s what you tell your husband, anyway!), you’ll stumble across 100’s of conkers. (You’ll also just so happen to have a plastic carrier bag and gloves in your pocket too by the way, fancy that!) You’ll see pine cones, sticks, acorns, and pebbles.
At the car boot you’ll find a bag of wood biscuits for 50p.
During a weekend away to Kent, you’ll pass a wine merchant who has created a beautiful window display using thousands of corks and you won’t be able to help yourself but go inside and ask if they have any spares. You’ll do the same when you go Go Karting and think, those tyres would be perfect for my Outdoor Classroom and the Nursery children will be able to transport them. So you go to the reception and say to the girl ‘this is going to sound like such a weird request, but I’m a teacher and I was just wondering, what do you do with the mini tyres when you’re done with them?’ You find out there is a mountain behind the track and they’d be more than happy to literally fill your car up because otherwise they have to pay someone to take them away and dispose of them.
Wherever you go you’ll start to notice items that you can add to your collection. And then you won’t be able to stop.
Don’t be afraid of asking; the phrase 'if you don’t ask, you don’t get’ really is true. You can ask parents and carers to help too by bringing in items for you to add to the collection. Another idea is to arrange a class trip to the local park and go on a nature treasure hunt!
Here are some ideas to get you started
bottle lids
glass beads
cinnamon sticks
shells
acorns
pine cones
pebbles
lolly pop sticks
nuts and bolts
corks
curtain rings
Take a look at my photos for some inspiration!