When Loose Parts Meet Schemas

Interpreting Children’s Learning Through Loose Parts and Schematic Thinking

In early childhood settings, our titles may be Educators and Teachers, but every day we also take on the role of listener, observer and interpreter. Children are constantly communicating with us through their play, and the richest learning often reveals itself in the smallest and most ordinary moments. A repeated movement. A material chosen with intention. A pattern a child returns to again and again.

Loose parts play and an understanding of schematic learning offers us a powerful lens through which we can see these moments more clearly. Through them, we learn to recognise the meaning inside what might otherwise look like simple play. When we learn to be attuned to these moments, we become better Educators and develop the capacity to extend and challenge children’s learning and thinking.

 

Loose Parts: Materials That Invite Thinking

In 1971, Simon Nicholson proposed that “in any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it.”

He believed creativity was not something a child simply possesses. It is something that develops when we provide open-ended opportunities to explore, experiment and imagine.

When we offer loose parts, we offer possibilities. These materials invite children to become designers, problem solvers and investigators without needing instruction or an expected outcome. They reveal how children think. A child who lines up shells or blocks might be exploring order and pattern. A child who fills every cup or bowl with sand may be experimenting with capacity or enclosure.

By recognising learning in even the simplest behaviours, we can use loose parts to make children’s ideas visible, and schematic thinking then offers a meaningful way to understand and interpret those ideas.

 

Understanding Schemas: The Patterns Behind the Play

Schemas are repeated patterns of behaviour that help children make sense of the world. When we learn to notice them, such as transporting, trajectory, enclosure, rotation, positioning, connecting and enveloping, we begin to see that children’s play is purposeful and deeply connected to how they understand their environment.

Some examples include:

A child rolling balls down ramps again and again may be exploring a trajectory schema.

A child pushing the drink bottle cart around the room every time you move it back may be exploring transporting.

A child wrapping dolls, hiding objects under fabric or tucking themselves into boxes might be investigating an enveloping schema.

When we pair loose parts with an understanding of schemas, we can read children’s learning with much greater clarity and confidence.

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Bringing the Two Together

Loose parts create the perfect conditions for schematic learning to flourish. Early Childhood Australia describes loose parts as “equipment that can be moved around, combined in different ways or taken apart and put back together again by children through their own initiative” (n.d.).

The same child, with the same material, may use it entirely differently depending on the schema they are currently exploring. This makes our observations richer and our planning more intentional.

 

 

 

Here are some ways to support specific schemas through loose parts:

Transporting

Baskets, buckets, tongs, smaller objects and materials that can be moved from place to place.

Enclosing

Rings, containers, boxes, fabric or blocks that can be used to form spaces or boundaries.

Rotation

Wheels, spools, lids, rolling pins or bottle tops that can spin or turn.

Connecting

Clips, string, pipes, magnets, and pegs to join and combine.

By offering materials that align with children’s patterns of play, we don’t direct their learning, we support it with intention.

When we use loose parts, they become a powerful tool for learning in ways that extend far beyond schemas. Loose parts can support sustainability by encouraging us to repurpose and reuse objects such as boxes or fabric. They can bring nature into children’s play through the inclusion of materials like pinecones, gumnuts, or stones. They also allow children to explore everyday objects such as utensils, pots, and pans, helping them develop early understandings of the items they’ll encounter in their daily lives.

Because loose parts can be drawn from such a wide range of found and everyday materials, they also reduce the need to purchase large amounts of inexpensive, short-lived resources. Instead, this approach encourages us to make more intentional, meaningful investments in high-quality, open-ended educational materials that enrich and complement children’s play and learning.

 

What This Means for Our Pedagogy

When we understand loose parts and schemas, we shift from seeing play as something children do to seeing it as something children communicate. Play becomes a message, a map of a child’s thinking and a window into what they are trying to master.

This understanding strengthens our practice. It helps us:

• Plan with a genuine purpose

• Differentiate for individual children’s strengths, capabilities and needs

• Document learning with depth and context

• Choose materials intentionally

• Support children’s creativity, agency and problem solving

• Communicate children’s learning more effectively with families

Most importantly, it helps us honour each child as a capable and curious learner with their own internal logic.

 

A Final Thought

Interpreting children’s learning through loose parts and schemas reminds us that play is never accidental. Every repeated action is a clue. Every material chosen is an insight. When we learn to see these patterns, we unlock a clearer and richer understanding of each child’s unique way of thinking, and we become true partners in their discoveries.