At Laingholm Kindergarten our garage door broke, meaning we couldn’t access any equipment. Through this event unexpected interests emerged, with the tamariki engaging in more imaginative play in nature and creatively using open-ended ‘loose parts’. A great example was when tamariki used sticks fallen from trees as building materials and props in dramatic play.

The story Stick Man become a favourite and led to a discovery of Stick Man and his family out in nature, with tamariki creating their own Stick Men.

Another fabulous open-ended ‘loose part’ that grew in popularity was tyre play. Tamariki had hours of fun rolling tyres down our sloping outdoor space, while experimenting with speed eg; the higher and steeper the tyre goes the faster the tyre will race down the hill.

Tamariki developed a deeper appreciation of using nature for play, so we used our Tuakana Rōpū time as an outdoor classroom. Each week we concentrated on different activities, such as measuring shadows, finding shapes in nature and using our different senses.

These experiences have been a wonderful outcome, reminding us that sometimes less is more when feeding our imagination on our learning journey.