Loose Parts Play - Flowers and Trees

I always find it sad when it is time to put cut flowers in the compost. I will often dry rose petals to put in playdough but this activity was so simple to set up and the learning was so valuable for my son. Read more here about the importance of loose parts play for children.

As with all loose parts play activities it is open ended play and ideally there should be no adult direction in how and what a child does with the collection of materials.

Set Up

Using the felt balls, the wooden buttons, the wooden cubes and the rosemary from our March activity box, I simply added some cut flowers and corks and presented it all on one of my wooden chopping boards.

My son loves anything with wheels, so I wanted to present this activity as an irresistible invitation to learn and engage.

The presentation worked. As soon as my son saw it, he said “ooo Mummy what’s this?” The first thing he did was pick everything up to inspect and smell it.

Once he had sorted through everything he then started to dismantle - removing the petals from the flowers and then he rebuilt. He built flowers using the corks, the petals and then carefully balancing a wooden button on top. On a number of occasions his flowers collapsed but he just found that hilarious and rebuilt. He then went on to build tress using the felt balls, the corks and the wooden blocks.