Create Your Own Story

Our loose part materials enhances children’s creativity and problem-solving abilities.

At ieDiscoveries, we encourage children to create their own stories using different kinds of materials. Often we will give provocations or broad ideas to children to boost creativity. For example, when given the idea to create a city, children have different ideas as to what should be included in the construction of a city. Most often, children will create things based on what they have seen and are familiar with. This could be a park that they love to play at, a pond they go fishing at with their family, or even a building that they like and stands out to them. We want children to embrace their creativity and learn through the process. Provocations are our way of doing so.

Early Literacy

Creating a story using different materials can develop and build early literacy skills. When using different play materials, children can start building and creating different objects or ideas and put images into words. This concept can help later on when they are in school and are practicing letter recognition and word recognition. Similar to children remembering words and ideas when listening to music they also benefit from having a mental image of a word in their head. We motivate children to think about how they would create certain objects and then continue to build and improve them. Creativity is our main goal and we love to see children learn and develop using our STEAM-based activities and materials.

Loose Parts

The materials we have are all loose parts. This means that any material we have can be used as many different things. Our philosophy is to give children the materials necessary for them to build and create using their imagination and collaborate multiple different materials to do so. When building the city above, some of the same materials were used to build different things within the city. When children are encouraged to create, using loose parts stimulates the part of the brain called the hippocampus; this section of the brain allows them to piece together images and events that they have experienced. This lets them re-create what they have seen in the past and build it the way they experienced and viewed it.

Engineering

Provocations can also help develop the ability to design, problem-solve and conflict analysis. When given a provocation the main idea is to see how a child interacts with different materials and put their spin on an idea. Sometimes, when creating something we run into roadblocks and have to navigate how to fix the problem. Provocations do just this, children will have an idea of what they want to build but they also need to find a material that can do what they want it to. This is the first step in designing. When making the city above we needed to find the perfect material to make a pond. We found our giant pattern tiles that are blue to create the water and then put a fence around it made of graduated building sticks. Another roadblock that could arise is learning how to use specific materials to make what they are envisioning. Our motto for provocations and problem solving is Think, Make, Improve.

We love seeing all the things that can be created, solved, and reimagined. If you would like to learn more about what learning through play can look like, come in and ask! The next time you are here at ieDiscoveries in Manhattan, KS, ask for a provocation or create your own.

By Hannah Evans, MHK Play Studio intern