What is Heuristic Play?

By definition, heuristic means allowing a person to discover or learn something for themselves. Heuristic play, which is often referred to as loose parts play, allows children to learn by exploring everyday objects placed in the environment. This exploration allows children to develop in many areas from building language skills and vocabulary to development of fine motor skills, to learning about basic scientific and math concepts to gross motor skills. Children can explore objects, and concepts creatively with no preconceived ideas of the right or wrong way. As they work together, they build language skills and social skills. Heuristic play is often referred to as Loose-parts play. Loose parts are great for exploring early math concepts such as counting, size, shape, and balance. They allow for the exploration of new scientific concepts from physics to technology, to life science. Basic skills of observation, comparison, classification, measurement, inference, and prediction c
an easily be included in play. By changing a variable children can experiment with the materials. They learn to understand the world around them while increasing self-sufficiency and building confidence.

 

As parents and providers, we can encourage heuristic play by offering various types of safe materials and objects presented invitingly. Presentation of objects in a basket or laid out on a tray works well. Placing objects in a divided bowl or box can also work. Including multiple objects that can be used in various ways allows for longer, deeper play. These materials do not have to be expensive. They can be natural materials or man-made. The fewer expectations and rules adults put on their use, the more it allows for creative out-of-the-box thinking and exploration. I will offer a warning, exploration and experimentation can often look like a mess.

 

In our childcare environment, I have provided opportunities for heuristic play for years. One of the most loved “toys” isn’t a toy at all. It is a metal water bottle with a small neck. The children love experimenting to see what fits inside the bottle. We have changed out the different objects for the bottle from small spoons to peg clothes pins, to popsicle sticks, to sticks from the play yard. Various sounds are created when the bottle is shaken with different objects inside the bottle. Soon they discover the sound the bottle creates when it is dropped on the floor. The children learn about the concepts of dump and fill, empty and full, and shake and sound.

 

Another play object the children enjoy is a wooden tissue box I bought at Micheals Arts and Crafts years ago. We fill it with scarves, which they love to pull out and throw. We have placed fabric letters inside which they pull out and name and we discuss what starts with the letters sound.  We have added different types of fabric inside the box for new sensory experiences. We build on their vocabulary by discussing how each fabric feels and what other things feel the same way. In the fall we fill it with silk leaves which are pulled out, thrown, raked, picked up, counted, sorted, and felt offering a sensory experience too.

 

Young Children benefit from the use of “exploration baskets”. These are baskets a caregiver fills with objects from around the house. A shiny basket might include a plastic silver Christmas ball, a silver bell, a metal cup, a small metal pitcher, a small metal bowl, a metal spoon, and a plastic mirror. Even a ball of crinkled tin foil is an interesting object to explore. Sit the basket of objects out on a blanket free for them to interact with as they choose. Another type of baskets, I routinely create are various color baskets with different objects all the same color. A blue basket might include a cup, a piece of blue patterned fabric, a blue ball, a pair of blue mittens, a blue cap, and a pretend person in a blue shirt. A cleaning basket might have a small dustpan and broom, a cleaning rag, a scrub brush, and a lint roller or a small feather duster. A younger child would explore and play with the items, but a two or three-year-old might just find it fun to help clean the house.  A cooking basket can be several cooking utensils in a bowl, measuring spoons, and measuring cups. Infants like to taste and touch the objects presented. An older child would benefit from including a pan of dry rice or other sensory filler to be able to mix pour and measure. A pet basket might include a cleaned dog feeding bowl, a few cat or dog toys a collar, a bandana, and a dog brush (I buy new ones to use for the basket and give them to the animals when we are done with the basket.) Including a stuffed cat or dog allows the basket to become a springboard for imaginative dramatic play for the three or four-year-old.  Children love nature baskets with seed pods, pinecones, sticks, rocks, shells, and anything else fun that is available depending on the season. Older children love nature baskets with magnifying glasses to explore the contents.  Just be sure to supervise children with small objects and objects that break into pieces. Use your imagination. Parents are a child’s first teacher. Every parent knows what their child likes.

 

Older children can explore more difficult concepts with the materials. Several milk crates and flat boards allow for making structures, bridges, and ramps. Add cars and balls to allow for a different direction of play. Drainage tubing pieces and gutters are also fun to experiment with balls, water, boats, and other small objects. The children learn about gravity, balance, and simple tools.  By experimentation, children learn more advanced concepts often ones they do not fully understand yet.  Sticks, ribbons, boxes, pool noodles, old tires, logs, and stumps or all great loose parts for play.

 

Both large and small objects can be used. By making an obstacle course out of found objects children learn about the bodies in space and develop their Proprioceptive system and the Vestibular system. They are known as the 6th and 7th senses. The proprioceptive system is the body's feedback system. It helps us move our arms and legs in a coordinating efficient manner so we can run and play without having to look around all the time. The vestibular system tells our brains about the body's balance, how it moves against gravity, speed of movement, size, and head position. These skills are learned by walking a balance beam, stepping from log to log, climbing a ladder or rope, climbing on a rock, or crawling under a table or chair.

 

This concept of heuristic play is far from a new idea. Children have played with loose parts and objects from around the house up until the 1940s and 1950s when it became a norm for children to have a lot of toys. In the US our children have more toys than in any other country. Do they need all the toys? It has been proven that children play better and longer when they have fewer toys.  With a little help from Mom or Dad, kids can learn and explore with everyday objects becoming creative, innovative, out-of-the-box thinkers who adapt and change with our changing world.