About the Course
Develop a loose parts mindset alongside Dr. Carla Gull using your own loose parts kits and collections and real objects from your environment. This edWebinar focuses on building awareness of kits or collections that you might have on hand, discovering new ways to use them, and defining kit types: homemade and commercially prepared.
When forming new collections, we’ll need to decide what to include and then select containers, labels, and storage. We explore funding options and opportunities to expand our professional networks creating swaps or kit experiences to share with other educators. We explore pro tips for organizing, maintaining, and storing loose parts kits for easy access and clean up along with strategies for optimizing children’s experimentation and exploration. You leave ready to maximize curiosity and creativity in your educational or play setting through loose parts collections and kits!
This recorded edWebinar is of interest to PreK-3 teachers and librarians.
Your Instructor
Dr. Carla Gull
Dr. Carla Gull is the coordinator of the Master of Arts in Environmental Education Program and Associate Professor at Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center of Goshen College in northern Indiana. She has over 20 years of experience in the education field at the preschool, elementary, and college levels. Dr. Gull enjoys helping educators incorporate more nature in the everyday early childhood setting and in nature preschools. She hosts a podcast, Loose Parts Nature Play; facilitates an international group, Loose Parts Play; and presents workshops, presentations, and academic research around loose parts, tree climbing, STEM, outdoor classrooms, and nature education. She is co-author of the book Loose Parts Learning in K-3 Classrooms and the upcoming book Living Loose Parts: Creatures of Curiosity. She is the state coordinator for Indiana Children and Nature Network. She enjoys going on adventures and traveling with her husband and four (mostly teen!) boys.