Features

Essential Resources: Nursery World visits… Daycare St Martin’s, Solihull

Nicole Weinstein visits a Birmingham day nursery on the site of an independent school to see loose parts play in action
At St Martin’s, the focus is on natural, loose-parts resources, both indoors and outside PHOTO Daycare St Martin's
At St Martin’s, the focus is on natural, loose-parts resources, both indoors and outside PHOTO Daycare St Martin's

Stepping into the four-year-old room at Daycare St Martin’s in Solihull, you would be forgiven for thinking you had entered a workshop. Children are purposely going about their day, selecting natural loose parts and transporting them back to tuff spots or the carpet to start working on their creations. One boy is weaving pieces of ribbon through metal hooks that have been drilled into an offcut of wood. Next to him, his friend is making patterns with elastic bands, stretching them around screws that have been drilled into a piece of wood. Another group of children are threading shoelaces through wooden disks with holes drilled into them. ‘It’s a snake,’ one girl exclaims, holding up her creation and counting out 13 disks.

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