Loose Parts Fridays invites you to join us from your homes to follow your child’s lead and support them to try out their own ideas using loose parts and our thematic play prompts.
For the next four Loose Parts Fridays, we’ll be looking back at a series of workshops led by Naomi Garriock in 2019 with our partner schools to create Alien Instructions. First, imagine a group of friendly aliens have landed in Edinburgh and we’ll be making up songs, games, dances and more to help them learn about their strange new surroundings.
Week 1
Imagine that a group of friendly aliens have landed in Edinburgh and want to learn all about their strange new surroundings. They’re a little shy, and have asked us to leave some instructions for them. We’ll be making up different games, songs, dances, drawings and more to help them understand the world.
For this week’s activity you’ll need some paper or card, and coloured pens or pencils. Cut out 15 playing-card sized pieces, and divide them into 3 piles of 5.
On the first set of 5 cards, write each of the 5 senses, 1 per card
On the second set of 5 cards, write a different type of activity on each (some ideas to get you started: dance, song, game, story...)
On the third set of 5 cards, write a different visual element on each. Visual elements make up everything we see around us, and are useful tools for artists and designers (for example, colour, texture, line, pattern, shape)
Make sure to only write and decorate on one side of the cards! The other side should be blank.
We'd love to see your deck of cards on the hashtag #collectiveplay! Keep them safe, and come back next week to find out how we’ll be using them to help the aliens learn about planet Earth!
Week 2
For this week’s Loose Parts Friday fun, you’ll need the set of cards we made together to create ALIEN INSTRUCTIONS.
Separate the cards into the three decks you made: senses, activities and visual elements. Shuffle each deck face down, then pick 1 card from each pile without peeking!
Lay the cards out in order to fill in the gaps in this sentence:
Make up a [ACTIVITY] to teach the aliens about [VISUAL ELEMENT] using the sense of [SENSE].
For example, your cards might read something like:
“Make up a dance to teach the aliens about pattern using the sense of hearing.”
“Make up a game to teach the aliens about texture using the sense of touch”
We can’t wait to see what creative ideas you can come up with to help teach the aliens! Share your songs, drawings, dances and games with us using the hashtag #collectiveplay, and join us again next week for another ALIEN INSTRUCTIONS activity!
Week 3
It’s time for another Alien Instructions Loose Parts Fridays play prompt. You’ll be using your deck of cards again today!
Keeping your three decks (activity cards, senses cards and visual elements cards) separate, shuffle each deck face down and pick 1 card from each pile.
Lay the cards out in order to fill in the gaps in this sentence, just like we did last week: “Make up a [ACTIVITY] to teach the aliens about [VISUAL ELEMENT] using the sense of [SENSE].” Follow the instructions to make up a song, dance, game or drawing.
This time, once you’re finished, try writing out a set of instructions for how to play the game, perform the dance or sing the song that you’ve created. Make them as clear as possible: remember, the aliens might not be familiar with everything – you'll need to describe in lots of detail. Share these instructions with a friend or family member and see if they can recreate your activity successfully.
Did they manage to recreate it? Or was their activity completely different?
Shuffle the cards and try it again! Join us next week for another Loose Parts Friday activity.
Week 4
It’s the final week of our ALIEN INSTRUCTIONS play prompts for Loose Parts Fridays, but if you’ve missed the past few weeks, catch up by visiting our website!
This week is all about performance! You’ll be creating an alien costume to wear while trying out the songs, dances and activities you made up using your Alien Instructions cards.
Try to find as many recycled materials as you can from around your house: things like cardboard boxes, tin foil, toilet roll tubes, bottle tops and newspaper are ideal! Use them to make an alien costume for yourself, and think about how your imaginary alien might be different from us humans. Do they touch things using their tentacles instead of hands? Maybe they move and communicate differently to us? Be as creative as you can! Have another go at the instructions you wrote last week, this time while dressed as an alien!
We’d love to see your alien costumes – you can share your photos using the hashtag #collectiveplay and join us next week for another Loose Parts Friday activity!