<![CDATA[This study examines how teacher scaffolding works during nature-based loose-parts play and how the interaction between pedagogical support and open-ended materials is associated with young children’s imaginative activity, autonomy, and confidence. A qualitative case study was conducted at a public kindergarten in Tegal, Central Java, Indonesia, involving six teachers, one principal, and 89 children aged 4–6 years. Data were generated through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, documentation, and brief supplementary conversations with children, and were analyzed through iterative reduction, coding, categorization, and thematic interpretation with source and technique triangulation. The coded corpus identified questioning, encouragement, prompting, feedback, fading, and modeling as recurrent scaffolding practices, while children’s imaginative activity was expressed through new ideas, symbolic uses of objects, combinations of natural materials, exploration, story development, and problem solving. The findings indicate that low-intrusion, contingent support, particularly open-ended questioning followed by gradual fading, helped preserve children’s agency while extending imaginative participation. Opportunities to exercise choice, persistence, decision-making, responsibility, and collaborative participation further demonstrate how value-relevant dispositions can be enacted within everyday play-based learning. The study contributes a context-sensitive account of how scaffolding and material affordances jointly support imaginative participation, the gradual transfer of agency, and associated learning dispositions in early childhood education.]]>
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