Children’s Learning Journey

Week commencing 23th January 2012

Children’s learning journey based on children’s interests, needs and professional observations made in the setting.

To make the most of the room we have, we have set up the following activities in Tosca: - playdough, this is set up on the round table as we feel this is a really sociable activity that lots of children enjoy, 3 table top activities such as abacus, a mark making activity and a math’s activity, the large train track and the small world village, as well as the wooden car. These are as well as the activities we always have set up in the main setting. Staff work in pairs in each room and when we open the outdoor area, we close TOSCA. If we are quieter in the afternoon we use the pre-school room and the outdoor area. If you have any questions, please ask staff. We will change the activities on a weekly basis according to our theme as we do the pre-school room.

If children show new learning, we will record this learning in their profile. We will be putting a sheet of stickers into your plastic envelopes and sending them home for you to record what your child does. Please return them if they do anything you feel you want to put into profiles and put it into their drawers. Staff will sort them out at the end of each week. A photograph of your child mark making at home will also be useful for profiles.

None of the plans are time restricted and much of the activity will be dictated by the child’s individual interest and involvement.

Writing the letter of the week – please encourage your child to take part in this activity as you enter the room. It is their first taste of mark making and is fun if you join in with them. There is no right or wrong way to begin with, just encourage your child to hold the writing implement. If your child is starting to try, encourage all the way. If your child is confident and is starting to form recognizable letters, show them where to start the letter – usually at the top – and form the letter correctly. This saves time later as your child may begin to form letters one way and may have to relearn. This activity encourages hand/eye coordination, sound and letter recognition, develops fine/small motor skills, increases and extends vocabulary, develops refined hand movements, demonstrates 1:1 correspondence, to select writing implements that suit their needs, to enjoy using language, to explore initial sounds in words, to initiate and create letter sounds. Our sound this week is Pp the action for this is to put your hand in front of your mouth and make the pppp sound into it so that you feel the puff of air on your palm.

Baking activity: This week the children have made their very own small sandwiches during snack time. The children have baked their own brown bread this week and choose from various healthy fillings to make their sandwich. This lead on from last weeks ‘teddy bears picnic’.

Skills and Attitudes: The children have been given the opportunity to be very hands on during snack time this week, preparing their food, and then eating it! The children have sat together during this activity and have had to take turns, and share with their peers. The children have also had to distinguish their likes and dislikes by trying familiar and new tastes. The children have explored their sense of smell, touch and taste. They have also had to follow simple instructions and use hand eye coordination to complete this activity. The children seemed to enjoy their independence this week and took pride in what they had achieved.
Evaluation: The children’s confidence has really shone through this week when using new tools and trying new methods during baking. The children seemed to enjoy completing this activity at snack time in large groups all together! It worked well the children making their own sandwiches as they had chance to choose familiar fillings or explore new fillings. We also had chance to discuss fruit and vegetables and how to live a healthy lifestyle. As a practitioner, I believe it is important for the children to understand how food is made, what ingredients are used, what food is healthy and what foods should be a treat; and how a healthy diet and lifestyle affects our bodies. I also believe letting children explore with food and teaching them how to prepare it safely, gives them a better understanding of how to handle food as they grow older.
Adult Response: A practitioner sat on each table with the children during snack time to give the children a little help if needed. We discussed the fillings that were available for their sandwiches and spoke about healthy lifestyles. We also spoke about how healthy food can affect our body and minds positively.
What next: From the 23rd of January we shall be celebrating ‘Chinese New Year’ through cooking in this area of learning. We shall be preparing and cooking Spring Rolls. This shall involve stirring, mixing, poking, pouring and rolling. Many of the children may not have experienced oriental food, so this may be a new experience for some!

Home Corner: Activity: The children could initiate their own play in the home corner this week. The children had the opportunity to make up their own scenarios in role play in this area with use of props, costumes and equipment based on first hand experiences or made up ones. Some children based their play on a storyline and engaged with other children interested in the same theme.

Skills and Attitudes: playing together with a theme involving role play and pretend play, forming relationships or developing existing ones, using their imaginations and getting along.
Evaluation: the children use the space in this area really well, using all the props, costumes and equipment accordingly. The children do not need any adult intervention whilst playing in this area, the children can be left to initiate their own activity or game.
Adult Response: The children were happy to play independently or in small groups in this area, leaving the play child initiated.
What next: next week the home corner shall be based around ‘Chinese new year’, with Chinese recipe books and menus in the kitchen area with chop sticks for the children to look at and experiment with. We shall also leave Chinese news papers around the home corner for the children to look at.

Math’s area: Activity: comparisons- This week the children looked at size and shape through fruit in the math’s area. The children felt the texture of the fruits and compared them to each other. The children also compared colour, size and height.

Skills and Attitudes: the children were encouraged to describe how the fruit felt and how it looked, using mathematical language in play. The children could then relate the texture, size, colour, and shape to other objects around the setting.
Evaluation: This activity worked well for promoting senses as the children could smell the fruit, feel it and see it. The children had to use their listening skills to respond to the practitioner. And the children have been tasting fruit at snack times, so this has tied in well. This activity has also promoted mathematical understanding of shape and space.
Adult Response: asked the children mathematical questions such as: which fruit is taller? To help the children gain an understanding of size and shape. I have responded to children’s questions and queries. We also spoke of the importance of eating fruit and vegetables to keep us fit and healthy.
What next: next week the mathematical activity shall be based around ‘Chinese New Year’. We shall be reading a book which is based on animals relating to ‘Chinese New Year’. We shall discuss what happened in the book, and which animals came 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th.

Construction area: Activity: Investigation Table

Skills and Attitudes: exploration and investigation were the key learning factors for children using this area. Learning how to use tools and equipment properly as they looked through magnifiers. We have also added various natural objects such as pinecones and feathers for the children to touch and look at.
Evaluation: although children did not always use this table as it was meant to be used, they still had fun playing with the bugs and reptiles on the table. It needs more adult support and intervention but is a good table to have in the setting.
Adult Response: encourage children to use the table properly and return items to the table when they have been taken away. Encourage interest and enthusiasm as children played with the items on the table. Model how to use magnifiers
What next: next week we shall change the contents of this table. We shall put large blocks and bricks in this area. This activity gives the children the opportunity the children to explore balance, shape and sizes. This activity may also promote the children’s knowledge of 3D objects.

Wooden car: Activity: children used this resource as they liked.

Skills and Attitudes: children are really good at sharing this piece of equipment, they have been expressing ideas and feelings, they have been sequencing stories and make believe, they have been experimenting with role play, they have been caring towards each other and patient if the car was full.
Evaluation: this week the children have made up stories based around the wooden car. This week it has also been an airplane, a bus, and a train. The children have been discussing where they have travelled to and where they shall go next. The children also used other prompts from the home corner such as bags, shopping baskets and costumes, to further their role play.
Adult Response: Praise and acknowledge good manners and a caring attitude if the car is busy, encourage role play and imaginative play.
What next: continue to encourage the children to initiate their own stories and role play based on the wooden car.

The Large dolls house: This piece of equipment helps children prepare for mark making by enabling children to hold, grip and carry. It gives their little hands the chance to feel and apply pressure as they play with the small dolls in the house, practice palmer and pincer grips and become more direct with their aim as they have less room to maneuver the dolls in the small area in which they are playing.

Small world activities – Activity: The small world village and a trip out around Thorner

Skills and Attitudes: Children have room to play alone or with others promoting independence or sharing skills. Children practice role play and imaginary play involving narratives or sounds in their play. The trip around the village encourages children to talk about what they see and were they have been.
Evaluation: The children were excited to go on a trip around the village. They talked about what they could see and the colours around.. The visual input helped them to remember things they had done and places they enjoyed visiting with their families.

Adult Response: Ask open ended questions and encourage the children to talk about what they have seen.
What next: Due to Chinese new year we will have out the Castle and dragons, this will continue to encourage the children to develop their imaginary play and play with or alongside other children

Mark making table: Activity: the mark making table has been left for the children to create their own marks, pictures and letters this week. The children have been using a range of tools including, pens, crayons, pencils, glue sticks, scissors and envelopes in this area. We have been for a walk around Thorner village and posted some of our letters, then made some of our own when we got back to Pre-School.

Skills and Attitudes: during this activity the children have been encouraged to make marks for a reason and describe what their marks mean. The children may have done this individually or with peers. This area was not lead by a practitioner this week so the children could come and go as they pleased. Throughout the week, some objects such as a piece of fruit has been left on the table for the children to copy, if they wish as observational drawing, as some children may find it difficult to try and draw something that they cannot see.
Evaluation: this is always a popular area in preschool and the children love to sit and draw pictures for loved ones. This is a good way of getting to know a child on a more personal level, and finding out about their family, what they enjoy doing and talking about the past, present and future.
Adult Response: asked the children what their marks meant, encouraged the children to write their names on their picture when they have finished.
What next: the children shall have the opportunity to try and copy some Chinese markings. They shall use wipe able boards and pens to complete this activity.

Easel: similar to above although children have access to wipe able pens and chalk. This gives children a different writing or mark making experience. They can experiment with how to use the equipment available to them and begin to understand you don’t need paper to draw on. They have to learn to respect each others space here and take turns, respect each others work as pictures or writing is easily removed. During this week children will be writing Spanish words for counting.

The Interactive White Board: Activity: painting

Skills and Attitudes: the children used thick and thin brushes to create marks and shapes on the IWB. This involves lots of hand eye coordination, but is a very simple and fun activity.
Evaluation: this activity is popular with almost all children and nearly everyone decided to try it.
Adult Response: encourage the children to use different tools such as ‘the magic pen’ on the IWB.
What next: Celebrate ‘Chinese New Year’ with cbeebies. This programme has tons of games, online activities, clips, and songs all to do with Chinese New Year! The children will have the opportunity to control the smart board, with help from a practitioner to ensure their safety.

The Book Corner: Activity: All books available.

Skills and Attitudes: this week the children have had the opportunity to read through books and look at the pictures independently or with peers. Children often use books as part of their play and take ideas away from a story and base their own play on the plot of the story they have looked at. This area is a quiet area, so it is a good opportunity for children to really engage in a book.
Evaluation: the children love taking the books into the tent area and looking at pictures with peers. There are also books around every area of the room which children may find useful, as they relate to an area of learning or a theme. We sometimes listen to a story on the IWB or a practitioner will select a story of the week which will be read at the end of every session before home time.
Adult Response: encourage the children to recite the story to ensure they have understood the pictures, words or some of the context within the book.
What next: we will base our story books around different cultures and celebrations next week as we will be celebrating ‘Chinese New Year’.

Malleable area: Activity: Play Dough

Skills and Attitudes: children enjoy interacting and socializing on this table. it builds good friendships as children discuss what they are doing.
Evaluation: The table was well used and children enjoyed using all the tools available to them. Children are able to choose additional tools for themselves but were happy to use what was there this week.
Adult Response: encourage correct use of tools and safe transportation. Encouraged children to tidy the area up when they had finished using it explaining why we do.
What next: The children shall be able to explore the play dough with chop sticks, poking and prodding.

Junk Modeling: -Recycling area: Activity: Sticking & Junk modelling

Skills and Attitudes: children choose materials and textures for a purpose this week as they designed their own junk modeling model. The children had a choice of various materials, colours, textures, tools and equipment to choose from in order to produce their models. This area allows children to explore and experiment with all of these things in their own time and creating their own ideas. This activity can be done independently with no adult intervention necessary. The children are observed when using scissors to ensure their safety.
Evaluation: this activity produces a lovely outcome. The children are able to recognize their independent choices and admire their final product. A lot of children give meanings to the models they have created, for instance: a transformer, a ben10 alien, a princess’s house. On the other hand, some children just love to get sticky and explore the resources available!
Adult Response: Encouraged resourceful thinking and practical ideas, assisted if what they wanted to use wouldn’t stick or stay in place suggesting other methods of sticking.
What next: to celebrate ‘Chinese new year’ the children will assist our French volunteer Mathilde, in making a collage of the Chinese Dragon! This activity will involve using lots of different materials, colours, shapes, sizes and tools, such as glue sticks and scissors.

Paint area: Activity: motion painting

Skills and Attitudes: children used a tub to direct various objects around the paper this week. This gave various textures to the paint and created different marks and shapes. The children explored colours through mixing. This was a very messy and hands on approach to painting this week, which most children seemed to thoroughly enjoy! Come children prefer using paintbrushes, or completed the activity with a little help from a practitioner.
Evaluation: this activity was enjoyed so much by the children; we considered doing it again this week. So we are! However, this time, we shall be using different objects to assist us in painting and making marks.
Adult Response: spoke about different patterns, marks and shapes the different objects had created on the paper using the paint. Also spoke about colour mixing, and comparing the colour to before it was mixed, and after.
What next: to coincide with ‘Chinese New Year’ we shall use dragons and dinosaurs to assist us with painting this week. Looking at their footprints and marks they can create when used in various ways.

Science area: Activity: linking stars

Skills and Attitudes: children enjoy making and building together watching each other to see what they are making or copying how to join the stars. in young children, linking stars helps with simple things such as colour recognition, colour matching, sequencing colours, with older children it improves connecting and joining skills, working as an individual and imaginative play as they make rockets.
Evaluation: children's imaginations were stretched this week with the linking stars as a child built a big building and used dinosaurs to knock it down! children that enjoy connecting use linking stars a lot as they are easy to use and make good models.
Adult Response: Observe, ask children what they are making, if they could improve what they have done or if they want to modify it.
What next: last week a lot of the children had been playing with the magnets, so we’ll involve these in scientific play this week, experimenting with force.

Outdoor area: Activity: finding snowmen in the woods

Skills and Attitudes: the children enjoyed looking for the snowmen in the woods some of the younger children were not sure what to do the older and more confident raced to be first to find them and bring them back to me.
Evaluation: the children where eager to find the snowmen they asked to play again and again and showed great delight in finding the snowmen some of the children who had already found one gave the next one they found to another child
Adult Response: I help the children who were not sure by taking the children round and asking them to look under things round things and up high giving them hints when we were close to one and offered praise to all the children for finding or trying to find them.
What next: explore the garden look at different plants and other things in the garden look at different colours shapes smell do rubbings of different surfaces

What else has been going on at pre-school this week?

Children loved going on a Textures Treasure hunt. We looked at many different surfaces, made lots of rubbings, took photographs and stuck them onto our rubbings.

We found the ice in the stream was frozen at the beginning of the week so enjoyed breaking it with different things such as sticks and stones.

Staff will: work with children to develop an idea or skill. Show genuine interest, offer encouragement, clarify ideas and ask open questions which support and extends children’s thinking and helps make connections in learning.

Parents and careers can: talk about the senses, help children become aware of the senses they are using.

The Team

About Belinda: Belinda is Pre-School Manager and is responsible mainly for the planning for pre-school, managing staff, ensuring children’s safety – she is the Pre-school Safeguarding Officer – and ensuring the smooth running of the pre-school.

Belinda achieved CACHE Level 3 Diploma in Pre-school Practice in October 2002 and is now working towards her Level 4 Children’s Care Learning and Development which will give her points towards her Degree , she also has training in Pediatric First Aid, Foundation Certificate in Food Hygiene, Developing the Foundation Stage Curriculum, Module 9, Communication, Language and Literacy, Developing the Foundation Stage Curriculum, Module 8, Mathematical Development, Developing the Foundation Stage curriculum, Module 11, Creative Development, Working at Quality in Early Childhood Education – The Well-being and the Involvement of children as keys, Early Identification and Identification, Developing Quality Outcomes for Children, Assessment of Knowledge and Understanding, It’s Different for Boys!, Inclusion – Special Educational Needs in the Foundation Stage, EYFS Training, EYFS Conference for Outdoor Play. Health and Safety Level 2, Selection and Recruitment, Safeguarding Children, PSED: Raising Awareness of the new SEAD Materials, Level 2 Award in Food Safety in Catering, The Language of Learning, Linking Letters and Sounds, Who is my Key Person? Risk Assessment, Supervision and Appraisal, Stepping into Management Level 3, PSED, Wedge meetings and Nursery Network Childcare Providers Forum’s.

About Nici: Nici passed Level 3 Diplomas in Pre-school Practice over a year ago and has been pre-school Safeguarding officer for the last 12 months. She is trained to deliver Safeguarding training to other staff and settings. Nici is a qualified First Aider, as well as Food Safety, Health and Safety, Safeguarding, EYFS training and Senco, Stepping Into Management – Level 3, Listening to Children, Speech Sounds workshop. Nici now works as pre-school administrator and an assistant in the setting.

About Sarah: has currently finished her Level 3 Diploma in Pre-school Practice and is awaiting her certificate. She is Senco for pre-school ensuring inclusion for all children and their families. She is First Aid trained, has Food Safety and Health and Safety training.

About Jane: Jane has passed her Level 3 Childcare and Development. She also has Safeguarding training, Food Safety, Linking Sounds and Letters, Who is my Key Person? And a qualified First Aider.

About Izzy: Izzy is our first pre-school apprentice. She has gained her Level 2 Childcare and Development qualification and her level 3 in Childcare and Development. She is now studying towards gaining her lever 3 Management qualification. She is a qualified First Aider, she also has training in Who Is my Key Person?, Health and Safety, Food Safety, Symptoms of Autism, Outdoor Play, Linking Sounds and Letters.

About Tracy: Tracy had achieved her Level 3 in Childcare and Development, she also has Food Safety, Health and Safety and is a qualified Pediatric First Aider.