Using the Early Years Planning Cycle to Connect Home and Centre Learning & Development
During my placement in a childcare centre’s
toddler room, I was able to see how important it is to be aware of, and include
aspects of children’s home experiences into the centre environment. Making
connections between children’s home life and the centre is vital. It plays a
key role in their learning and development, as well as our ability as educators
to understand and interpret what the children do and how they express themselves.
By doing this, we will be able to more effectively scaffold children’s
development and learning as we are able to extend what they are learning at
home. For example, while on placement one boy (Child J) was reading a colour
themed picture book with his mum before she left to drop him off. She said how
her son has been learning different colours at home and that he loved the
colour blue and could pronounce the word blue. Through this observation I was able to learn more about his home experiences with colours.
Therefore I could build on his knowledge and ability to recognise and say different
colours by planning experiences or activities to extend his learning further. One
way I planned to extend his learning was through a colour ball matching game that
I set up for him to play with and explore. The write up of this experience,
using the early years planning cycle is displayed below.
I went further to scaffold his learning
about colours, and his speech and motor skill development through planning
other activities related to colour. These included the colour ball sorting
activity and the coloured sensory oats experience. In the colour ball sorting activity,
Child J was able to match the different coloured balls with the right coloured
container. He also began to say colours other than blue. Child J could clearly
say the word orange and could almost say the word green.
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He went on to extend his own learning through
pointing to the coloured words displayed on a small divider in the room. For
example, he held up the red ball to the word red on the divider. Child J then
moved the red coloured container near the word red displayed on the divider. To
assist his learning further I moved the rest of the containers near the coloured
words.
Through observing Child J’s learning and
development during my time on placement, I was able to see the growth that can
occur in young children over a short period.
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VIT Standards
for Graduating Teachers:
This item links to standard 5; “Teachers create and maintain safe and challenging learning environments.” This is illustrated as I am striving to make links between children’s home life with their experiences at the centre. Therefore forming an environment which promotes safety while also extends on their home learning and development.
This item links to standard 5; “Teachers create and maintain safe and challenging learning environments.” This is illustrated as I am striving to make links between children’s home life with their experiences at the centre. Therefore forming an environment which promotes safety while also extends on their home learning and development.