Lets Dig Deeper As you have read in the past few blogs, we are on a journey discovering movement. We’ve touched on the importance of movement with materials and big body movement with songs. This week we’ve continued both of those focuses as well as introducing sensory movement into the room. Most of you have…
As we have been exploring movement by setting up safe environments that support gross motor development, we’ve noticed how much our Shale friends also enjoy learning and exploring their own body movement through song and dance. Big body movement has been a big interest for our friends these past weeks and by us adding a…
Last week we touched on our new big idea of movement within our classroom and outside. We have noticed how much our shale friends took a huge interest in climbing and taking greater risks in reaching new levels and heights, literally! We started out by exploring movement through sensory as our friends still absolutely enjoy…
“Children’s play sometimes erupts suddenly in loud, boisterous, physical bursts. This kind of play is exhilarating and infectious” (PPP, p.102, 2014). This quote is from the Alberta Framework Play, Participation and Possibilities Dizzy Play section but this is a direct representation of Shale room’s daily interactions. This week we have shifted into a new big…
The Importance of Bringing Nature into Play – Shale Blog – April 13th, 2017 “Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.” – Thomas Berry It’s likely noticeable that in our Shale environment, we try to bring as many natural aspects into…
Magical Moments in Childhood Shale Blog – March 31, 2017 Do you remember a time in your childhood when you took a simple space and made it into a magical place. A space that transported you into other worlds that you have created in your imagination. Maybe this space was the nook under the stairs,…
That time when things didn’t go as planned. As every parent understands with children their day sometimes doesn’t go according to plan and change is required to make it work. For families in childcare when an Educator says an event or experience didn’t go as planned or there were a few adjustments in the day,…
As we have been collecting materials and exploring different ways of collecting we’ve discovered how much our Shale friends also enjoy exploring sensory play. We have meshed collecting with sensory experiences, combining milk jugs cut in half with water beads, opening up our tuna cans in our dramatic area and making tuna sandwiches, or collecting…
Recycled Goods and Shale: Creating a new perspective of play Shale Blog – March 10, 2017 As we observe how our new dramatic play area is expanding into a full on grocery store, we are now realizing that yes we love the empty food packages but we really enjoy the shapes and sizes of recycled…
As we have been observing the children in Shale, we are now focusing on how we can expand our understanding of collecting through dramatic play. We noticed that the children were playing and interacting more and more in our dramatic play space. This encouraged us to ask ourselves “How can we continue our journey in…