Have you been listening to your child’s vocalizations and cues in their pursuit of discovery this past week? We’ve been discussing how everything your child does holds meaning to them and asked you to notice and nurture the decisions they are making. We have really focussed on this during the week to give you some examples.
For those of you just joining our blog conversation, we have been exploring the concept/big idea of building and stacking. It has been going on for roughly a month now and we have made some crucial connections in learning since. This past week, we as educators really focused on the children’s natural cues and decisions. We continued to set up our building and stacking provocations at the beginning of the week, but as the week progressed we have moved on to many different experiences lead by the children. Mark making has been a large focus these last few days thanks to a few children sitting for long periods of time at the table with different mediums (paint, crayons, markers). We noticed that these children were staying focused for long periods of time when met with these mark making opportunities. We immediately encouraged this by adding new opportunities for mark making, like having a large piece of paper on the floor – accessible to everyone for two days in a row. So far, every child has engaged in this simple yet effective learning experience and have all shown long periods of focus and pincher grasp levels. We also noticed, one day when a child brought his stuffy from home in a small cloth bag – he continued to carry it around the room for the morning. As other children were arriving, they noticed the bag and immediately wanted their own. Within half an hour, we had many bags in the room and the children began to collect items to fill their bags. One child filled her bag with all of the animals and people, while another child filled theirs with babies. It was interesting to see what items they chose, as these items seemed important to their environment. All of these examples show that if yonotice the decisions that the children are making daily, it can help you understand them more deeply.
“When you notice, name and nurture each child’s disposition to learn, you cultivate a community that values each child’s identity as a mighty learner and citizen.”
Makovichuk, L. (Play, participation, and possibilities: An early learning and care curriculum framework for Alberta. Retrieved from page 64
To conclude this week, we wanted to say thank you so much for following along and being apart of our ever-changing Shale community.
Happy holidays from Shale Room,
Sarah, Young, Cassi, and Michelle
