Its Fri-yay Y’all !
We are not perfect teachers but we certainly try to learn from our own mistakes . Yesterday we did not get in as much outside time. Today outside time was a priority. After breakfast I told the littles that we would be going back outside and one little girl said ” We have so much energy!” with the biggest smile and an excited voice. Yes, you do little one. Yes, you do. So out we go.
We took out the parachutes today. The kids love and it really gets them moving !
Loose parts. We have a lot of loose parts all over our playground. We have tubes, boards, wheels and rocks and so much more. Today I added steering wheels. I heard the steering wheels being used as pirate ship wheels, cars steering wheels and police car steering wheels. Loose parts is like an open ended question in motion. The children decide what purpose it will play.
Pine cones have started to fall from the tree next door . Our yard gets many ” gifts ” from this tree. The children have been passionate about finding pinecones . They got a bucket and started to fill it. The found large cones and small cones. They even found some cones they called ” baby cones ” because they were the tiniest. In a truly child centered curriculum the teachers watch what the children are interested in and follow their lead. Dallas and I talked about their interest and what we should do as responsible teachers that claim to be child centered. ( We are still new at this. ) This is what we came up with for today. Maybe we can add more next week !
Emergent curriculum is a way of planning curriculum that is based on the children’s interest and passion at a certain point in time. Children thrive and learn best when their interests are captured. Learning occurs naturally.
A provocation was set up outside on the picnic table. There was a group of pine cones, small sticks and some yellow leaves. Dallas took and poked some sticks into the pinecones and stuck a leaf on it and walked away. Some of the children went to the table and explored. Eventually it did take teacher interaction to get some real building and creating going but it worked !
Inside we added the pine cones to the middle of the table with some paper and some brown paint.
We write as often as we can with the littles to help them understand that print has meaning. Today we charted ” School ” and talked about the things we like and the things we don’t like so far. I think we are winning at this game.
It was a good day.