Group Observations and Learning Stories

Hola!

I have shared how I write my individual observations for portfolios and planning on here before but am yet to share group learning stories. I only started writing them this year but they are an incredible tool!

Most kindergarten classrooms ave a space where we educators post what we are doing in the classrooms and pieces of children's work to share with parents and caregiver. this was no different in my placement centre...

Featured on this board are two group learning stories printed on A3 paper and photos taken from the group experiences. Writing a group learning story, I feel, is quite different from writing them for an individual child.

Rather than focusing on the specific, I tend to focus on what all the children are doing, what they are learning, what they all have in common. I also try to include some individual responses, sometime included in the story or by writing/typing them out and sticking them up near posted story. This one was an example from the creek experience I set up earlier in the year...

As always, include lots and lots of photos! I cut mine off the bottom, but taking and selecting group phots is one of the most fun parts of writing these! These group experiences are wonderful to have but even better to document and share with families. Slightly adjusting how we write these isn't too difficult but the end result is completely worth the extra time and effort.

Some key things to remember:

• keep it general, try not to write about specific children or their responses
• chose to an experience where about 80% of your students were involved in, not just one or two
• linking to the curriculum framework is important so think of the learning that happens, what thinking did this inspire, what relationships are being built?
• link the chosen experience to how you will plan in the future - this is one of the most important aspects!
• display these printed stories in a well trafficked area and make the presentation appealing to look at - the point of these are to share what happening on the inside with the outside.

Would love to hear from other educators who do these... or are planning to!

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Planned Experiences Part 7

Hello!

The letter theme is a big help when it comes to structured planning at this centre and during my full control time, the letter of the week was P. Sensory play has so many benefits and purposes  and the children absolutely love it! With this is mind I went with making play dough with them, with some added extras…

I made the play dough with the children during their quiet time, with each having a turn at pouring and mixing the ingredients. I had arranged the invitation to play in the morning, selecting the following items; pom poms, patty pans, pipe cleaners and paddle pops and decided to dye the dough pink. Are you seeing a reoccurring theme yet?

I never made this theme obvious to the children, I never mentioned why it was pink, the link between the additional items, not once. But they were quick to observe. One child mentioned that we should make it purple because purple starts with P. Another suggested earlier in the week that play dough was a p word so we should play with it soon.

The children had a great time making and exploring with the dough with this being the result…

The end result = a fun play dough experience with strong links to the children's interests and learning goals!

Miss Tracy xx

The Staff Room

Hi again!

Now, as important as it is for providing for the children in early childhood is providing for the staff. When you have staff who truly work together as a team, support each other within and outside the centre, collaborate ideas and question methods, the quality of the program you are working to provide skyrockets! These sorts of staff relationships and behaviour have to be built and nurtured somewhere, and for most centres this place is the staff room.

At my first placement centre, the staff room was positively tiny however the space in there was set up in a way which allowed traffic to flow through and yet still allowed staff to have a place to come to where they could sit down, unwind and converse. 

In contrast, when I first arrived at my current centre, I noticed they had a significantly large staff room but it was crowded with ill placed furniture. When another director came in, she too noticed this problem and set out to fix it. The current set up has distinct spaces; a table for eating and talking, a small desk to read important updates, read the roster and update the timesheets, two couches for occasional napping and a large table specifically for heating and cooking appliances.

Another update was the staff discussion board. While they are common, they are often not used to their fullest potential, which was the case here until the educational leader rubbed it out completely and redrew. This was the final result…

Staff began writing positive messages on the board; the updates were regular and well communicated and included ways that the staff could improve their practice. The educational leadership update was posted every Wednesday as a result of visiting each room weekly and really looking at what they were doing well and what needed improvements. Sharing concrete and local examples of good practice was so much more meaningful then grabbing examples from online or other centres. If you can walk next door and see what a lovely portfolio looks like rather than having to go research, so much easier! The staff also had a more informal way of communication…

This little exercise book had little notes about how a child was sleeping that day, happy birthday notes and messages letting staff know who appreciated and special they were to the children and to the staff. Staff were very eager to check this book in the mornings and after breaks and loved the opportunity to write and read something in.

These were two changes that came from looking at how the staff room was organised and what the staff at the centre needed to take away from it were extremely effective. Take a look at your staff centres; what do you need, what do you have and how can things be changed?

Keep me updated!

Miss Tracy xx

Literary Discussions

Me again!

After the children on placement came inside from outside play, we would often sit on the mat and read a story to slow down before having afternoon tea. On day, we decided to A House For Wombats by Jane Burrell and Michael Dugan. I went through a book orientation as we discussed in EDLA this semester, going over the title, the front image and the author's name when I turned the book and... 

THERE WAS NO BLURB!

...and the children in the room immediately noticed. We read through the book, which wasn't too bad, and talked about what happened in the story and what it meant when one child put their hand up and asked if we could write a blurb for the book. So I said yes!

We talked about what was important in the book and came up a list in which the children basically told me absolutely everything which happened in the story. After talking about how the blurb only tells the reader some of story, we whittled down the list after carefully considering each point and how important it was to the story and came up with the following list:

    

" she makes a house

the house changes

the house has stairs

the houses are different 

the wombats fix the house

the wombats sleep

they sit on the couch 

they had a cup of tea "

We were all happy with the final list and decided to print it out and sticky tape the list onto the back of the book so that future readers could read a blurb when they chose to read this book.

Miss Tracy xx

Graphing in Early Childhood

Hi all,

Inspired by this pin, I planned this activity during my full control period. Preparation included cutting out the pieces of paper and writing the children's names, adding a heading to the page and gathering your glue, scissors and permanent marker.

I sat the children down and began by talking about our other graphs and what we measured on them and what we were going to measure on the new graph. I placed the names on the ground and asked the children to come out one by one and see which one belonged to them.

They then stood out the front and counted the letters in their own name. I then cut out the individual letters and the children all called out what letter I should glue up.

After gluing the letters on, there was some discussion about who had the most letters and who had the least. We also compared whose names had the same amount and the same letters.  

At the end, we counted up the letters in everyone's names and I wrote it in marker down the right hand side. After drawing in the grid lines, labeling the axis and underlining the heading, the final product was ready to be tacked onto the door with our other graphs...      

This activity incorporated so many concepts including:

• graphing
• spelling
• counting 
• information representation 
• word recognition 
• number recognition 
• comparison and contrast

Definitely one to try out again, perhaps with a little tweaking for the primary placement... 

Miss Tracy xx