Placement - Planned Experiences Part 2

Garden Sensory Box

Every week in our kinder room, we have a letter focus and last week's was the letter 'G'. We listed all the words we knew which started G and my AT set up a grass growing station where the children could see mustard and fennel seeds grow. We have also been changing the vegetable patch outside and planting some flowers in the barrels.

To support these changes, I thought a garden sensory bin would complement what the learning environment and the current interests of the room. After discussing this, I began working on putting the environment together. 

I got the inspiration for this environment from this post and began collecting the materials: 

• Two 6 egg cartons 
• Green pipe cleaners
• Paints
• Envelopes
• Coloured paper
• Popsicle sticks
• Got glue gun and sticks
• Pebbles 
• Laminator and sheets 

First step was cutting up the carton, by the end of it you should have 12 little 'cups' and make sure you save the lid for a seedling box. I cut up 2 pipe cleaners to make 12 little pieces, folded in half to make the 'V'.  You can paint the cups whatever colours you like, I chose these because they matched the colours of the vegetables I picked. 

Once the paint has dried, cut a little slit into the tops of the cups so you can poke the pipe cleaners through. To make them look a little cuter, I curled the tops on a pencil. And there you have it, little vegetable seedlings!

Next up is the planters. Introducing the first LMST freebie, which can be downloaded below, just print out the page, laminate it if not printing on card stock, and glue them to the popsicle sticks.


To make the seed packets, you can download the labels below and print onto coloured paper. Then glue to the envelopes. I filled mine with pebbles and glued it shut but depending on the age group of the children in your care, you can use bigger/smaller articles and chose whether to glue it shut or not.

Add a couple of child sized gloves, a watering can, some small gardening tools and there you have it - garden sensory box! Don't forget to grab some small pebbles or coloured sand for your 'dirt'.

The final product looked great in the room and the children loved it! It was super easy to put together and was an opportunity to recycle some of our household waste. It was a perfect opportunity to link to my AT's learning focus and I am so happy with how it all turned out.

As for the children; loved it! Bringing the dirt and nature into the classroom really opened up the chance for them to get excited  about planting our veggie garden and adding some greenery to our playground. The biggest hit has been the gloves but since there is two chairs at the table and to gloves, some opportunities here to practice their sharing skills. The amount of collaborative work that happens at this station is phenomenal!

As promised, you can download the templates below, the very first LMST free download with only more to come!

DOWNLOAD SEED LABELS HERE

DOWNLOAD PLANTER LABELS HERE

Miss Tracy xx

Professional Learning in South East Melbourne

Hi all,

As most of you know, last year I attended a professional learning workshop set up by my local council, Glen Eira. Following that event, I have kept my eye open on what events have been coming up and was surprised to see the following list for 2014:

This year includes a lot of interesting and relevant workshops for parents and guardians and I have already attended the Austism Spectrum Disorder seminar held in last week. These are primarily marketed to parents but do have value for those working in the early childhood sector.

These workshops have proven extremely informative for me as a student and are an invaluable. The way that content is delivered is so direct and straightforward that it leaves no room for misinterpretation or confusion. If you do have questions, the presenters has shown themselves as willing and approachable, including staying back far beyond the finishing time to take individual questions and concerns.

From those I have experienced, the presenters are qualified and knowledgeable in their fields and in this environment, bring a lot more context and quality to their words than if I had heard it in a lecture hall. If you do have the luck to be in a seminar with other professionals, the dynamic of the presentation completely changes. The questions asked are more insightful and relevant to the early childhood workplace and are often focused towards the application of theory rather than its origin.

As a student I cannot recommend these sessions enough and for $6-7 a session, it is much more affordable than attending say a conference or an exhibition. Since they don't usually last more than 2 hours and are later at night, they are also easy to schedule around work and study commitments.

When I do fill in the feedback forms, the only suggestions I have had is that Power Points and notes be provided in a take home pack and that there be a period where parents and/or educators get a chance to speak with other and network before and/or after the workshop.  

Glen Eira Town Hall - where majority of the sessions take place 

While those listed and discussed are only those featured in the Glen Eira and Stonnington Council areas, I am sure if you look a little a little deeper into your council website, you will be able to find something similiar.

Miss Tracy xx

In Review - The Teacher's IpadoPedia

Hey readers,

Recently I decided to peruse the (free) shelves on the iTunes bookstore and was astounded by the number of free books available in the education section. I came across textbooks, guides and many other wonderful things and promptly downloaded all that I could see. The first book I decided to read was 'The Teacher's IpadoPedia, An A-Z of using iPads in the classroom' by Philip Johnston.

The Teacher's IpadoPedia

An A-Z of Using iPads in the Classroom

Philip Johnston

After my first placement and some of the material we have been covering in class, I have come to realise what an impact technology can have in the classroom, both good and bad, and how this comes into play when I eventually am in the classroom. For these reasons, I decided to go with this book first and was pleasantly surprised with what I had found.

This book blew my mind! Not only was it incredibly well written and set out, Johnston commented on a large range of topics including:

• attendance 
• managing homework
• archiving
• coaching
• photocopying
• quizzing
• creative writing
• taking notes

The book is divided into categories, with app listed which can either perform a task or help aid the process of the mentioned categories. Not only is there a wide range of apps, free and paid, to cover the categories but the book is cross references when apps have multiple functions. 

The actual layout of the book is clean with small chunks of information and plenty of pictures to accompany. The great thing about this being an eBook is that often the text is interactive! Beside the text, you will often find videos which demonstrate an app and how it works and text is often hyper-linked to show you exactly what app you should download and where to find them.

I have already downloaded some of the apps and can see their potential for use of them in the classroom. Other I have been able to integrate into my university life! Overall I enjoyed reading this book, it was not text heavy, it flowed well, you could jump chapters without feeling lost and the interactive nature made finding what Johnston what talking about incredibly easy.   

Philip Johnston has also step up a great website for the book which includes sample pages, links to download the book as well as a contact page if you would like to speak with the author. The website can be found here.

As Johnston said in the foreword, reading this book does not mean you have to apply everything that you read about but rather take what you like and make it work for your classroom. There are some great apps listed and the great thing is the discovery, while Johnston may list the app for one use, you could find a totally new use, either for the classroom or for your personal life!

For those of you who are still unsure, you have nothing to lose as this book is 100% free to download from the iBookstore!

Stay tuned as I discover more education eBooks from the iTunes bookstore!

Miss Tracy xx 

Assignment File - Sketchbook and eResource Part 2

Hello there,

As promised, here you will find part 2; the eResource. This part of the assignment asked us to create a live webpage using Web 2.0 technology, focused on a single topic relating to the visual arts. This resource would not only be for assessment but for our fellow pre-service teachers as well as teachers out there already teaching with access to the internet.

I chose the theme 'A Bug's Life' after covering a number of artists who focused on natures and the creatures in it. Since I was already extremely familiar with Blogger, I chose this as my method of presentation.

And so my discovery unit was born! Click the title to take a peek...

A BUG'S LIFE

This unit looks at the topic of bugs and insects as a stepping stone for visual art exploration and how to weave this knowledge into other aspects of curriculum and the learning environment.

One aspect of this assignment that I had a hard time working out was the lesson plans I was expected to create.  While I have done 3 curriculum based units, we have not touched on writing lesson plans yet, primarily since we are still studying early childhood. So I took to the internet and put together a template myself, which you can view  as PDFs in the appropriate sections. 

I also had many internal (and one external) debates on how these activities I had designed should be assessed or documented. In the end, I devised a simple rubric with smiley faces, which can be completed by the teacher, student or together as a reflection exercise.

I was very happy with the outcome of both pieces of work and with my hard work and perseverance, I earned myself a credit (C)!

Miss Tracy xx

Assignment File - Sketchbook & eResource Part 1

Hi all,

Here comes another post on one of my countless assignments, this one for a creative arts subject, EDAR-368.

Rather than one set task, the assignment asked us to document our leaning and changed perspective over the semester in relation to this one subject. Using an A4 sketchbook, each class we would sketch what we 'thought' and then what we 'saw' and complete a pre-planned lesson according to a given preparation sheet.

Another component of this ongoing task was looking at a specific artist. Each week, we would have a new focus, which guided our reading, research and tutorials. Depending on the style and technique of the artist, we would take part in activities, such as sketching live scorpions, sketching ourselves using a single line, drawing our tutor with our eyes closed and tearing paper into a thousand pieces.

By the end of the six week block, I had pages and pages of hard work, which I have decided to share with you!

HOWEVER...this was only part 1 of my assignment for this unit! Comeback next week for the next installment.

Miss Tracy xx

Assignment File - The Grammar Booklet

Hi all,

I completed a lot of assignments last year but this one was one of my favourites, which is saying a lot! The task was to complete a set of concept maps for a list of grammatical items we were given.

We were given the list at the beginning of the semester and the due date was set sometime during Week 10, after our vacation week. Each week during our tutorials, a group of 2-3 people would present a short PowerPoint on the grammatical item of the week and we were expected to take notes, ask questions and prepare the appropriate mind-map in our own time.

For our presentation, My partner K and I chose 'Type of Nouns' and rather then a PowerPoint, prepared a Prezi to share with the class. These presentations were worth 10% of our final grade and the both of us walked away with a HD.

We had the choice of how to create our maps and I went with Lovely Charts. I had used the online program in high-school on a PC; I loved how clean and professional the final product looked without using default fonts like Times New Roman and Verdana. So when I revisited their site and saw that they had an app, I looked into it. Now usually I only go for free apps, but at $5.50 I knew how good this program was and happily clicked 'buy now'.

The app is painfully easy to use and the part is its save function; you can email the diagram to yourself in a variety of formats. The only limitation I found with the app was the color schemes available; while there a plenty of nice colours there, I would have liked to be able to customise and mix the schemes. Besides that, use your fingers to draw shapes, use two finger to connect shapes and one finger to drag. There it is, painfully simple!

The original idea I had was to do two mind maps a week when I had the time but as things worked out, I majority of the work until the vacation week. Luckily I finished and had about 17 mind maps at the end of my ordeal which looked something like the one below...

But creating countless mind maps was not enough for my tutor, we had to make a grammar BOOKLET. So off to Officeworks I ran to get this piece of hard work bound. I choose the Pro-Click binding for this assignment as we were permitted to bring this into our exam and had I made a mistake, I would like to have had the option to change my mind map. One of my favourite components of this assignment was the fact that we had to include an acknowledgment thanking our classmates for their input since we used information from others presentations. I was really happy with my final product and thankfully, so was my tutor which reflected in my mark, another HD!

Miss Tracy xx

My Assignment Folder

Hi!

So my first year has come and gone and so has a very large amount of assignments. One of my tutors gave me some very sound advice during the first semester; hold onto every single assignment you do, no matter how badly you did, no matter how insignificant the task seemed, no matter what KEEP YOUR ASSIGNMENTS!

And to date I have followed her advice, I have keep all my assignments. But shoving them into one big folder was not enough to me, I had to further organise and this was how my assignment folder was born.

Each assignment is placed in a plastic pocket. It the first plastic pocket, I keep spare cover sheets as well as the ones that I have already filled out and a sheet of coloured dots.

The front page has a large table with columns so with a quick glance, I can tell what the assignment was, when I completed it, who my tutor was and what my final grade was. Following my colour system, each title is  highlighted in the corresponding colour and each cover page has a coloured dot.

This year, rather then sort according to due date, I would like to sort according to unit. This would mean that each assignment is sorted by unit than due date and making it easier to find thing on the same topic.I also need to start writing in my assignments in the book earlier so that filing them doesn't become a hassle later in the semester.

Overall, this system works really well for me and I am looking forward to the day when I exclaim., 'THANK GOD I KEPT THIS ASSIGNMENT!' Until such time, I hope that some of you can see some method to my organised madness and drop me a line if you decide this folder could work for you.

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Planned Experiences Part 3

Me again!

Can you believe I am posting once a week now? The holidays have left me with a lot of spare time, much of which is dedicated to this blog. This will be the last installment for the Planned Experience series so here we go...

Heuristic Play Baskets

The EDCU 101 unit that I took in my first semester of uni was the first in a series of early childhood curriculum units. My tutor had some very firm beliefs on a variety of topics however one that stood out was heuristic play. Heuristic play refers to the type of play which involves discovering the properties of objects, such as the feel of aged leather or the sound of a whisk as it hits the floor.

We learnt about various types of  play but one task set for us was to set up  a heuristic play basket as present our collection to the class. I used the basket I had set up for this class as a planned activity during this placement. Some items I choose to include in my basket:

• small wooden spoon
• silicone baking tray
• leather samples
• wooden bangles 
• pine-cones
• shells
• stainless steel strainer

The children enjoyed the experience however some became very attached to particular items which did test the groups sharing abilities. I had split all the items into two felt basket from IKEA but ideally I would have liked to use round wicker baskets.

Story Time

C loves to read, both by herself and with an educator so to build on this love of books, I planned a one-on-one story time. I picked up these Beatrix Potter style board books from a local school fete and paid $2 for a set of 12. I also managed to find a squirrel/wombat puppet to complement this experience.

The one-on-one aspect of this experience worked extremely well, we were able to make our way through the book at a comfortable pace so that C should take her time appreciating the illustrations and the motions of reading a book. The puppet added to the interactive nature of reading a story and C even had a turn at managing the puppet.

Paint Stamping

If there is one thing that the children at my placement centre love to do, it is PAINTING! But there are only so many times that the educators can put out the paper and a paint brush. So to spice things up on the craft table, I found some Christmas themes paint stampers for the children and C to enjoy.

The end result was... amusing!

The children started using the stampers as you usually would, pressing them into the paint and then onto the paper. But then they ran out of space on the paper and decided to experiment. As you can see in the picture above, C experimented by sweeping the stamper through the paint on her paper, while others choose to paint with their hands as stampers and some even decided to paint on others bodies!

But all in all, all the children involved loved it! And thank god the paint is washable!

This ends the Planned Experiences series for this placement but never fear, I will be back sometime i March as I kick off my 3-5 year old placement in a sessional kindergarten.

Miss Tracy xx 

LMST is on Pinterest!

Hi readers,

I've being saying that I need to get a Pinterest account organised for a while and on a whim, I decided to go ahead and set one up!

LMST IS ON PINTEREST!

Head over HERE to see what I'm making a big fuss about.

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Creating Environments Part 2

Hey all,

So during my second week of placement, I had to make an environmental change with the outdoor environment. The centre had a beautiful blue water trough but following a child getting comfortable inside the trough, a large crack appeared. This meant that for the last 12 weeks, it had only been filled with a small layer of sand and some sifts.

I saw this area as an opportunity to make a positive and supportive change and got to work o  how a could switch it up. During one of my tea breaks, I came across a book in the staff room a out creating play environments and after a quick flick through, I found a recipe for making coloured rice.

Coloured Rice

White rice (amount depending on the activity/environment you are planning)

Food coloring

Water

Large flat tray

Lay the rice flat on your tray. Mix the water, just enough to wet the rice, and your food colouring. The darker the colour you want the rice to be, the more food colouring you should be adding. Mix the rice and the water, moving it around so that all the grains are coated. Lay in a warm dry area to dry. If using separate colours, they can be mixed at this point in the process Once completely dry, the rice can be stored indefinitely.  

I chose the blue so that I could create and under the sea theme following an underwater puppet show that the children experienced. After the rice was dried and mixed, I brought it to the centre and placed it into the trough. I added some small blue cups for pouring, some shells to further the experience and some bath toys.

The end result looked spectacular and the children could not be pulled away!

The rice provided a new use for the trough and really lit up this area of the garden. To actually look at the rice and see it run through their fingers was a different experience for the children and the smell of the Basmati rice added to this.

I would definitely replicate this in the future and already have some ideas on how to do so. However, while the children enjoyed it, the cleaning up is not as easy as sand. Older children would understand that the rice needs to stay in the trough, a concept that was lost on the 0-2 age group. But this did not stop them from enjoying themselves.

The educators really loved this and since the weather in Melbourne is so often hot and dry, preparing this material is terribly easy for the staff. I would definitely recommend trying this in your educational environment!

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Planned Experiences Part 2

Hello there,

Here comes part 2 of the planned experiences I implemented whilst on placement. The experiences in this series focused on sensory play, primarily implemented for C.

Moon Sand

I had this idea locked up for some time and when staff told me how interested C was in play dough plus my observations on their play with sand, I knew I could use this resource. Moon Sand is this crazy dough that is basically sand which sticks to its self and has the properties of a liquid and a solid. The recipe is as follows:

4 parts sand

2 parts cornflour

1 part water

Mix all the ingredients together, adding cornflour and/or water until the desired consistency is reached.

The final product was amazing! When you held it gently, it flowed through your fingers but roll it like dough and suddenly, it becomes solid and resists! I added some cookie cutters for the children to experiment with and placed the mixture in a tray to minimise the mess. 

When the mixture dried out a little too much, a squirt of water on the hands of the children playing restores a more liquid consistency to the mixture.  The clean up was surprisingly easy; even though I lay down a mat the mixture still spread everywhere but since we were outside, the heat of the sun dried the water up and I just used a broom to sweep the excess back into the sandpit.

Ice Ice Baby

I implemented this activity for one simple reason; the expected temperature was 38 degrees Celsius and I knew the children were going to have a very hot, inside day. Materials are as follows:

Food colouring

Clean water

Ice cube trays

Freezer 

Large trough
Cups, scoops, water play equipment 

It's as simple as mixing the food colouring with the water, pouring it into the trays and freezing it, Transfer the final product to the trough you plan to use and add lukewarm water plus the play equipment.

I would recommend boiling the water before freezing and adding the colour. If you don't, the colour tends to pool in the usually cloudy spots of the ice cube however if boiled, the whole cube becomes a brilliantly coloured shape.

Due to the weather, this activity was very well received by the participants! Staff members were concerned about the water staying in the trough, which is understandable since we still have some unsteady walkers in the room, but other than that...no complaints what so ever.

Bubble Dough

On the third day, I implemented my last activity for the week; bubble dough. Again, this activity was found online during a study/procrastination session and it's contents took me by surprise:

2 parts cornflour/plain flour

1 part dishwashing liquid

2 table spoons baby/cooking oil

Combine all the ingredients, kneading until well combined. If too sticky, add more flour; if too dry, add more dish washing liquid and for more malleability, add more oil.

I set this experience up during a nappy change time, when children are moving in and out of the room. They were free to engage in it when it suited them. Some stayed for 5-10 mins but C and another child lingering for the entirety of the dough's life's span. 

It was a good alternative to play dough, offering different properties than usually with the dish washing liquid giving the material a pleasantly fresh smell that lingering around the room. I made the dough ahead of time and only needed to add oil and liquid on the day. At the time of writing this post, the dough was still usable after some oil, dish washing liquid and plenty of kneading. 

I had plenty of fun discovering and creating these experiences and am so glad that the children enjoyed themselves. I cannot wait to share part three with you all! 

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Creating Environments Part 1

Me again!

As you have already seen some of my planned experiences, I thought I would show you the environment changes. The requirements were to change or create a new environment during my second week, one indoors and one outdoors. This post focuses on my indoor environment.

The children in the room spend a lot of time playing in the home corner and I noticed that C was starting to engage in more and more imaginary play so I thought about replicating a familiar environment that the children would love. After some online idea searching, I laid eyes on this, featured on the Estefi Machado blog, and could not get it out of my head. After more looking, I decided that this idea was the one and started to work on building my own...

The hardest part was finding a box large enough. I have a good friend who works at the Good Guys who was kind enough to direct me to their packaging warehouse, where I got my  hands on an actual washoing machine box. The box is designed to just cover the washer so there was no bottom. I made the box shorter and used the left over cardboard to form a floor. I then taped everything up so it resembled a cube.

The next step was cutting out the hole, and  moving very slowly, I managed to use a Stanley knife to cut the round shape. Leaving one quarter of the circle uncut, I was able to create a fold, which means that the door can be open and shut and objects placed inside. Then a circle with a smaller circumference was cut to create the window. I recently bought some new bed sheets and used the plastic pouches they came in to create the glass of the window. You can use plastic sheeting or a clear table cloth to create the same effect.

The last step was adding the details and using the picture from Estefi Machado and a new Sharpie, I copied the marking onto the cardboard. I was so impressed with the final product and looked forward to adding it to the centre environment.

A cardboard box in the shape of a washing didn't seem enough for the children so I purchased some coloured dolly pegs from the $2 shop, found and recycled an iron board stand and borrowed some dolly clothes, a peg bucket and a small basket from the centre. And then I created a laundry room!

The children were so excited to play with the box, hiding in it, emptying the pegs and clothes and putting them back, opening and shutting the door; they could not get enough of it! The staff were also impressed with the change and were taken aback by the washing machine. As of when I left, the box was still intact but the staff had taken the top flaps off so they could see inside but other than that, the laundry room was in still in action.

If I was to replicate this, there are some changes to consider:

• creating a bigger door
• using a larger clothesline with better 'lines'
• adding scoops, wash powder boxes, Napisan cylinders etc.
• changing the style to a top loader to prevent crawling in

Overall, I am so happy with how everything turned out and cannot wait to create more environment which initiate and sustain play based learning!

Miss Tracy xx

Placement - Planned Experiences Part 1

Hello everyone!

As I am sure you all know by know, I have finished my first placement in the 0-2 setting at a local childcare centre. Part of my responsibilities during this included developing an introductory poster, keeping a reflective journal, dated entries on how I have meet the learning outcomes expected, observations on my focus child, planning experiences based in these observations, collecting resources and completing daily tasks.

For the first ten weeks I only came in on a Wednesday and my tasks were limited to observations, of staff and children, and making myself a presence in the centre. It wasn't until week eight that I had the opportunity to implement some planned experiences for C, my focus child.

Week Eight

This week, I collected natural items from my local park, such as pine cone buds and prickly things, and placed them in a large trough filled with dry sand. I placed some sifters in there and waited for C to show some interest. While the other children loved it, C didn't spend a lot of time at the experience. Unfortuntely, I did not capture a picture of this activity.

Week Nine

Using the same natural resources from the previous week, I designed an individual experience for C; a variation of marble painting. C could not get enough of it and spent almost half an hour rolling her tray around, asking for more and more paper. C also was excited about taking the buds out of the paint and plopping them in the paper, with her mouth making a little 'o' when the colours mixed and changed.

Week Ten 

This week, I moved away from the gross motor skill development and focused on the fine. I set up a threading activity for C, using wooden blocks from another activity. As there was no string attached to the activity, I had to use a wool. This ended up being a bad idea, since the wool began to fray, but C and I worked together to thread the beads on. Again, her and the other children enjoyed themselves and weren't to fazed by the little hiccough. During my time in the toddler room, I was able to locate another threading activity using cotton reels, so if i decide to replicate this one, I will definitely be using this set!

And at this time, I had a three week break until I began my block placement. Stay tuned for the experiences implemented during my block placement, to be featured later on LMST!

Miss Tracy xx

In Review - PicStitch

Hello again,

As you may have already noticed, I like to use photo collages in my blog posts and they would not be possible without the wonderful app of PicStitch!

I'm a big user of Instagram, stalking and and posting alike, so when I saw a few posts with the hashtag #picstitch, I couldn't help but check it out. This led my down the rabbit hole.

My favourite feature of PicStitch is its simplicity. The interface is dark, with very little advertising space, and uses very little text. There are something like 280 collage templates to choose from but this wasn't enough and I ended up paying $0.99 to unlock all templates.  You can chose your photos from various sources, including your photo album, camera, Facebook, Dropbox and other social media sources.

When it comes to putting the collage together, even simpler! Just choose the the photos your using and then what edits you would like to make. There are various options for editing including enhance, effects, frames, stickers, focus, orientation, crop, sharpness, splash, draw, ext, red eye, whiten, blemish and meme.

When your done editing, you have the option to change your layout, the aspect ratio of the frame or to re-size your photos. Adjust the product in the frame and then move onto the next photo. Repeat then fiddle until you're happy!

The last step is to save your photo. Again, many options to choose from. I usually go for the option to save to my photo album but here is where you pay for the free app, usually you are exposed to 30 seconds of a movie trailer or an app advertisement. Not much to bear but enough for me to feel impatient!

PicStitch is available from the iTunes App Store, free to download but any add ons are paid. I highly recommend this app if you feel the need for a collage!

DOWNLOAD PICSTITCH FROM HERE!

Happy blogging, and let me know how PicStitch works for you!

Miss Tracy xx