Following the planning cycle in the baby/toddler rooms

[rikamarie]

Good day

I would like to hear some input from educators who work in the nursery and toddler rooms about their programming. I am the Educational leader at my centre and the staff in those rooms are unsure how they can programme according to the children's interest, goals and strengths if it is not evident (like what it is in the Kindy room because they can tell you what they like and want etc.), and I am not sure myself.

Any input would be really helpful! Thanks!
Rika-Marie

[Lorina]

For baby and toddler room a lot of experiences planned come from observing and parent input. A child doesn't need to say "I'm interested in cars" in order to get an interest going.... Watching a child play within an environment is very important as you can begin to see what interests them which will lead to further extension opportunities. A child playing with animal figurines one day and not the next has not developed an interest worth pursuing however a child sitting for long periods of time playing with animals, making their noises, drawings animals etc. safe to say they are interested... You may notice toddlers playing with the same activity over an over when this happens the interest developed could be the toy itself or the concept which can also be further planned... For e.g a toddler loves playing with play dough could be extended to modelling clay, a toddler loves to play cooking in home corner could be extended to real cooking experiences etc... Also it's beneficial to talk to parents bout what's happening at home, where they have been, weekend adventures etc which can also be used to plan. A family that have gone to the beach a follow up experience can be sand painting or adding rocks, shells and sea animals into a trough with water for further exploration. Don't expect parents to write these down, staff need to listen and take note and add follow up experiences as parent input on the program... Experiences based on goals and strengths can be determined by individual observations... At this stage intentional teaching also plays a role in determine what a child can experience...

Hopefully this gives you a few ideas to get started,

,
L.A

[rikamarie]

Thank you very much, that does make sense and I will speak to the educators in the rooms. We had a visit from an Educational consultant who advised us that our program is not right because our focus was not on the children's strenghs, interests and goals. May I ask, what type of resources would you suggest be in the nursery room at all times? For example the animals and the kitchen etc.?

[Lorina]

When you are adding experiences onto the program you should always make sure it links to an original source of why that experience is going onto the program. So, when you're adding a follow up activity you should have an input code (for e.g. ob child) and the goal (learning outcome) which the experience should achieve. For example: threading - ob child - 3.2 etc. By providing this information you can easily identify where the experience came from and what the child/ren achieves through the experience. You mentioned that the educational advisor said it wasn't right. May I ask what experiences you have been adding and what type of program you are using (daily, weekly, mind mapping, etc). I just want to understand how it wasn't right. Do you add additional info for each experience, input codes etc?

In regards to the resources I have an equipment check list which lists the room and what types of resources are necessary. Obviously there can be many more added but these are pretty much the basics:

[attachment=0]equipment check list.pdf[/attachment]

,
L.A