Mark Making

What is mark making? The early marks that children make on paper and other surfaces consist of lines and shapes and are often referred to as scribbles, however, these marks are the first steps towards writing. Making marks also supports physical development, imagination and creativity. Sometimes marks are made just for the physical pleasure, such as in Anthony’s case. He used a whiteboard and markers, enjoying the gliding motion of the markers on the whiteboard.  As children learn that their marks, as symbols, can represent their thinking it is wonderful for educators and families to see children’s thinking become visible.

Making marks is a physical skill. Children need to be able to control the large muscles in the body before they can control a mark making too,l such as a pencil. Core strength is required to make marks. Babies “coordinate their arm muscles from the shoulder, then the elbows and then the wrists. Skilful manipulation of the fingers or fine motor skills, comes last” (Meyerhoff, 2013).

In St. Anne’s Room many of the children are displaying interest in mark making. This week we provided many opportunities for this, inside and outside, with a variety of resources. Clipboards were especially popular. We observed children making marks about their current favourite interests. An example of this is Lorenzo’s volcano drawings. Currently he talks about volcanoes and how he is going to make one at home.

     

Some of the children are demonstrating writing in their marks. Often their first writing involves people who are significant to them. Frankie made a book about Santa’s toy sack and wrote on it. We asked her to read it to us, at first she said, “I don’t know, I can’t read”, she then told us it said, “For mummy”. Leo made marks as he painted at the easel outside. He used recognisable letters and some words. A favourite saying of Leo’s is “Where mummy?” He attempted to write this using his prior knowledge of letters and sounds.

               

Children also make marks about experiences they have had, whether they are trying to make sense of them or wanting to communicate the experiences to others. Edward drew a picture of an experience he told us he had, he also wrote his name. “I love Coca Cola, I was tiptoeing out of the bed and had a drink of Coca Cola and ran back to my bed before Dad wakes up”.

                 

Ava drew a picture of one of her dreams. It was about Monster’s Inc. She talked about Sully the monster and drew her representation of Mike, another monster.

               

Marks have been made by children this week to explain their thinking about concepts. Alex was exploring the concept of whole and half with a small group of children and Ojasvi drew a wonderful picture of her explanation of whole. She drew the whole world.

Children are born with a desire to communicate. As children develop they make meaning through mark making. We aim to create an environment where the children feel secure and know that their creativity is valued which we hope will lead to prolific mark making.

Links to The Early Years Learning Framework

Outcome 1. Children feel safe, secure and supported

Outcome 5. Children express ideas and make meaning using a range of media

Links to philosophy

We will provide an emergent and responsive curriculum for all children based from the philosophy of the service, provocations of educators and children’s strengths and interests as well as the interests of the group.

Learning opportunities in routines and transitions

Over the last couple of weeks we noticed that routines and transitions in St. Anne’s Room have had an increasingly smooth flow. As educators, we believe that throughout the routines and transitions of the day there are valuable learning opportunities for all children, such as; relationship building, supporting a sense of belonging and identity, language and skill development and independence. These opportunities may arise during transitions from one space to another or when handwashing for snack or organising their bowl, cup and cutlery for lunch time and so on.

All aspects of the program, including routines, are organised in ways to maximise opportunities for each child’s learning. (The National Standard, ACECQA, revised 2018)

One part of the routine that has particularly shown development is the transition the children make from their play, inside or outside, to group times. The children are now familiar with the group they are in, Murraya or Grevillea, and know which end of the room they have group time in. As soon as they hear the bells for group time there are children sitting ready for their peers to join them. This has supported the children that have started recently, they learn from the children who are familiar with the routine. We have also introduced visuals into the environment to support the inclusion of all children in routines and with transitions, ie. a visual timetable using photographs and pictorial symbols that the educators use with the children.

The sense of belonging to a group has developed, Emannoop was concerned when he noticed that his Grevillea group sign on the door had disappeared, he searched high and low until he found it. The children are beginning to use the words Grevillea and Murraya too. Belonging to a group is supporting a sense of identity. When children feel they belong they are more receptive to learning.

Our image of the child is rich in potential, strong, powerful, competent, and, most of all, connected to adults and other children. (Loris Malaguzzi, Young Children 1993)

Group times offer opportunities for children to be connected. Learning is evident throughout the routine but we have noticed that group times have become a time where the children enjoy being together with their peers and experiencing shared learning. Group times are the part of the routine where we routinely focus on Prayer, discussing bucket filling and specks of gold. This week Murraya group have also been learning about Australian animals, their habitats and the sounds they make. We had positive feedback from Casey, Mason’s mum, she told us how amazed she was that Mason was talking about Kookaburras at home. The Grevillea group had a focus on colours, a particular interest of Max’s. We read ‘Where is the green sheep?’, mixed colours, made shades of colours and played games involving colours.

The children demonstrate their independence throughout the routine. They have become particularly capable at organising their own rest mats before lunch and then after resting; cleaning them and putting them away. It is also lovely to see the children helping each other when required. An example of this was when Aria showed her new friend, Anna, every step of the process with the mats. Xavier is often observed helping others lift their mats into the storage cupboard to pack them away.

The children are involved in designing the routines, this has shaped Grevillea Prayer time, for example.  Eva asked if she could set up the space for prayer time with the Bible, the statue of Mary, Joseph and Jesus and other resources, we now do this every day, the children love having the responsibility for certain jobs. This also provides an opportunity to develop their emerging autonomy.

When routines and transitions are consistent and predictable, as they are for the children in St. Anne’s Room, they can contribute to a positive learning environment.

 

Links to The Early Years Learning Framework

‘Children feel safe, secure and supported and use effective routines to help make predicted transitions smoothly’

‘Children develop their emerging autonomy, inter-dependence, resilience and sense of agency’

Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity (Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, 2009)

 

Links to our philosophy

We will provide an emergent and responsive curriculum for all children based from the philosophy of the service, provocations of educators and children’s strengths and interests as well as the interests of the group.

 

Play is literacy (Wohlwend 2015)

The children in St. Anne’s Room continued to engage in shop play this week. With the provision of resources to support role- playing shops we continued to observe the children. We wondered whether their play was about shops or making connections with each other as they used the shop scenario to initiate interactions.  

This week we have noticed many less spontaneous announcements of “Ice cream” around the room. This may be because the shop is providing some opportunities for the interactions that the children are seeking or because the children themselves are discovering new ways of initiating interactions themselves.  

We observed an example of the children initiating group interactions this week on numerous occasions. Some children collected as many chairs as they could and arranged them in different ways. On one occasion the chairs were arranged in a long single line and it became a train, another occasion saw the chairs arranged in lines of two and it became a bus. This play has been led by Jon and Tavae, wonderfully, the play has been very inclusive, whoever wants to have a ride on the vehicle, can.  

In addition to social interactions the shop also offered opportunities for both literacy and numeracy. The clipboards are popular, some children like being in the shop to draw, like Leo, who draws his family. Others use the clipboards as shopping lists or to show customers what is on offer, such as Ojasvi, she makes wavy lines on her paper from left to right then she offers, “Noodles”, pointing to her paper. Ellara had a different purpose for her writing, she hung her papers up on the frame behind the shop, “To tell people not to climb”. She then wrote one to inform everyone that it was lunchtime. As the week progressed the children’s interest became more focused on using the clipboards and writing for different purposes, Eva wrote to Santa, Charlotte recorded her teddy’s temperature and Sarah wrote to her Grandma in Melbourne. 

We saw numeracy with the children using large buttons as dollars. There has been much comparing of who has the most dollars and counting to ensure fairness. Sorting the dollars using the attribute of colour has been prevalent too. We introduced some numbers to the shop, the children were particularly interested in the numbers that meant something to them. Leo held up the number three and said, “I three”. There was also interest in the numbers on the cash register display. Alex pushed the button twice on the cash register and two numbers appeared, he said, “75”. He pushed more numbers until the display was full, he then said, “A thousand”. He knew that more numbers meant a bigger number like one thousand.  

The theorists, Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, both emphasise the important contribution role play makes in children’s development.  “From a Piagetian viewpoint, creating sociodramatic play opportunities allows children to independently consolidate cognitive skills like concepts of print, and explore the interactions between other individuals and the physical environment” (Piaget 1962: Yaden, Rowe and MacGillivray, 2000).  

A focus for the children in their role play this week has been literacy. From a Vygotskian perspective literacy is viewed as a social, constructive process that begins in early life (Vygotsky 1967). Emergent literacy develops through everyday experiences with others, shop role provides this opportunity.  

We will continue to observe how the children are developing their skills in initiating interactions with others in their play and we will provide further resources for literacy which encompasses communication through language, making marks, recognising symbols and social and emotional development.  

Links to The Early Years Learning Framework 

Practice – Learning through play. When children play with other children they create social groups, test out ideas, challenge each other’s thinking and build new understandings. 

Outcome 5 – Children are effective communicators. Experiences in early childhood settings build on the range of experiences with language, literacy and numeracy that children have within their families and communities.  

Links to our philosophy 

We will engage in projects that build on the learning of educators and foster new understandings of the ways in which children learn and grow in their early years. 

Anyone for Ice cream? The Power of Role Play in Children’s Learning

Some of the children in St. Anne’s room have been observed engaging in a variety of shop role play. We noticed that outside Charlotte transported items to set up her own shop. At the playdough table Charlie, Lexi and Olivia made cupcakes and offered them for sale. Tesi stood at the door of the light room and called out to the main room, “Ice cream, ice cream for sale”. Ojasvi and Mischka climbed up a step so they were higher than the other children around them and called out, “Ice cream”, in unison. This play has not been limited to ice cream, it’s also been sandwiches and with Lorenzo: chocolate cake.

As the educators reflected on this play we decided to set up a role play shop for the children. We placed it outside as that was where the majority of the shop play was observed. However, we wonder whether the play is about shops, buying, selling and re-enacting their own experiences or whether it is a vehicle for something else, like connection.

Role play or pretend play is thought to be imaginative and fun but it also has much learning value. During role play children learn about themselves and the world, they may act out new learning, their fears, interests or dislikes. For example, how often in children’s dramatic hospital play do we see them giving each other vaccinations? Children are acting out an experience that they may not understand or find scary. They do this in a safe environment where they can explore their feelings and make sense of the world.

Shop role play has many opportunities for learning, such as; sorting food into groups with similar attributes, mathematically organising food in spatial arrangements, calculating the cost of food, communicating verbally and through writing, exploring shapes and weights, collaboration and so on.

The Early Years Learning Framework informs our curriculum. It states “Children develop a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation”. We wonder if this is what are children are trying to achieve by building on their own social experiences, negotiating roles and inviting reciprocal play?

These observations also link with our philosophy, “We will engage in projects, both internally and externally, that build on the learning of educators and foster new understandings of the ways in which children learn and grow in their early years.”

Here are some photos of our first observations of the children engaged in our role play shop. We will reflect on these and keep you informed as we attempt to interpret the learning. We would love to hear your thoughts.

Schemas and learning through play and exploration

Schemas are described as patterns of behaviour which allow children to explore and express developing ideas and thoughts through play and exploration. The repetitive action of schematic play allow children to construct meaning in what they are doing.

Children learn best through opportunities to engage in active learning through hands on experiences. These opportunities allow children to problem solve, question, predict, explore, hypothesise, imagine and develop independent choices and decisions.

Children use play to develop understandings through their senes and movements as they interact with their environment, teachers, peers and resources.  Therefore, we carefully curate our learning environments to provide children with many opportunities to interact with a wide variety of materials and tools. We also support children’s schematic play patterns by building on children’s interests to engage in deep and sustained learning experiences.

The most common types of schema include:

  • Trajectory
  • Rotation
  • Enclosing
  • Enveloping
  • Transporting
  • Connecting
  • Positioning
  • Orientation

Over the past weeks, teachers and educators have observed children’s transporting schemas. This includes moving items from place to place, carrying objects in their hands, pockets or filling containers and buckets with collected objects and moving them to other places in our ELC. There has also been in a special interest in water play, filling buckets and containers with water and moving them around the centre.

This week we have provided children with items of varied shape, size and capacity including measuring jugs, cups, yoghurt and milk containers and spoons as well as different tubs and trays of water.

The children have been filling containers and transferring water to other containers or tubs of water. Through this experience, children have been building on and developing many skills and strategies.

This includes numeracy skills and demonstrating an understanding of measurement. Specifically, capacity and how containers can hold different amounts. Children have also been observed growing their mathematical vocabulary, using words such as fully, empty, overflowing, little, big and comparative language such as more than.

Alexander was observed pouring water from a jug into a container.

Alexander: “It filled up”

Nicole (teacher): “It’s overflowing now. Water is going over the top of the container”.

Alexander: “But I still got some left” (indicating that water was still remaining in the jug, despite the container being full).

Children have developed their social skills, too. Tavae and Henry worked collaboratively, taking it in turns to hold the container whilst the other poured water into it.

 

 

 

 

Creating Irresistible Learning with Loose Parts

As teachers and educators, we continually reflect upon our practice, observe and document children’s learning and incorporate children’s interests into the program to enable excellent learning outcomes for our children.

Over the past weeks, the teachers have been focusing on creating irresistible learning environments by providing opportunities for children to interact with a variety of materials and tools to express their knowledge, feelings, thoughts and understandings. Our teachers – Nicole, Michelle and Emmaline, along with our educators Palwinder, Namita and Alex have been researching the following question:

‘Where is the irresistible invitation? Providing environments and experiences that entice the imagination and create irresistible invitations for learning through play’.

We have been experimenting with providing a variety of loose parts in children’s play. Loose parts enables our children to explore the many possibilities of learning. Children bring to the materials their creativity, imagination, abstract thinking and problem solving skills.

As seen in this photo, Tavae has used loose parts to count and match the dots on the dice. With the dice and small wooden rounds, Tavae demonstrated his numeracy understandings and abilities – one to one correspondence when counting and matching amounts.

“Children do not wait for our permission to think. Indeed, children are bursting with ideas that are always impatient to escape through language (and we say a hundred languages) to connect and communicate with the things of the world.”  Loris Malaguzzi.

24/10/2019

To start off a very hot day, we went outside and engaged in some water play, to stay nice and cool.

As it started to heat up, we made our way into Home 2, where we all engaged in a range of inquiries. Some of us engaged in socio-dramatic play, such as pretend cooking, dress-ups and role play. Kunal noticed a milipede and was observing how they moved. Some of us enjoyed building and construction using the Lego and blocks and others enjoyed creating a range of artwork using paint, the whiteboards and pencils.

Tesi and Jon started creating patterns using the lose parts.

Tesi: “white, black, white, black, white oh, black comes next”.

Jon: “Black, white, white, black, white, black”.

Tesi: “Look Jon, we need a white”.

 

Specks of Gold

My speck of gold was playing with the doctor set- Haniya

My speck of gold was playing with Tavae- Tarun

My speck of gold was doing prayer- Arabella

My speck of gold was playing with the books – Olivia

My speck of gold was making a truck- Liam

My speck of gold was playing with Arielle- Tesi

 

What is Nature? What Grows?

As we continue our project and inquiry ‘growth’, we are incorporating the use of digital technologies as a tool for children to express and further explore their knowledge, understandings, theories and concepts of our natural world.

Today the following questions were posed to the children whilst sitting outside in our garden:

What is nature?

What grows?

Children’s initial responses were:

Frankie: leaves

Krisha: tree

Kunal: I see birds.

Charlie: The trees and pears.

Ojasvi: I see it up there (points to the tree), the leaf.

These children were then invited to use the iPads to take photos e.g. Frankie to take a photo of leaves, Krisha of a tree, etc.

Arabella viewed one of her photos more closely.

Nicole: (teacher): What do you see?

Arabella: A leaf.

Nicole: Do you notice anything about this leaf?

Arabella: I see the lines on the leaf, a long line.

Nicole: I see that line too. Can you see any other lines?

Arabella: Some go there and there.

Nicole: I can see those lines too. I wonder why the leaves have these lines?

Arabella: They there to grow.

Other children such as Will, Liam, Ellara, Xavier and Jon became intrigued by the children photographing our environment. They added their theories about nature and growth and also took photos of their ideas.

Krisha: It’s the grass

Xavier: the tree

Omelia: the leaf

Jon: I photo the tree, the sky, the tree the sky.

Ojasvi: And the tree fell down.

Jon: I take photo of the grass.

Ellara: Plants and nature is Australian.

Will: A tree and I also took a photo of the sun and me.

During our afternoon group meeting, we shared the photos that children took during the day.

The questions were again posed to the children:

What is nature?

What grows?

The children responded:

Jon: Water

Arabella: Flowers

Olivia: Plants

Ellara: We can make the grow by seeds and water

Charlie: You put the seed in the ground and it grows

Kunal: I photo of the sun.

Sharing learning, ideas and understandings with each other enables children to not only express their own learning but to also learn from others. This group meeting gave children the opportunity to contribute to a growing and collective understanding of nature and the environment. Group meetings also encourage the understanding that learning is not a linear or isolated process but rather collaborative, ongoing and lifelong.

The children’s ideas and theories of nature and growth have evolved over the day and will continue to do so as we explore these questions in different ways, with different materials and tools and through opportunities to share with each other.

 

 

 

 

Exploring our Curriculum – Ecology and Numeracy

ECOLOGY

We explored some stems of cut sunflowers and sunflower seeds in the beautiful sunshine today. The children weren’t given the name of the flower or any information about it prior to interacting with it. They instinctively smelt the flower and invited me to do the same. They used their sense of touch to feel the petals and the centre of the flower – “it tickles” said Charlotte. They held the sunflower seeds in their hands and then planted them into our garden bed. They have a growing understanding of what plants need to grow – water and sun.

Charlotte: It’s a flower.
Omelia: It needs water.
Sarah: It’s big.
Omelia: And it needs sun
Charlotte: I want a sunflower for my mum.
Sarah: When is my seed growing.? Do you have to wait for it?
Mishka: Wow! You smell it. It a flower (Nicole gave her a seed). It for the birdy. They like it. They eat the seeds.
Will: It’s a yellow flower. It smells.
Tesi: I know what this is, it’s a sunflower. It look like the sun!

NUMERACY

We have begun to create our own shop with cash registers and some empty food and household boxes. Henry, Tarun, Jon and Xavier loved playing the shopkeeper and customer.

At our shop the children were taking the items to the light/dark room and then bringing them back to the cash registers at the table.

They were using greetings as they approached the cashiers – ‘hello!’ The cashiers were making a ‘beeping’ sound as they processed the items through the cash register. The cashiers were pressing numbers on the cash registers and then telling the customer the amount of money the item cost ‘$30 dollars’. The customers were passing money to the cashiers and then then saying ‘thank you, bye’.

Children were developing their oral language, engaging in transactional language, exchanging greetings and using their experiences in context; demonstrating numeracy understanding and concepts including number and money.

BRIANNA’S FAREWELL

The children have begun creating a farewell book for Brianna by creating an artwork for her and sharing what they are grateful for and love most about Brianna.

Tesi: Thank you Brianna for making all the lovely food for us. I like it when Brianna read stories to me.
Deanna: Brianna read me books and she make lovely food.
Simon: Brianna make me happy. She fills my bucket.
Charlotte: Brianna puts glitter in my bucket. She play with me.
Xavier: Brianna read stories to me.
Omelia: Thank you for Brianna being outside. Brianna play with me.
Joel: I like Brianna because she gives me food and does the prayer circle song.
Tavae: Brianna helps me with the blocks.
Will: I like her making lunch for us because I love it a lot.
Sarah: I like the food

PRAYER

During prayer today we read the book ‘Will You Fill My Bucket?’ by Carol McCloud. We then shared ways others have filled our bucket today.

Will: Tavae filled my bucket by playing with the trucks.

Joel: Mum and Dad make me feel nice and filled my bucket and I pat my dogs and that fill their bucket.

Simon: My mum and dad filled my bucket. They make me happy.

SPECKS OF GOLD

Tesi: My speck of gold is seeing all the pictures and seeing myself.
Jon: Playing in the sand and the water and doing the shopping.
Joel: Playing PJ masks and playing with Tesi and Omelia.
Mishka: Doctors.
Simon: Playing my friends.
Omelia: My speck of gold is playing with Tesi and Xavier and Joel and Sarah.
Xavier: Playing with Omelia.

17/10/2019

To start off our wonderful morning, we went outside to engage in a range of provocations based around the children’s interests. Many children were engaged in painting, whilst other children enjoyed engaging in play that strengthened their gross motor skills and encouraged creativity and curiosity.

After playing outside for quite some time, we progressively made our way into Home 2, where we had the opportunity to explore other provocations that encouraged socio-dramatic play, problem solving, curiosity, creativity, perseverance, love of learning and zest. Take a look at our learning.

Specks of Gold

My speck of gold is playing with Aisha- Olivia

My specks of gold was playing with Ariel and my friends to hunt millipedes- Tesi

Playing with Tesi- Ariel

My speck of gold was playing with Olivia- Omelia

My speck of gold was playing with Omelia – Kunal