The document outlines a learning center plan created by an educator to extend the play of two children, Sarah and Megan, in a home corner. The educator will create grocery store and picnic learning centers to build on the children's ideas of going shopping and on a picnic. The centers will provide open-ended materials and opportunities for role play to support the children's learning. The educator will ask open-ended questions before, during, and after play to scaffold the children's learning and development. Their participation and development in the centers will be observed and assessed.
The document outlines a learning center plan created by an educator to extend the play of two children, Sarah and Megan, in a home corner. The educator will create grocery store and picnic learning centers to build on the children's ideas of going shopping and on a picnic. The centers will provide open-ended materials and opportunities for role play to support the children's learning. The educator will ask open-ended questions before, during, and after play to scaffold the children's learning and development. Their participation and development in the centers will be observed and assessed.
The document outlines a learning center plan created by an educator to extend the play of two children, Sarah and Megan, in a home corner. The educator will create grocery store and picnic learning centers to build on the children's ideas of going shopping and on a picnic. The centers will provide open-ended materials and opportunities for role play to support the children's learning. The educator will ask open-ended questions before, during, and after play to scaffold the children's learning and development. Their participation and development in the centers will be observed and assessed.
Introduction Through play experiences, children are exposed to a range of opportunities to learn. These opportunities are developed through the support of educators as they encourage and extend the children’s ideas through play. When these ideas are extended and encouraged, the children will be able to develop more knowledge and understanding. As a result of the running record of Sarah and Megan in the Home Corner, the educator will be able to support, encourage and extend the children’s learning. In this play scenario, Sarah and Megan were portraying the role of mother and friend. Sarah was pretending to be a mother as she was nurturing her baby. Megan however, was portraying the role of Sarah’s friend. They were both exploring the different roles and actions that go with these roles. They also came up with ideas such as going shopping and going on a picnic. Through expressing these ideas, the educator will be able to extend on these ideas to enhance their play experiences.
The educator can further extend Sarah and Megan’s ideas through different learning centers and these include: • Grocery store where the children will be able to create the materials required for their picnic. They will also use open-ended materials such as play dough, pipe cleaners and more. • Picnic area that will allow the children to understand what is required, what they need to do to set up and how to prepare. Items that will be included are picnic blankets, basket, pretend food, plastic cutlery and more. • Nursery where the children will be exposed to a range of baby materials. These include cots, nappies, clothes, dummies, blankets, toys, change tables and more. This center will allow the children to practice their nurturing skills, as they are interest in caring for babies. • Literacy centre will provide children with an opportunity to write their own shopping lists. They can explore different magazines and select items that they like to take on their picnic. Children can also write their own recipes for the food that they wish to make for their picnic. • Mud kitchen will allow the children to explore their senses whilst also creating food for their picnic. They can create the food as well as sell it.
The learning centres that will be extended on even further in this learning centre plan include the grocery store and the picnic areas.
The educator will be able to support the children through different play experiences as they: • Scaffold the children’s learning through questions, prompts and cues. This is closely related to the theories of Vygotsky as he emphasizes the importance of educators providing ways to add to their understanding of a concept. • Provide open-ended materials that the children can use during play experiences. These include natural materials, interesting materials and more. • Allow the children to work at they own pace. For example, the children might want to stay at a particular center for long periods at a time. • Provide children with opportunities to take risks. For example, if the children are in a new situation, prompt the children towards that situation. Only do so if the situation is safe.
The educator will stimulate/ encourage the children through play experiences as they: • Provide endless opportunities to use their imagination. • Show enthusiasm towards the centre by modeling how to use the materials in the centre. • Provide cues and questions that are relevant to the centre. This will allow the children to become engaged with the centre. • Relate the centre to prior knowledge. For example, explain to the children that the grocery store will provide them with an opportunity to role-play actions and languages that their parents use in the grocery store. • Consider each child’s ideas and interests when developing a center. For example, the educator should only develop a centre if the children have shown a clear interest in the particular concept. • Provide enough time for each child to participate in the play experience. • Set the centers up in an area according to the sound and group involvement. For example, if there are numerous children playing in the area, the centre will not be placed next to a quieter centre. • Are facilitators of the children’s learning. For example, being a facilitator means that the educators makes the learning easy to understand and provides all the materials needed. • Are participators of the learning. This means that the educator will not hesitate with getting involved with the children’s learning. • Are observing the play that is taking place. This means that the educator is observing the children to see if they are engaging with the materials and information provided. This is also a time for educators to assess on the play experiences.
Intentions Behind the Grocery Store and Picnic Centre The educator’s intentions behind creating the grocery store and picnic centre were influenced by the running record of Sarah and Megan in the Home corner. In these centres the educator hopes that the children are able to engage with themselves and others to improve their social and emotion wellbeing. They will also encourage the children to build self-confidence as they discuss roles and how they feel about a particular subject. When the children are participating with others they will be encouraged to self-question and risk take to improve their understandings of picnics and Grocery Stores.
Questions The questions asked within these play scenarios will be open-ended and will reinforce content and learning. The questions will scaffold the learning that will occur and guide students to achieve the objectives. The two play scenarios are child directed rather than a teacher directed activity. For this reason the questions asked before, during and after play are extremely important to extend the student’s learning and thinking while playing.
The questions below are an example of the types of questions that will be asked in the grocery store and the picnic centre. Key Questions – Grocery Store/ Picnic Before • What would you like to do in this grocery store/ Picnic? • What objects and materials do you see? • What do you think will happen in the grocery store/ picnic? • Who do you think might go to a grocery store/ picnic? • Have you ever been to a grocery store/ picnic? • Have you ever seen one of these items before? • How are they used? • Have you ever seen a cash register being used? How do they use them? • Have you seen this type of money before? What do we use it for? • What roles have you decided on? Who is going to be who? • Where should you put the rug? • What colour should the rug be?
During • Who is in charge of the cash register? What are you playing as? • What type of food are you going to make for the shop? • How are you going to make this food? (Chopping or stirring) • Can I please have a milkshake and a piece of pie? • How much will this milkshake and pie cost altogether? • How much are your cakes? • Do you have anything on sale? • Who cooks your food? Who is the chef? • What do you like about this shop? • What do you like about this picnic? • What is inside of your picnic basket? • How many cups and plates do you need for everyone on this picnic? • Who is the mum and who is the friend? What re the roles on this picnic?
After • Did you like the set up of the Grocery store/ Picnic? • What materials would you like for next time? • Will you be changing roles for next time? • Anything interesting happen at your grocery store today?
The teacher will monitor, assess and document the children’s learning and participation through: • Observing children at play and writing notes on what they are doing. • Asking questions to see if the children are engaged. The teacher will record the children’s answers in a question book with their name, date and an explanation. • Taking anecdotal notes and mapping the children’s development through video recording. • Adapting a running record and hyperlinking the key objectives from the curriculum and inputting it into running record. • Mind map of each child. This will include dates and anecdotal notes, extension ideas and key concepts of child’s learning. • Language spoken by child and ideas taken onto an ideas chart. This will then be linked to each child in the play scenario. • Group work and the communication between children. This will then be recorded through anecdotal notes.
Elizabeth Hoyle Konecni - Sparking Curiosity Through Project-Based Learning in The Early Childhood Classroom - Strategies and Tools To Unlock Student Potential-Routledge - Eye On Education (2022)