tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52547645719567826702024-03-13T04:38:27.520+00:00Learning for LifeThe motto of my nursery class:
"Sunshine is delicious,
rain is refreshing,
wind braces us up,
and snow is exhilarating;
there is no such thing as bad weather,
only different kinds of good weather."
John Ruskin 1819-1900
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger268125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-8068640876047540072023-04-25T16:26:00.007+01:002023-04-25T16:27:54.678+01:00The best place to be a child!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirSnPRCdJKy1XI3rEENUZxgRb_if9TaebHgKbIeyN9KVjtSD5_ErDFraVQ2n4mXHNIgoQflTYwUw1Ewvo7KqZlSoTz1WyN5Yr_vRH5etWFD8b00Q__05JktdF8nWiUDzpaM0-kjH-ZFUXwFG63WWrk3shxOACglQQO9-SSrDERInA8ItA-Os7VBYkYoQ/s4032/318879E0-A579-4E7E-8C41-2E925568A4CE.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirSnPRCdJKy1XI3rEENUZxgRb_if9TaebHgKbIeyN9KVjtSD5_ErDFraVQ2n4mXHNIgoQflTYwUw1Ewvo7KqZlSoTz1WyN5Yr_vRH5etWFD8b00Q__05JktdF8nWiUDzpaM0-kjH-ZFUXwFG63WWrk3shxOACglQQO9-SSrDERInA8ItA-Os7VBYkYoQ/w640-h480/318879E0-A579-4E7E-8C41-2E925568A4CE.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;">I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to work in our partner kindergarten in Norway over the Easter break, it was the perfect chance to spend time in the kindergarten without having to get cover for my own class while I was away. 4 of us in total took part in this job shadowing experience, 2 of us from N. Ireland and 2 from Croatia and as we all lived together for the 2 weeks it allowed for lots of discussions each afternoon and evening. </span></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I first visited Eikefjord Barnehage in 2006, then spent a week working there in 2008 and this transformed my practice. I revisit in January this year with my colleague and it was wonderful for her to see where I had got lots of my ideas from and why I had wanted to overhaul our class after spending time in this particular kindergarten.You can read about this previous visit in an earlier post on here. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This time the plan was to spend time observing the outdoor class (5-6 year olds) and the 3-4 year olds, with each team spending at least 2 days with each group. The staff were just so welcoming and patient with our endless questions and the children just accepted these new grown ups who couldn't even speak Norwegian and made us part of their classes. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4m3YB_SKO6oL8wzU2sq4xCOqXFO1vl_MLuI6ffzUvNmTC8gj9xObq1U8p1KjtI-MzcIrp9ILF1Z1CfZxr0RylONfhfsteodOznTQwlcXs6Yafdl-AR3cnVW9sZbkEWf2RMyT4cgyDVlHHb0lNUdAUD3ztrqJGbwDo_s3QY-T3XRyyO-m08RAPBb0MTQ/s3060/1DF67257-5A7D-462B-98A5-D521C44D9792.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="3060" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4m3YB_SKO6oL8wzU2sq4xCOqXFO1vl_MLuI6ffzUvNmTC8gj9xObq1U8p1KjtI-MzcIrp9ILF1Z1CfZxr0RylONfhfsteodOznTQwlcXs6Yafdl-AR3cnVW9sZbkEWf2RMyT4cgyDVlHHb0lNUdAUD3ztrqJGbwDo_s3QY-T3XRyyO-m08RAPBb0MTQ/s320/1DF67257-5A7D-462B-98A5-D521C44D9792.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiiI6SOWIFQMPVZrpJMCPfJrAmVTRTymSJSXBSGqPHOOOJCcI7KAI10zUDehzwKC_s2Ni9YhM7GydzX_2q3d4T9qbrWZDbT_82QBWJzmClZJMaJ-T9h0Gv2pUOCXNQXlFEbjt6ZcNRWlaDSoqwzDKFdH29E7bhah2p5LcE01MrKHurpI5GAh2xTfAQIg/s4032/CDD2A6AF-2E72-452D-B95A-A531BE3F60B1.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiiI6SOWIFQMPVZrpJMCPfJrAmVTRTymSJSXBSGqPHOOOJCcI7KAI10zUDehzwKC_s2Ni9YhM7GydzX_2q3d4T9qbrWZDbT_82QBWJzmClZJMaJ-T9h0Gv2pUOCXNQXlFEbjt6ZcNRWlaDSoqwzDKFdH29E7bhah2p5LcE01MrKHurpI5GAh2xTfAQIg/w480-h640/CDD2A6AF-2E72-452D-B95A-A531BE3F60B1.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The children all arrive into the kindergarten and go inside to their 'classroom', some arrive very early in the morning but the majority are all there by 9.15. Each class had approximately 14-15 children and 3 adults, 2 teachers and an assistant. At 9.15 both classes got dressed up for going outdoors, as I had previously discovered each class spends a lot of time outside not just the outdoor class. The kindergarten has a huge outdoor area, divided into different zones; a typical playground area with a slide, swings and sandpit, a steep bank and gravel area and a kitchen garden area. They also have use of lots of forest areas beside the kindergarten and above it. Some of the days the children got ready to go to a particular destination like the forest or woods, or out on the kindergarten boat (yes they have a boat!) whilst on other days they stayed in the playground but used the different areas throughout the day. They might have started out in the kitchen garden or swings etc. The outdoor class ate their lunch outside as much as possible and as they are the oldest children they didn't go inside for a rest time like the younger children did after lunch. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In 2008 the thing that struck me the most was how calm the children were and they didn't have a lot of stuff to play with but I never heard any complaining of not knowing what to do etc. It was exactly the same 15 years later, these children are so well used to the space that they know exactly how to entertain themselves. Children are taught to make sure they can see an adult rather than the other way round and this gives them a lot more freedom to explore but equally puts the onus on them rather than on the adult. It was common to see groups of children heading off up the steep slope on their own and the adults were very relaxed and did not interfere with the play unless they felt they were needed to develop it or to help it progress. We tend to over teach in preschools and feel that unless we are in the middle of the play or leading an activity no learning is taking place. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">There were days that the staff had a particular aim and had groups of children with them to help e.g building planters, weeding or repairing structures but otherwise the children are left to play alone and develop their play as they want to without adult interference. By having 2 teachers in each class it also meant that 1 teacher could take a small group in to do more specific tasks e.g. precoding, whist the others were safely outdoors with the other teacher and assistant.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The atmosphere in the kindergarten is so relaxed and at least to all of us seemed very stress free. The children are definitely much more self sufficient than most of ours as they know each other so well having been together since they were very young (under 1 for most of them) and they know the environment too. The didn't keep coming up to an adult for reassurance like many of our children do, instead they wanted their peers approval. Staff are so skilled at observing that they don't need to be on top of the children either and what I noticed most of all was that no adult ever shouted for a child, they went to the child (unless the child was very far away from them). All staff are on the same page at all times and this consistency really helps the calm atmosphere too. If a child did hit another child or take something off them, the adult made a fuss of the 'wronged child' rather than admonishing the child who had been hitting or grabbing. When the upset child was soothed then they went to the other child to talk about what had happened, I really liked this approach and have been trying it in my class since I came back. (I say trying, as it does take a lot of patience!) </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Children are truly respected in this kindergarten and acknowledged as learners that will make mistakes, e.g they might not listen when asked to stay in one place, or to sit down when on the boat but they are allowed to be children and blind obedience is not expected nor are they punished for not doing as they were asked the first time. Our system too often will give a child one chance and if they don't comply they aren't given another chance but I liked how it was expected that a child would push boundaries as they are only children. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8u1GXeBpSa_17monwSLdJlKnEWSbJZ2AmK4fnXrEkqJCPRkB-CMzgZxkbWZ_bvA9mHaIUlWwHx5V_Hzz7VhqUhuLM9VbY_IoJ3LvnMKLudhDlD_RVRF4f5D2p1ZQOF3ze-O6yg_Z5BtczHL483AWB_ztGO9tcK9UEqJ4bkk8nkfEbsSCHpyzmHfh5-A/s960/82AF6F21-3ADB-4245-8DF7-14D4E97EF74A.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8u1GXeBpSa_17monwSLdJlKnEWSbJZ2AmK4fnXrEkqJCPRkB-CMzgZxkbWZ_bvA9mHaIUlWwHx5V_Hzz7VhqUhuLM9VbY_IoJ3LvnMKLudhDlD_RVRF4f5D2p1ZQOF3ze-O6yg_Z5BtczHL483AWB_ztGO9tcK9UEqJ4bkk8nkfEbsSCHpyzmHfh5-A/w300-h400/82AF6F21-3ADB-4245-8DF7-14D4E97EF74A.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRKeh_oG0_RepD2HsYWz718U4kTMlVPG-puiMbmv9ogHONR6OUbb3W8jq6qh2-33Uhegf_0DGGEpARURrZO0OMzK-WibD8QhC9HLMA7dlQeBYL6JcbLytZszCAxBnPjL2McmSNrOU7iFMLUIJD1NJsxuJBPgpbFk7lageHCPLw4NzAxEmoel9Y00gl9w/s1600/0508B993-0558-4E3A-8EB5-1467E28BE09C.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRKeh_oG0_RepD2HsYWz718U4kTMlVPG-puiMbmv9ogHONR6OUbb3W8jq6qh2-33Uhegf_0DGGEpARURrZO0OMzK-WibD8QhC9HLMA7dlQeBYL6JcbLytZszCAxBnPjL2McmSNrOU7iFMLUIJD1NJsxuJBPgpbFk7lageHCPLw4NzAxEmoel9Y00gl9w/w400-h300/0508B993-0558-4E3A-8EB5-1467E28BE09C.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS28glfbv4fUd1UqUb3vCa2l1XFZdxpk2KgZfzjm2cOICD5TSi2rdO2jlk4AfhGVYLGUvEKdCcHDXbyLfomeTVjNHn3DcxXCA6fA6ilEt1NAEPtBejXHngoifN7asbGPutHmDL1ow1m4fKH4OR83WBR9q1Fk_FtTEzUmf7ylkcaovh4P5TlzIAUeR_XA/s2000/E6890053-9C94-404D-A4E3-55B20033F8C9.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS28glfbv4fUd1UqUb3vCa2l1XFZdxpk2KgZfzjm2cOICD5TSi2rdO2jlk4AfhGVYLGUvEKdCcHDXbyLfomeTVjNHn3DcxXCA6fA6ilEt1NAEPtBejXHngoifN7asbGPutHmDL1ow1m4fKH4OR83WBR9q1Fk_FtTEzUmf7ylkcaovh4P5TlzIAUeR_XA/w400-h300/E6890053-9C94-404D-A4E3-55B20033F8C9.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6-dWTkn_GvTV3RbzCcQOos4csxCdaNKmH2fFeHQn_ff97JsnMP_ErcTE66702-vcRI_xajjudOrq1VzdzvtJel0703onXb9D8VVzii8d6eMw93eqlE3LKAhocTckY11jgs3VH8fxkOxkvjR7w6WrtgSAXJOuUcU7_7nC-PjVbLlrELW2lfQoO1lCzzw/s1378/F249B92E-EDD5-4CC9-A801-BEBA26856CAD.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1192" data-original-width="1378" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6-dWTkn_GvTV3RbzCcQOos4csxCdaNKmH2fFeHQn_ff97JsnMP_ErcTE66702-vcRI_xajjudOrq1VzdzvtJel0703onXb9D8VVzii8d6eMw93eqlE3LKAhocTckY11jgs3VH8fxkOxkvjR7w6WrtgSAXJOuUcU7_7nC-PjVbLlrELW2lfQoO1lCzzw/w400-h346/F249B92E-EDD5-4CC9-A801-BEBA26856CAD.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have come back from my latest visit to Eikefjord with lots of ideas of how I can be a better teacher and provide the best environment for my class. Being more patient is the biggest one for me! It also makes me very sad that our children only get 1 year of a play based preschool experience when I could see how much our 4-6 year olds could benefit from a more play based system. The emphasis in this kindergarten is on gross motor skills, independence and social & emotional skills, the academic skills will come later when they start school. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Every staff member could say why they had this approach - they knew children need to have hands on learning experiences before you put pencils into their hands and ask them to sit at desks - they all knew of and referred to Froebel's Principles. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">It is one of the best places to be a child and they are truly living their best lives. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i>Huge thanks to all the staff and pupils at Eikefjord Barnehage especially Dag & Katrine for letting us tag along in their classes and June Anne for sorting out the best accommodation ever!</i></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-92118518561776034212023-02-05T12:09:00.001+00:002023-02-05T12:09:59.720+00:00Eikefjord revisited - Erasmus Plus.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rBqwVm8B44GRCf3MpfVifVXkL1GTxz8_SrwbTN1VOOndGlW-rJyA-ktBlbXbJMbeZFLgLJPNigWDdNlG03f7R2Ntb7y5e3Vrl8mllORqbpiMl85WcljtGsAZnwe1oxyZvVV54R143J4tWiNfdFJRVD4IWHWNG2dbgWbWaR0M3trWs8DZChaYIPosvQ/s4032/D2FC8915-6602-4FC1-A698-BB0300C3C3AC.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rBqwVm8B44GRCf3MpfVifVXkL1GTxz8_SrwbTN1VOOndGlW-rJyA-ktBlbXbJMbeZFLgLJPNigWDdNlG03f7R2Ntb7y5e3Vrl8mllORqbpiMl85WcljtGsAZnwe1oxyZvVV54R143J4tWiNfdFJRVD4IWHWNG2dbgWbWaR0M3trWs8DZChaYIPosvQ/w400-h300/D2FC8915-6602-4FC1-A698-BB0300C3C3AC.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxrZMYxDDv91mN41jt533JG4pV3owJA8EMzaJMFJfRLN7vZ8K7e5EHLA5z1KqQ_Pxn0tMgFVL9uBDgZPVmyrEqOh1ZI0_VDLp5ZQ4iANJBjrm3edkekR-Q1jmS_jbwDaG9Bj9BPgbU7QW1hHLe6pFbKUfFV7Jmnpq8ISYXJxgQSse7LWTemnnWTIFbfQ/s4032/8D1AF1C7-09B2-4858-A934-A9B34A102155.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxrZMYxDDv91mN41jt533JG4pV3owJA8EMzaJMFJfRLN7vZ8K7e5EHLA5z1KqQ_Pxn0tMgFVL9uBDgZPVmyrEqOh1ZI0_VDLp5ZQ4iANJBjrm3edkekR-Q1jmS_jbwDaG9Bj9BPgbU7QW1hHLe6pFbKUfFV7Jmnpq8ISYXJxgQSse7LWTemnnWTIFbfQ/w400-h300/8D1AF1C7-09B2-4858-A934-A9B34A102155.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original wooden building has had a beautiful new build added to it. </td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i> *In December 2020 the U.K government withdrew from the EU funded Erasmus programme, despite assurances during and after the whole Brexit campaign and vote that this would not affect the U.K's participation. (After all many non EU countries already participate) It came as a complete shock to all involved and it proved to be yet another time when the Conservatives said one thing and then did another. The loss of this programme will have huge implications for staff, students and schools in the U.K and particularly those working with the youngest pupils as the new U.K Turing scheme does not allow for younger pupils to be involved as they would have to go abroad to visit schools and there are no staff development opportunities.*</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlyLg1CRtXFVnC_iUPTRM94tOKqEl0RLEJU5KUsluJxdqMJsL7ObTyWwsyjEHCnVSzkeVloDqiBEeF2FEmbDh8oC2E_IwC9Wi6bzrUQ6MnNPVt553D7Bubylfk2k3ErlMmiblz7lGVvLU7k1wpnFTQx8DNZjqMxFLSvBbXFTAUF9E_nDB4zBlJheLrg/s2048/3BDBD875-C5B4-4519-9284-FB66499B0DDD.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="923" data-original-width="2048" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlyLg1CRtXFVnC_iUPTRM94tOKqEl0RLEJU5KUsluJxdqMJsL7ObTyWwsyjEHCnVSzkeVloDqiBEeF2FEmbDh8oC2E_IwC9Wi6bzrUQ6MnNPVt553D7Bubylfk2k3ErlMmiblz7lGVvLU7k1wpnFTQx8DNZjqMxFLSvBbXFTAUF9E_nDB4zBlJheLrg/w640-h288/3BDBD875-C5B4-4519-9284-FB66499B0DDD.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Full Steam Ahead team. </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our school was very fortunate to be involved with Comenius and then Erasmus since 2004 and we had 3 projects running when Covid hit and were therefore able to add a further 12 months onto existing projects that should have finished in 2021 and 2022. It is through one of these KA2 projects 'Full Steam Ahead" that I was able to revisit Eikefjord Barnehage in January 2023. This project is all about outdoor learning and involves kindergartens and schools with kindergarten classes in Iceland, Belgium, Norway, Croatia and England. Each visit to a partner school allows the partners to bring an activity to do with some of the children in the host school and at the end of the project we will have a bank of ideas for fun outdoor STEAM activities. I was lucky to visit Iceland in December 2021 and Belgium in June 2022 and we hosted everyone in November 2022 at our school Our pupils in nursery and Foundation Stage (3-6 year olds) had a wonderful few days doing lots of fun activities with our different partner schools & they still talk about those few days months later. </span><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLiFUrw6NejCBbr2RxlIFRvQHkD5rACB8WslKmx3mu_AzTAZi59DRpiOTPimM3L818Cn1IOS7X3G-Jl7QpPtR3LUZWAmHBbH0Gzo2iJ0UqzPX6O87AGLWKwxCAQoQJjBh3F-MiX42nRrj47x_S_W_Rwd1utEf_HzJ2q6IaeRcOw-tWVujsvBkA5psS0A/s4032/8E725335-C137-47E5-A646-234773359C40.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLiFUrw6NejCBbr2RxlIFRvQHkD5rACB8WslKmx3mu_AzTAZi59DRpiOTPimM3L818Cn1IOS7X3G-Jl7QpPtR3LUZWAmHBbH0Gzo2iJ0UqzPX6O87AGLWKwxCAQoQJjBh3F-MiX42nRrj47x_S_W_Rwd1utEf_HzJ2q6IaeRcOw-tWVujsvBkA5psS0A/s320/8E725335-C137-47E5-A646-234773359C40.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inger & I first met in 2006.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuCsE22Xv-dm8Q-fRWNZ3WJYXo2eUJe_y9fyzKkCG1vGpCxnJ-VHpeZGwUumd30-Qpd_ooOuJCAe6hkT0CGfuEP34naqbppYo47toNnXnMVOxSua8UffMv6jad05kbprk3ejFXe3ZQxpvepVEMr85HMiEZ5HagyedLHT4jRkB8zJyPNrt7gY4GEmxrCw/s4032/16F7D960-F7B2-4798-B5DE-D7072E8E41B5.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuCsE22Xv-dm8Q-fRWNZ3WJYXo2eUJe_y9fyzKkCG1vGpCxnJ-VHpeZGwUumd30-Qpd_ooOuJCAe6hkT0CGfuEP34naqbppYo47toNnXnMVOxSua8UffMv6jad05kbprk3ejFXe3ZQxpvepVEMr85HMiEZ5HagyedLHT4jRkB8zJyPNrt7gY4GEmxrCw/s320/16F7D960-F7B2-4798-B5DE-D7072E8E41B5.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nOJmLRAAS-wdDqdIKZgRztbsakko1hEqDvynTHzN38mg0opccu-JTWlbGWUuSJyp4q6H0kijSDlsK7yruvmYmvuHx_xXvOcQr1ICSoIqQbyBvH4AXXkae87jy7_RvXJGWSpbl9AN_otDSL5YgQNMNbMB4UwHwt-ci4LIZNANijQFqI0LHDYJLyRQvw/s4032/C8D94A85-D00E-4032-BE68-0399187C0FD2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0nOJmLRAAS-wdDqdIKZgRztbsakko1hEqDvynTHzN38mg0opccu-JTWlbGWUuSJyp4q6H0kijSDlsK7yruvmYmvuHx_xXvOcQr1ICSoIqQbyBvH4AXXkae87jy7_RvXJGWSpbl9AN_otDSL5YgQNMNbMB4UwHwt-ci4LIZNANijQFqI0LHDYJLyRQvw/s320/C8D94A85-D00E-4032-BE68-0399187C0FD2.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dag & I who first met in 2004. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In January 2023 myself and Beverley who I work with every day in the nursery got to travel to Bergen and then onto Floro (the most western town in Norway) where we were based to spend 5 days with all our partners visiting Eikefjord Kindergarten or as it is known in Norwegian, a Barnehage.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This kindergarten was in a partnership with our school from 2004-2008 in our very first foray into European partnerships. During that project with preschools from Poland, Italy and Norway I learned so much and as it was very early in my teaching career it definitely shaped my practise. I first visited Norway in 2006 and then went back to spend a week doing a job shadow in the outdoor class at the kindergarten in 2008. You can read about that in this post:</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><a href="http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2011/01/stumbling-into-embracing-outdoor-play.html">http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2011/01/stumbling-into-embracing-outdoor-play.html</a></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This time I was excited for Beverley to see the kindergarten as, without her blind faith in me we couldn't have overhauled our setting after my visits there, I was really hoping when she was there herself she would see why I had wanted to start doing certain things back in our setting. It couldn't have been better as it had just snowed and we got to the see the kindergarten in a magical snowy state. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Since my visit in 2008 the kindergarten has had a beautiful new building added on to the original old wooden building and it has been done so sympathetically & I was glad to see they didn't knock down the original building. The kindergarten now uses much more of the space around it and has incorporated a kitchen garden area - with a planting boxes, an outdoor kitchen, green houses etc. The whole outdoor area has a feeling of different destinations for children to interact within the wider outdoor space. As is typical in most settings I have visited across Scandinavia, they have a lovely peaceful staff room designated just for relaxation and separate work room so that there is no cross over while people eat their lunch or enjoy a cup of coffee. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbTKg697ALJmH8WLdHOP8S5_W7XRrnPnFIxTxWsjyZpkiB63U6lpXzZWHnbr9pN633ZBSlVv4dz-bAXKCHLfkNup949B64zIMKP6l-Oi_UZ9XC2hDZaO43AysoEsiqT1In2V5ME-AURC7dZHl2fBOEConc52YWino0rsEiRhOdB63_EdgQdMCEQVC6RQ/s4032/2D06AECD-CAE8-481A-A27A-9C8D706F71C2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbTKg697ALJmH8WLdHOP8S5_W7XRrnPnFIxTxWsjyZpkiB63U6lpXzZWHnbr9pN633ZBSlVv4dz-bAXKCHLfkNup949B64zIMKP6l-Oi_UZ9XC2hDZaO43AysoEsiqT1In2V5ME-AURC7dZHl2fBOEConc52YWino0rsEiRhOdB63_EdgQdMCEQVC6RQ/s320/2D06AECD-CAE8-481A-A27A-9C8D706F71C2.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The relaxing staff room. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqQllQnS2rFNSSLPRd4hyrXidmBPJ4fn-y6KAOStjxeHLrD8FpgS6-IQdflbY_k-PUOTUVoZYJyqRAFcfGr91ck3YSIo4JsDdeGp4pljYwA244Jzi966baJ44nfkAOgTvFieR1PpnFmApyHY8OopHAZCoS1ud2FCVygrAdy4L1HWOakEhECSL1ShvgQ/s4032/3DB6B5D9-C65B-47B8-AA3A-534670E8B43E.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqQllQnS2rFNSSLPRd4hyrXidmBPJ4fn-y6KAOStjxeHLrD8FpgS6-IQdflbY_k-PUOTUVoZYJyqRAFcfGr91ck3YSIo4JsDdeGp4pljYwA244Jzi966baJ44nfkAOgTvFieR1PpnFmApyHY8OopHAZCoS1ud2FCVygrAdy4L1HWOakEhECSL1ShvgQ/s320/3DB6B5D9-C65B-47B8-AA3A-534670E8B43E.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGO0f3ojgbMjgESFYtNmpn8XSy9BnPtU5NBqQLuQz0hzFPWDF1wgxo07rfTpRUsBusOwwVAlo7ErcCf-pViAtlGU2c5ODAIRlV07S11Xixt-zrnb79sVxBc1heWruOICDNvtYNejNPCnz80tCdQ5GaWLqZNUU4-mQ8-rih2V5w7dJS3r9hi9q2ZviBZQ/s4032/8E28A2A8-DC72-4990-A34B-986BC7974860.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGO0f3ojgbMjgESFYtNmpn8XSy9BnPtU5NBqQLuQz0hzFPWDF1wgxo07rfTpRUsBusOwwVAlo7ErcCf-pViAtlGU2c5ODAIRlV07S11Xixt-zrnb79sVxBc1heWruOICDNvtYNejNPCnz80tCdQ5GaWLqZNUU4-mQ8-rih2V5w7dJS3r9hi9q2ZviBZQ/s320/8E28A2A8-DC72-4990-A34B-986BC7974860.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Outdoor kitchen area. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOM3GryQMHEfrBTgWwIHUhCPlDkz9VybBAbrPkDFV5QdDwE4obZaUxesT2pLvALNpLLO757rFjjVUwgw55CsJan7hfadPU7TL3VtqfHy5Seg4tqrtGNOD-CVN-RIaV9JU36xq7b8kqjXyuzB_LS9zSeVrvjJ1eknjEDUWWm4E8PgIzG4qFl0L6HbwxOA/s4032/9237F84C-9151-4585-8E3A-9C89E27B867C.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOM3GryQMHEfrBTgWwIHUhCPlDkz9VybBAbrPkDFV5QdDwE4obZaUxesT2pLvALNpLLO757rFjjVUwgw55CsJan7hfadPU7TL3VtqfHy5Seg4tqrtGNOD-CVN-RIaV9JU36xq7b8kqjXyuzB_LS9zSeVrvjJ1eknjEDUWWm4E8PgIzG4qFl0L6HbwxOA/s320/9237F84C-9151-4585-8E3A-9C89E27B867C.jpeg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The work room. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjm9ON2nfAiUfPHkyS0J_WkROzt5XhHw2BimDtoV2M6y_uH4SB2Du3XOvXIE4brhbJzxV9sxike2paoOlFJYvYJ47FC3eJcRXcywHc3PBBIW1H7AFmaCEevyrYfFSf2m7VGgagr0qbXZtSpqzJKiK0z396PDHZsYYT2zBvear4P5nwt4ZbPfxtLBNsig/s4032/FE2D749C-AD3E-4DA4-A043-0A603F1DE5FB.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjm9ON2nfAiUfPHkyS0J_WkROzt5XhHw2BimDtoV2M6y_uH4SB2Du3XOvXIE4brhbJzxV9sxike2paoOlFJYvYJ47FC3eJcRXcywHc3PBBIW1H7AFmaCEevyrYfFSf2m7VGgagr0qbXZtSpqzJKiK0z396PDHZsYYT2zBvear4P5nwt4ZbPfxtLBNsig/s320/FE2D749C-AD3E-4DA4-A043-0A603F1DE5FB.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">It was just a joy to be back in Eikefjord and I truly felt at home despite the language barrier. In my opinion it is one of the best places to work in and to be a young child attending. The whole place is so relaxed and chilled, nothing is hurried or rushed - in my opinion, it reflects all that I feel Froebel would have strived for in his original kindergarten. </span><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKMW3MYuz1QASiRK750S3UXO6hk-0A0zbxj7zDynE7f119CYJyzaNRBlMOS9ocM2e25YD7CZy14GTiAp6UAAtpwC8HJmepZB-SxLzZ1hZfUYo1GFQAbtvPo92KnYDC0RT8NT3RMuIw9AUcLQGxVgYWkKgt8I5VswDETJ3D0uigFSfuw6f2PumwBaMc_A/s4000/5F4AFE22-8040-4206-B7F3-D54072A8429C.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKMW3MYuz1QASiRK750S3UXO6hk-0A0zbxj7zDynE7f119CYJyzaNRBlMOS9ocM2e25YD7CZy14GTiAp6UAAtpwC8HJmepZB-SxLzZ1hZfUYo1GFQAbtvPo92KnYDC0RT8NT3RMuIw9AUcLQGxVgYWkKgt8I5VswDETJ3D0uigFSfuw6f2PumwBaMc_A/s320/5F4AFE22-8040-4206-B7F3-D54072A8429C.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The activity day with the children - the best part of the project. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfWgqPECUdi8jlECkOAet9eupGPCb_JuPAKME95gsP6m6GxQcdWhQshr2EFprrVU6CIcDKcLh3S3NoglK30TzCQBhBZrw38MKZHRvGq8KLJWpHzxWUQwjAr9_BHQBVCeC33vepH4APSP_ycP0hRcOrd8yBAHwC3AgF2QH7ncPrwAJ0Re_-gHAUKtiung/s4000/9C98C90E-15F2-4CE4-96A2-AB3AB36CF5E9.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfWgqPECUdi8jlECkOAet9eupGPCb_JuPAKME95gsP6m6GxQcdWhQshr2EFprrVU6CIcDKcLh3S3NoglK30TzCQBhBZrw38MKZHRvGq8KLJWpHzxWUQwjAr9_BHQBVCeC33vepH4APSP_ycP0hRcOrd8yBAHwC3AgF2QH7ncPrwAJ0Re_-gHAUKtiung/s320/9C98C90E-15F2-4CE4-96A2-AB3AB36CF5E9.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWhxIYCt6QKB7uhVl88oZT_woMsbcvopfdXLplvDWm1Xj4FZWzs803poZ7vvIMB7t08rEiDBoOU5iETDPET8-Q-DdLY6-fniTY8sQt8zb5qFrAcPs978PO9JCmW3GeDq7_78wGbjYsvgEG0gRkmsCUzS4FcxI2vUmOiKWrIcTvef67PSaTfgUbqUk6-w/s4000/9CAF546E-AA2A-465A-918D-2C3AD6C5D722.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWhxIYCt6QKB7uhVl88oZT_woMsbcvopfdXLplvDWm1Xj4FZWzs803poZ7vvIMB7t08rEiDBoOU5iETDPET8-Q-DdLY6-fniTY8sQt8zb5qFrAcPs978PO9JCmW3GeDq7_78wGbjYsvgEG0gRkmsCUzS4FcxI2vUmOiKWrIcTvef67PSaTfgUbqUk6-w/s320/9CAF546E-AA2A-465A-918D-2C3AD6C5D722.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRLNhbAP6AuOpXTC4HtUp27YjLKtpxFGgGRV7geWWigzPorkLpGOCDt6Qw04sbhoV1SNN8WM-1yKBXebu8TDvdTXNargP-jTOqmGwEArZaHXd8y65MhGpWTvtQPGPkye60-3icpYSlnol0CL6UYoDUkx-3FZ1pL8yKgdUXjLA6STD9loPaUQwd5-eJWA/s4000/37EAF9CD-74C7-46AE-8766-039821D69881.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRLNhbAP6AuOpXTC4HtUp27YjLKtpxFGgGRV7geWWigzPorkLpGOCDt6Qw04sbhoV1SNN8WM-1yKBXebu8TDvdTXNargP-jTOqmGwEArZaHXd8y65MhGpWTvtQPGPkye60-3icpYSlnol0CL6UYoDUkx-3FZ1pL8yKgdUXjLA6STD9loPaUQwd5-eJWA/s320/37EAF9CD-74C7-46AE-8766-039821D69881.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyIr8lvGntzu5AllJPIpaYmMIVz1D8aVQ-aeHa4AtgJGP07M6GUMYV3LXhUIDmFMNSl8ULyctrkq0lxJbQqOi4SzegW4ok6P9tOI8PBUi9LRa8fisyOMjEY-Fi21g8nb0zBYbsYim32EThTMpPMOe_IBZiFnbPtHGvGBPWIat8xqC0M59SUSVPNuH63w/s4000/1812FADB-6BA3-4EE5-85EA-8582D3946717.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyIr8lvGntzu5AllJPIpaYmMIVz1D8aVQ-aeHa4AtgJGP07M6GUMYV3LXhUIDmFMNSl8ULyctrkq0lxJbQqOi4SzegW4ok6P9tOI8PBUi9LRa8fisyOMjEY-Fi21g8nb0zBYbsYim32EThTMpPMOe_IBZiFnbPtHGvGBPWIat8xqC0M59SUSVPNuH63w/s320/1812FADB-6BA3-4EE5-85EA-8582D3946717.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMCv4yzBEARkrPrcpGUSj1KV6TfcOwqC00gQ0EuEEVtnvGugFdup8v6k7BOX9gtfhsbNEfLrqN9UOSM3d34JeHRXvg-a0KsWuCLeO1R-UL01sNHzaemmEwETCtYMLumSmBmAYFifZoP2kgNq6-H4HTTp2BXVRtRdMfjSkb4-J8_d5JwtXyv-LV4ZfmRw/s4000/6504B994-3A72-4687-9A99-90945EF728D3.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMCv4yzBEARkrPrcpGUSj1KV6TfcOwqC00gQ0EuEEVtnvGugFdup8v6k7BOX9gtfhsbNEfLrqN9UOSM3d34JeHRXvg-a0KsWuCLeO1R-UL01sNHzaemmEwETCtYMLumSmBmAYFifZoP2kgNq6-H4HTTp2BXVRtRdMfjSkb4-J8_d5JwtXyv-LV4ZfmRw/s320/6504B994-3A72-4687-9A99-90945EF728D3.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq2HWLmJVaUFs-O3G-29u1toQZjQVdoGlt85Oe5rh9zt_rOOcBl1u96CFQg68qSuOJeJepiIQaYEXT47P4CqiOF_inuGwPm8JKrihzZpM5_cIFsh7zhZNZfgMEf0HeKkrRQU6qYGZvZqxJqJmprgxHI9uoQHakp1ht3Lum4iedU0bd_fQz1WE1d8KzNQ/s4000/120171B5-EA87-4E7A-8C72-C23DD2956A52.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq2HWLmJVaUFs-O3G-29u1toQZjQVdoGlt85Oe5rh9zt_rOOcBl1u96CFQg68qSuOJeJepiIQaYEXT47P4CqiOF_inuGwPm8JKrihzZpM5_cIFsh7zhZNZfgMEf0HeKkrRQU6qYGZvZqxJqJmprgxHI9uoQHakp1ht3Lum4iedU0bd_fQz1WE1d8KzNQ/s320/120171B5-EA87-4E7A-8C72-C23DD2956A52.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">What was also so special was that so many of the staff I met through the first project were still working there and it was wonderful to reconnect with them over the few days. The children were a delight to be around, confident and competent in their environment, climbing trees, sliding down steep banks, playing in shallow water in the forest and just very content and happy. In 2008 it was one of the things I noticed the most - how happy the children were playing outdoors with very little resources and not a lot of adults interference. Froebel saw autonomy as a key part of a young child and their experience in kindergarten and that is what I observed the most in 2008 and again in 2023 - children were confident to try things for themselves but the adults are skilled enough to know when to step in to assist or extend learning opportunities. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">At one point Beverley turned to me with the biggest smile on her face and said "I get it now" and I knew that she had seen exactly why I wanted to change so much when I came back in 2008 and I am so grateful that she trusted me enough to go along with it all. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL7bFdq6uROZzg_Aqz7-xNd8VQZTvaQuvUrKWql7hmQ8vrIKDO3X6sA47OvxrhGORFh_fNGXBMpHfmn-LKHA8N8kUpAsj7J_w3HpHfAyIukI_PzLyjTnq3CALBIORvF-NciaVZYO5rYszAmlwFubaxFTpDvHz6ickYw1mCGrao45wCwgKPebYwYO08_w/s4032/991CB813-7645-4A5C-A58D-11FC28139EDE.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL7bFdq6uROZzg_Aqz7-xNd8VQZTvaQuvUrKWql7hmQ8vrIKDO3X6sA47OvxrhGORFh_fNGXBMpHfmn-LKHA8N8kUpAsj7J_w3HpHfAyIukI_PzLyjTnq3CALBIORvF-NciaVZYO5rYszAmlwFubaxFTpDvHz6ickYw1mCGrao45wCwgKPebYwYO08_w/w400-h300/991CB813-7645-4A5C-A58D-11FC28139EDE.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beverley and I - without her trust in me I could never have overhauled our setting. </td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I am returning over Easter with another colleague from home and 2 Croatian colleagues to work again in the kindergarten with the outdoor class and the 3-4 year olds and I can't wait to spend more time in this amazing kindergarten. My colleague is at the start of her teaching career and as I near the end of mine I can't wait to see what she brings back from our experience but I am also so angry that the U.K government has robbed younger staff and pupils of these wonderful experiences to grow and evolve practice through European partnerships. </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-3439293805578263792022-10-23T17:37:00.004+01:002022-10-23T17:37:30.638+01:00My Froebelian Journey Part 2<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>"Early Childhood is important in its own righting not merely a preparation for later learning. Learning begins at birth and continues throughout life" </i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Tovey H. (2017) Bringing the Froebel Approach to your Early Years Practice p125</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I am now 3 sessions in to my Froebel in childhood practice certificate and each online session just strengthens my desire to describe my own practice as Froebelian. It feels like I have come home and am among other practitioners who really get how early years education should be offered to our young children and their families. It is very interesting to see how Tina Bruce's Bedrock Principles are so interwoven with a Frobelian approach as it was these principles that resonated the most with me in 2003-2006 when I undertook further studies after my PGCE in Primary Education. I knew I wanted to teach nursery and that I would have to have robust knowledge of how young children learn to be able to be the best advocate for the type of play based curriculum I wanted to offer. My PGCE year was intense and was focused on primary teaching which seemed to be at odds with how I had seen young children learning in nursery when working as an assistant and later a substitute teacher. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The biggest issue for me on teaching practice and then when subbing in primary was that stories were no longer read for pleasure. In nursery I had got used to reading or telling at least one story a day to the whole class, then in primary no story was read without there being questions afterwards or a dreaded worksheet to complete. It seemed like there had to be evidence of learning after every activity instead of trusting that the children were learning all the time. So I knew I needed further studies more based in early years so I could begin to articulate why I wanted to teach a certain way. I enrolled in a Masters in Early Education and it was whilst attending lectures that I was introduced to Bowlby and gained more insight into Vygotsky & Piaget. I heard about Montessori, Steiner and Froebel and began to read widely on practitioners who were influenced by these methods and approaches. One such person was Tina Bruce, I was just so struck by her Principles and I really enjoyed her style of writing. I loved the reading aspect of the Masters and probably spent more time reading in the library than writing my assignments. I devoured Margaret Edginton's The Nursery Teacher in Action and ordered anything written by Cathy Nutbrown. These were practitioners who had confidence in their approaches and were able to be advocates for the young children in their settings. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I was terrible at research however, so decided to do an extra module and get a DASE (Diploma in Advanced Studies in Education) rather than do a dissertation to get a Masters. I really enjoyed the assignments and my then Principal was very helpful and read them for me to critique my writing style and to see if he, with no early years background could understand what I was writing about. This lead to us having an incredible relationship were we both learned from each other and he respected my early years knowledge and I was given a lot of freedom in the running of my class. I remember using Bruce's Principles as a way to explain why I would not be taking my nursery class to assembly or to eat in the dinner hall. I was able to articulate that the nursery year was not a preparation for school or P1 but that the young children in my class had a right to be 3 or 4 and had legitimate feelings and needs that should be met in the safe environment of the nursery classroom. These Principles particularly helped me argue for a more slowed down settling in period and of course this in turn does make it easier for the next teacher but it is not the main goal. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I was very fortunate over the past 18 years to take part in the Comenius and then Erasmus programmes and was able to visit early years settings across Europe and host visits from European pedagogs in my classroom. The idea of kindergarten seems to be so natural and it always baffles me why in Northern Ireland, we only offer our youngest pupils one year of a preschool experience compared to the minimum 3-4 years their European peers are offered. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Sometimes it felt like I was trying to cram 3-4 years of play experiences into 1 year and my day in nursery felt frantic as I tried to have it all. It felt very disjointed with lots of stopping play to transition to the next activity. I had the opportunity to listen to a webinar by the Froebel Trust and first heard the term 'wallowing in play' and it struck me as something I needed to work towards offering in my setting. If I am completely honest the recent Covid 19 pandemic was the turning point for me as a practioner, I was able to take part in many online trainings and webinars and I began to see how I could slow the routine down in my classroom to allow children time to actually get in to deeper play experiences. When visiting European kindergartens I was always struck by the gentle flow of the day, transitions were seamless and didn't always involve the whole class but more importantly staff and children had a lot more trust in each other - it was common for children to be out of sight and rarely did I see a whole group sitting looking an adult awaiting instruction. One big jarring aspect for me in my class was that we needed to clear the room to set up for dinner & this meant the children had to be in the story room for at least 30 minutes every day while the room was set up. I saw lovely dinner routines in the kindergartens I visited and really wanted to offer something similiar but we didn't have the space for a separate eating room or did we? Cue the pandemic and suddenly we closed the doors to families and children were dropped off and picked up from a gate or door and families were no longer coming into the setting & we had a big hallway sitting doing nothing. We took the decision to turn the hallway into a dedicated eating space and create a calm environment where half the class at a time could eat together whilst the other half remained at play. This has had the effect of slowing the whole routine down, children now have a choice, do they want to go for dinner now or in the second group? It allows for a relaxed ebb and flow in the play as the group dynamic changes from 27 to 13 or 14 children. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGQOTkepQ492GKKKelKaENq0R0S649zs3Srpi6ZieTlTilNlmTeH5Ig1RDUZFh2T4x3wfjVM4j0LDe0Q0mXDdvvj_vqcGaCAPjKn2jMhvue7Mr_s3maxmut6Gb1YmTjY1VUIGpGevI_Oeo3YaXl_a3YNG2AzNd52uFjKmLMlSU8riAcmmb4ebAcm9zwQ/s2048/E030C2A7-F8F8-4D8A-810B-E389C6822783.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGQOTkepQ492GKKKelKaENq0R0S649zs3Srpi6ZieTlTilNlmTeH5Ig1RDUZFh2T4x3wfjVM4j0LDe0Q0mXDdvvj_vqcGaCAPjKn2jMhvue7Mr_s3maxmut6Gb1YmTjY1VUIGpGevI_Oeo3YaXl_a3YNG2AzNd52uFjKmLMlSU8riAcmmb4ebAcm9zwQ/w480-h640/E030C2A7-F8F8-4D8A-810B-E389C6822783.heic" width="480" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">Our current set up was inspired by Alison Clarke's research on 'Slow Pedagogy' (available </span><a href="https://www.froebel.org.uk/training/films/slow-pedagogy" style="font-family: arial;" target="_blank"><b><i>here</i></b></a><span style="font-family: arial;"> on the Froebel Trust website) and during the last 2 years I found myself drawing closer and closer to Froebel and those practitioners who are doing their best to reflect his approach in their settings. I love the term 'Slow Pedagogy' and am striving to ensure I try my best to offer such an approach in my classroom. As I continue on my journey I am constantly reminded of why I embarked on further studies over 16 years ago and why I need to keep on learning and connecting with other pedagogues who have similiar outlooks as myself. </span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-54703666915768114592022-09-25T12:24:00.007+01:002022-09-25T12:32:29.448+01:00Enjoying a fire in nursery.<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyI993i8XGUrfNlhrlSb9b6DpGgX8oH73Ru9aQ_cCjf5BiupRQEh0zRi3nRwLfQB6OOfBsLfLdy9zV_Q-8KtY972Qe5MGy5UOVXqN0Dn0m0sIdssZf2CAZwL1goXPkmOGvYAvvqHpeR9kXM0q3SdcRSv52W8Vz37Lbd64T0iigiHo3hHb8ChnAxulJSA/s3264/IMG_8023.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyI993i8XGUrfNlhrlSb9b6DpGgX8oH73Ru9aQ_cCjf5BiupRQEh0zRi3nRwLfQB6OOfBsLfLdy9zV_Q-8KtY972Qe5MGy5UOVXqN0Dn0m0sIdssZf2CAZwL1goXPkmOGvYAvvqHpeR9kXM0q3SdcRSv52W8Vz37Lbd64T0iigiHo3hHb8ChnAxulJSA/w400-h300/IMG_8023.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have now been lighting a fire with my nursery class for over 10 years and at this point it feels very much part of the routine of the class. Before we ever light an actual fire we spend time teaching the children how to move safely around the fire, so as a class we sit round the fire pit and practise how to move seats by walking around the back of the seating area and not moving across the are circle. At present my class of 27 children are still in 2 smaller groups of 14 and 13 for 2 hours per day, so we use this settling in time as the perfect way to introduce fire safety and have a fire while in the smaller groups. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We have a high percentage of children from a Newcomer (English is not their home language) this year so it is even more important to have lots fo practise time to make sure these children have grasped the rules. (If need be we have had families come in and run through the 'rules' with they child in their home language).</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh53wON30bTme8tqoVLQyCNc4WYVBvH_iFjpsGqtPsCbO8cxsw0Nn4Qd7TXYc560DeDaMxT9gnu-j7i5RrLw21BDpSENaiXlcFzXiqkPyKiOV0uwx9ZCrayJQvZaWWH7YiKoqGhWizy8jIuQ1lSILCgQbRyyyAmrdYZH-jR9-sH2ry3NJJVldrWfRw7Xw/s4000/IMG_7919.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh53wON30bTme8tqoVLQyCNc4WYVBvH_iFjpsGqtPsCbO8cxsw0Nn4Qd7TXYc560DeDaMxT9gnu-j7i5RrLw21BDpSENaiXlcFzXiqkPyKiOV0uwx9ZCrayJQvZaWWH7YiKoqGhWizy8jIuQ1lSILCgQbRyyyAmrdYZH-jR9-sH2ry3NJJVldrWfRw7Xw/w400-h300/IMG_7919.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisVPnmXhtEsAE4xiVF8ONCj7KJEZgW31zno77Eqbd9gd1lO8GdtGkhKZoFBTCk3zd1CBAP5Ngx6qcO7Ze6pEVazDWptTiH9TY-iKd6qj8BIe5MDnRddKSrlgo6YaZ_MYj7bZTVCrsm-U89nmYfh7Kdg8CyWUs3XQSCbDSF2BMReMJWVpqChXJ1kpGyDg/s1440/IMG_7921.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="1440" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisVPnmXhtEsAE4xiVF8ONCj7KJEZgW31zno77Eqbd9gd1lO8GdtGkhKZoFBTCk3zd1CBAP5Ngx6qcO7Ze6pEVazDWptTiH9TY-iKd6qj8BIe5MDnRddKSrlgo6YaZ_MYj7bZTVCrsm-U89nmYfh7Kdg8CyWUs3XQSCbDSF2BMReMJWVpqChXJ1kpGyDg/w400-h301/IMG_7921.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">After a few run throughs we felt the groups were ready for a real fire and decided to start with the best science experiment of all times - popcorn. The children were so excited to have a fire but were a little disappointed when they saw the 'raw' popcorn - one child said 'My popcorn at home is big popcorn', so it was wonderful to allow them to see, hear and smell the transformation of the kernels. No matter ho many times I cook popcorn I always love that 'Ooooh' moment when the lid is lifted and the children see the 'big popcorn'. We have had 2 fires now with this class, popcorn and toasted brioche. They love the ritual so far, gathering around the fire pit, watching me set and light it and waiting to see what will happen to the food we are cooking. </span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O2dnEgCPf2w" width="320" youtube-src-id="O2dnEgCPf2w"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EwV0nS2PEX8" width="320" youtube-src-id="EwV0nS2PEX8"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I regularly have other teachers come to visit on our fire days so they can see how it all operates and I am glad to say most if not all, go back to their own settings and begin to have fires with their classes. </span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-21387536386626072252022-09-25T12:03:00.002+01:002022-09-25T12:32:47.500+01:00My Froebelian Journey<p> <span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><b>"Play is the highest level of child development. It is the spontaneous expression of thought and feeling.....This is the meaning of the word 'play'..." </b></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Froebel (1826)in Lilley (1967), p.83-4</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mBf-YxT_OOSfCn6nhvwT-55NmQdEW6MOPTqXwACDvG6MFF5Dt4GdmSTLeSTCo02FqSF6Elty81gDsZmuvBOwUYSp1erw2BM3acyU5uafEoOkgmr7N9wYW31dDHCl--9YHlDKdtpvOpoJx4yEW3WyAS9R4T5pR7fAxTTmPaft41o3IYFRJbDn9BzuYA/s600/photo%20(3).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9mBf-YxT_OOSfCn6nhvwT-55NmQdEW6MOPTqXwACDvG6MFF5Dt4GdmSTLeSTCo02FqSF6Elty81gDsZmuvBOwUYSp1erw2BM3acyU5uafEoOkgmr7N9wYW31dDHCl--9YHlDKdtpvOpoJx4yEW3WyAS9R4T5pR7fAxTTmPaft41o3IYFRJbDn9BzuYA/s320/photo%20(3).JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">For those who are new to my blog or don't know my story, here is a short synopsis. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I went back in 1999 to do my PGCE in Primary Education after years of resisting the pull of teaching. You can read more about that journey in this post: </span><a href="http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-did-i-get-here.html">http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-did-i-get-here.html</a></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">But suffice to say I become a teacher in 2000 and was determined to teach nursery or preschool rather than primary and so as soon as I had a job as a nursery teacher I began my Masters in Early Education so I could have a better understanding of how the young children I was going to be teaching operated and how I could best teach them. I ended up stopping at a DASE (this means I didn't do a dissertation) and this extra qualification certainly gave me the confidence to defend my practice and the rights of the young children I teach to an age appropriate curriculum. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In the past 16 years I have read widely and attended many conferences in person and online and engaged with colleagues across the world to help me develop my knowledge and understanding of the youngest children in our education system. I have been fortunate to visit settings across Europe thanks to different funding programmes and engage in discussions with colleagues across the globe. These visits and interactions have had a huge influence on my practice. During all my time as a nursery teacher I felt myself drawn to one particular theorist - Friedrich Froebel, something about his ideas and approach just resonated with me. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">So here I am 16 years after I finished my DASE in Early Education, embarking on a new course through the University of Edinburgh - A Froebel in Childhood Practice Certificate. This course can be done in person over 2 week in the summer but I am doing it online over 8 months.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">You can find out more about this course here:</span></p><p><a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/education/professional-learning/intensive-courses/froebel">https://www.ed.ac.uk/education/professional-learning/intensive-courses/froebel</a></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I am looking forward to delving deeper into all things Froebel and learning about other settings and practitioners who are already well on their Frobelian journey. I hope it will challenge me as a teacher and help me to introduce some new ideas to my classroom. After just one 3 hour session I already have lots of ideas about engaging families more widely and after the past two years it seems the perfect time to welcome families back into nursery and to strengthen the partnership between school and home. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Even before Covid we spent a huge part of the nursery day outdoors but since 2020 have been based outside for the majority of the nursery day and it was great to learn from Dr Jane Reed that this is exactly how Froebel ran his kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I will be using my blog as a journal to record and reflect on my journey as well as sharing some of the things I get up to with my nursery class. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-18910861178500466662021-04-01T12:28:00.001+01:002021-04-01T13:11:42.514+01:00Let's Visit Numberland!<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWnUxKld0KhK_r-JGVvio-8RfP6g9E61s0Nsw0js4yOkBo-4dmHGlbXMC_lRHzvTW78yoxBd8XWuL7sq3xAxy-6v0rGg-3ymb2lAOyuIAYwRDaPN6HdC8dhr7zmtNfbUOFHWg7NTlYiTwH/s750/NL1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="750" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWnUxKld0KhK_r-JGVvio-8RfP6g9E61s0Nsw0js4yOkBo-4dmHGlbXMC_lRHzvTW78yoxBd8XWuL7sq3xAxy-6v0rGg-3ymb2lAOyuIAYwRDaPN6HdC8dhr7zmtNfbUOFHWg7NTlYiTwH/w400-h300/NL1.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Numberland Numbers from Haba. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <span style="font-family: verdana;">In November 2020 I was fortunate to watch an episode of <a href="https://www.earlyyears.tv" target="_blank">Early Years TV</a> where Kathy Brodie interviewed Barbara Schindelhauer from Numberland. I just loved Barbara's enthusiasm for maths and the concept of Numberland really appealed to me as it encouraged deeper thinking about numbers and attributes of number than just by colour, shape or size. You can visit Barbara's website here: </span><a href="https://www.numberland.net" style="font-family: verdana;">Numberland</a></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">It reminded me of a visit to a Swedish preschool where I saw young children using much deeper thinking about same and different than we would normally see in our settings, a child had brought 3 things that were different to show the teacher and one of the attributes was that the dinosaur was extinct and the other animals were still alive, it was far beyond the 'They all have 4 legs or are green ' that I expected. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">In Numberland each number has a house a garden, I loved that the houses had the amount of corresponding windows for each number and the gardens were shapes that could also have properties connected to that number e.g. a triangle for number 3, a pentagon for number 5 etc. I know as a preschool teacher that young children have no problem seeing anything as an animate object and I knew my class would love the wooden numbers with their faces and the fact that each number has a matching attribute to their numberness e.g. number 2 has 2 feathers on the hat, number 9 has 9 teeth. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja18vFZDqlo9K7IjrSnqcPGY_oVU8Tr1g5BwpGLsljDOMiuBADFcQhcHorkupWqlhnJ5eHb_yeFGbUQGCw_nuUjSWWPofR_zf2_EbqLXSK_V1_3gWeCdthfeyM6vypSrC8MCo3gRbKfzN5/s1009/NLno2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1009" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja18vFZDqlo9K7IjrSnqcPGY_oVU8Tr1g5BwpGLsljDOMiuBADFcQhcHorkupWqlhnJ5eHb_yeFGbUQGCw_nuUjSWWPofR_zf2_EbqLXSK_V1_3gWeCdthfeyM6vypSrC8MCo3gRbKfzN5/s320/NLno2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZIZNpHNAPexrh89rOPtLuenlBFvOmlTvRdOFrKW11YBZDNtpjLEr-6QdMiJmFd_myBpE8VTtYtFrEgzIcGpt1QxsiZuTPs43MspMPrABlkPW8YMx30H-vR2k7w4rPZU5QcSWPnXS0Wgp0/s876/NLno9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="876" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZIZNpHNAPexrh89rOPtLuenlBFvOmlTvRdOFrKW11YBZDNtpjLEr-6QdMiJmFd_myBpE8VTtYtFrEgzIcGpt1QxsiZuTPs43MspMPrABlkPW8YMx30H-vR2k7w4rPZU5QcSWPnXS0Wgp0/s320/NLno9.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I made contact with Barbara straight afterwards and we began chatting through messenger and I ended up buying a set of the wooden numbers for my classroom. When they arrived I was so impressed by the quality and couldn't wait for the children to explore with them. Of course then we went back into lockdown and remote learning so the children didn't get to actually play with them until March. However I took them home with me so I could start to use them with the children during some live sessions. I was fortunate to have some little wooden houses that I could use for numbers as they had the right number of windows. During the live sessions I would hold up a house and the children would shout whose house it was & then they had to go get that same number of objects to show me. </span><p></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn3qRF1_3VwOmwy-DQ2JSe_O-D-3PW_q9p0o6nkdT-XfLyCLn95puAcES9nNQaE3uxQo0g5kz9gbztvQIFKciq2-wgjIuph3-tw0aVY1KP2uaKtzYvxwN4nRgCj7TBu9j1qUg5c39x1FX6/s750/NL2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="750" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn3qRF1_3VwOmwy-DQ2JSe_O-D-3PW_q9p0o6nkdT-XfLyCLn95puAcES9nNQaE3uxQo0g5kz9gbztvQIFKciq2-wgjIuph3-tw0aVY1KP2uaKtzYvxwN4nRgCj7TBu9j1qUg5c39x1FX6/w400-h300/NL2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These wooden houses from Cosy were just perfect!</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I had also downloaded the printable booklet from Numberland and it allowed me to make up laminated paper copies of the numbers, houses and gardens for the children to interact with more readily once we got back to nursery.</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaRCLq_SF6LRp50PeqaPrsdv5Q6HtYk51gSSiFmjixD5Xsvr5bCNBxmOXR5ORXO_HE7sdGTePC6D3wgZkhi6ROBhaNoQ1iJ44Ry4EYNtd9jSEJ4CocfXha5v2Upp1NlLqlJKgwS9w02vXU/s1000/NL3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaRCLq_SF6LRp50PeqaPrsdv5Q6HtYk51gSSiFmjixD5Xsvr5bCNBxmOXR5ORXO_HE7sdGTePC6D3wgZkhi6ROBhaNoQ1iJ44Ry4EYNtd9jSEJ4CocfXha5v2Upp1NlLqlJKgwS9w02vXU/w300-h400/NL3.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The printable Numberland resources. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">The wooden resources are made by Haba in Germany and anyone who has ever come across their products knows just how beautifully made and robust they are. Whilst a colleague was searching for a local supplier for the HABA fire pit she came across an Irish supplier called Jaggo Educational and I was delighted to discover they not only sold the fire pit but also all the Numberland resources, as it was becoming harder for them to be sourced from Germany thanks to Brexit. You can visit their website and specifically the Numberland resources here: <a href="https://www.jaggo.ie/product-category/numberland/" target="_blank">Jaggo</a></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ87QGYGhlhko0JWWIU2pW25EOtdOxGx3PB9N3XtBSmKJ3bKlWo7mpcjb8mwRwrPxDRMLd_zANBvOsFgvCwu_1630cSwUjtoIagpub97zKQSFBMxnk2wm_m4DL2Q8PCmiDeTOpIs9sR8eC/s1440/HABA.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1440" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ87QGYGhlhko0JWWIU2pW25EOtdOxGx3PB9N3XtBSmKJ3bKlWo7mpcjb8mwRwrPxDRMLd_zANBvOsFgvCwu_1630cSwUjtoIagpub97zKQSFBMxnk2wm_m4DL2Q8PCmiDeTOpIs9sR8eC/w400-h294/HABA.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The HABA fire pit that we use weekly in nursery. </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;">Once we got chatting to Jaggo about supplying schools in the North of Ireland a new partnership was formed & I ended up buying a fire pit for my garden too.</span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I also got the Numberland set of wooden houses, more numbers and number lane and blocks to try out with my class. </span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKU3v24MQBNYZrQXo0lYPpNvVBJz_yEHo6UZpraTKT8EmpjBPAKFnylLT5CBAwzjRb8I9GkqMgaL6VxCYLT39oOs-zWvYXJZjknroXOOaWu8VIVGt6IqojerVZdxrqa2dhEJghLe7FBPlU/s750/+NL4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="561" data-original-width="750" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKU3v24MQBNYZrQXo0lYPpNvVBJz_yEHo6UZpraTKT8EmpjBPAKFnylLT5CBAwzjRb8I9GkqMgaL6VxCYLT39oOs-zWvYXJZjknroXOOaWu8VIVGt6IqojerVZdxrqa2dhEJghLe7FBPlU/w400-h299/+NL4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglpu4paQi0x2rOMPNMYLo6JZPqOKpVC0kMtVfu3OsBSVl_ojTefrXQOGgw0F5dMURTa96YJL_r2noqFGnNe3GHgtcaTKeO4l3xPsmHDxMfykfzNayKguNEsaQwbZgZMadxYtzFXSHe-XPN/s750/NL7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="750" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglpu4paQi0x2rOMPNMYLo6JZPqOKpVC0kMtVfu3OsBSVl_ojTefrXQOGgw0F5dMURTa96YJL_r2noqFGnNe3GHgtcaTKeO4l3xPsmHDxMfykfzNayKguNEsaQwbZgZMadxYtzFXSHe-XPN/w400-h300/NL7.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8B4eFPvIXwInaqLiDjsCky4mP-gnatABgMLQbj4tjAuDzjAm38hMI0LzA7X4UFit2xS8RhmtWN-rJO2qjsr7x_7tQPvVwuUWn6sfzBXOdUTX3IMG4bvw-5ox1W5P0yeBj7XLk7IIoI6RX/s750/NL8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="750" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8B4eFPvIXwInaqLiDjsCky4mP-gnatABgMLQbj4tjAuDzjAm38hMI0LzA7X4UFit2xS8RhmtWN-rJO2qjsr7x_7tQPvVwuUWn6sfzBXOdUTX3IMG4bvw-5ox1W5P0yeBj7XLk7IIoI6RX/w400-h300/NL8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">I set the room up for a visit to Numberland and incorporated some of the Play to Learn More methods (read more about that here: </span><a href="http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/10/iceland-leikur-ad-lra-play-to-learn-more.html" style="font-family: verdana;">Play to Learn More</a><span style="font-family: verdana;">)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">The children loved the concept of going to visit the numbers in their land and getting to see where they lived etc. After a few small group sessions I then allowed the children to just play freely with the numbers and their houses - 0-4. It was lovely to hear them chatting to each other and saying 'hey number 2 can I come visit you?' and 'Number 3 you would like this bike because it has 3 wheels' etc.</span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUABKr19zTkg5Mu1lpDO9XHbc66mgGxVRYtNR4I-a0Gc6J3G8lYB612SRiiCXEpJog0chn9g5ygSi8wPYKnCcaQWLPoGoO44BQU4z2Al4Ed29HnOQFcOFXr9jFN2qQlT5AJuu4I-4XXJqA/s750/NL5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="750" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUABKr19zTkg5Mu1lpDO9XHbc66mgGxVRYtNR4I-a0Gc6J3G8lYB612SRiiCXEpJog0chn9g5ygSi8wPYKnCcaQWLPoGoO44BQU4z2Al4Ed29HnOQFcOFXr9jFN2qQlT5AJuu4I-4XXJqA/w400-h300/NL5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">For after Easter I have set up 1-3 on a little table for the children to play with and during Numberland sessions in small groups we can explore more deeply who or what might visit each number because of their attibutes e.g. a cat could visit number 1 because she has 1 tail or number 4 because of her legs etc. </span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdZtJ8cdvjR-XXh9ME0n7vyuRV-dpMXAMZnmAxnWdSyZp6W3xh9FD9Z0pmrV9gbCTzPLBt_hu6F2d_LtnOehSEJ6HKOaWellVzVaeDQD1SBqfPHXs1ofhq-v9O_fUlnyglg1GOJLXwnhj0/s750/NL6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="750" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdZtJ8cdvjR-XXh9ME0n7vyuRV-dpMXAMZnmAxnWdSyZp6W3xh9FD9Z0pmrV9gbCTzPLBt_hu6F2d_LtnOehSEJ6HKOaWellVzVaeDQD1SBqfPHXs1ofhq-v9O_fUlnyglg1GOJLXwnhj0/w400-h300/NL6.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">I can't wait to see the children interact more and more with these beautiful resources and to learn more from Barbara. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p><br /></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-47562783628518599052021-01-11T12:30:00.000+00:002021-01-11T12:37:34.855+00:00Play Based Learning <p><span style="font-family: verdana;">So here in N. Ireland we are back to online learning as schools are closed to the majority of pupils. Moving online this Lockdown should been more manageable for most as schools have spent the last few months upskilling staff and pupils for this very situation - even though we would all prefer to teach face to face any day. </span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjruXH6GSbTjAtEyWm6gO8m7xS2TzTpVVlb4iO5XS-1FpHVY_0qOtP9Xwq_Gca1kPhHsS_hscSMmAhO8fMNOpvqAdqmQK5JgvbYoZwWNqhCDzXh3wprNqnL3lmnNsX5gAVPFVZiHOncIoJ1/s2048/DSCF0684.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjruXH6GSbTjAtEyWm6gO8m7xS2TzTpVVlb4iO5XS-1FpHVY_0qOtP9Xwq_Gca1kPhHsS_hscSMmAhO8fMNOpvqAdqmQK5JgvbYoZwWNqhCDzXh3wprNqnL3lmnNsX5gAVPFVZiHOncIoJ1/s320/DSCF0684.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Play with water outdoors to explore match and science. <br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;">In preschool a lot of classes already use an online tool to keep in touch with parents and share what is going on in the classroom so that makes it easy to switch to home learning in many ways but this pandemic has made it harder to let parents experience a play based curriculum in person. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Normally at this time of the year we would have a whole term behind us and parents would have been in and out of the classroom on a regular basis. In my setting many would have spent at least 10-15 minutes playing outside each morning with their child, joined us on school trips and visits and taken part in Stay and Play sessions. Even at pick up time, many parents would have enjoyed their child showing them what resources they had been playing with that afternoon or hoped to play with the next day. Monday to Thursday parents and children would have poured over a selection of books to take home and enjoy each evening. Last term was so different and definitely not how a preschool experience should be for parents. Parents have had to drop their children at the playground gate and pick them up from the back door every day, they haven't got into the school building at all and haven't been able to stay to see their child playing in the playground. I have uploaded videos and photos to our class app and school website but it is not the same as actually getting to spend an hour or two in the nursery or on a trip with us.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBLcqurBodIrgl-zWBFLwQgVFQr8I6Li4Q_1ITTRjn1bZic98axWHaDazFQLu4kSmxp_Z4jo1__ddMvJxMc8Chfg2QeAT5qPLlsjO7f943NkIksf5F_IF1l-sWJ5R17wCNM45F4NE6o8O/s2048/IMG_1229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBLcqurBodIrgl-zWBFLwQgVFQr8I6Li4Q_1ITTRjn1bZic98axWHaDazFQLu4kSmxp_Z4jo1__ddMvJxMc8Chfg2QeAT5qPLlsjO7f943NkIksf5F_IF1l-sWJ5R17wCNM45F4NE6o8O/s320/IMG_1229.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Make shapes, letters or numbers outdoors. </td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">So, now we move to online learning for our nursery children and for many parents this is an anxious time, especially if they have other older children at home and are trying to juggle work for themselves too. But as I listened to many questions from anxious parents I realised what an impact NOT being in the nursery this year has had on their perceptions of learning for a preschooler. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">For a preschooler the next few weeks are not about sitting up at a table learning letter, shapes or numbers from books or tracing letters etc. In my setting all learning is done through play, at no point do we sit the children down and say 'Now we are going to learn shapes etc.' and that isn't how it should be done at home either. </span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEnxFCjRrI5BPIBy1YvP4mDjbk58uMSr36p1iPY6WqTCfNimy-ybPgC3eemQqlVTiV97ZDPke0aNWEK_rwtfKL7RakDVmLhfVg06LZyVkitvy8fq3qe2b4No6RDPogSdij9_gj_60t6Fvu/s746/23+030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEnxFCjRrI5BPIBy1YvP4mDjbk58uMSr36p1iPY6WqTCfNimy-ybPgC3eemQqlVTiV97ZDPke0aNWEK_rwtfKL7RakDVmLhfVg06LZyVkitvy8fq3qe2b4No6RDPogSdij9_gj_60t6Fvu/s320/23+030.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Learning all about shapes whilst playing<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;">There are 4 parts to the nursery day that I think it would be helpful to try and have at home some days - snack, lunch, tidy up and story are big transition times of the nursery day and they provide a welcome break between other types of play and learning. This year our day is even less structured and all the staff agree that is is a more pleasant day for all concerned. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">If parents want to help their child learn at home set up their toys for them and encourage your children to play independently for at least 30 minutes, if you have other children at home even better as they can play together. Let children role play and dress up, let them play with small world figures - people, animals etc. encourage them to chat away as they play, if you have time to join is do but it is important for them to learn to play on their own too. As children play with their small toys they are learning how to sort - they might put all the small animals together or all the ones on 2 legs or ones with babies. they might sort by colour, shape or size. Hopefully you will hear them chattering away to themselves as they try to make sense of their world through play - you will probably hear 'your voice' in there sometimes too as children repeat phrases you might say to them a lot. I always enjoy but also cringe when I see children playing out being the teacher with their peers and see them holding a book like I do or saying things they have heard me say (I hear the phrase 'Excuse me' a lot as I must say this as a way to show I am not happy with some behaviour!)</span></p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc8xuRNDigwf-14pb3-Wc1_8oFu1xDNrvfJ2Q5xDVl2Zlon-hnVtDSJ9gJeQUpBrxj-7jmuaGlvLUGOdVP2df98SiIuXA-s-NcZ5MYB5nK4lcWKgrFMXDsze1ZdfQatN5UDGhp4NtxdW-q/s2048/IMG_3693.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc8xuRNDigwf-14pb3-Wc1_8oFu1xDNrvfJ2Q5xDVl2Zlon-hnVtDSJ9gJeQUpBrxj-7jmuaGlvLUGOdVP2df98SiIuXA-s-NcZ5MYB5nK4lcWKgrFMXDsze1ZdfQatN5UDGhp4NtxdW-q/s320/IMG_3693.HEIC" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Play a game to teach prepositions - put crocodile in front of, side, behind etc. <br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;">You could have a couple different types of play set up for them - building with blocks, lego etc. and drawing, small world play and books, don't be afraid to set out the clean laundry and ask children to sort it into piles of who it belongs to in the family, sorting socks is a great skill and a fun task for children whilst a terrible one for adults! Get them to sort out the cutlery too. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">if you can set them up at the sink with some water and toys and allow them to explore early maths and science through water play - this can of course be done outside too with a basin or bucket. Young children will endlessly fill and pour from one container to another and this is all great for understanding capacity and volume. On these very cold nights fill up some old containers with water and put some small toys into them and have fun trying to get them out the next day if they freeze.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">If you have time, the biggest thing you can do is read with your child or get an older sibling to, they will benefit from time reading aloud and the younger child will gain so much. When reading one to one a child gets time to look at the pictures and discover small details, they are hearing rhyming words and understanding how words sound and this will all help them when begin to learn to read. You can point out 'their' letter when it appears in words and what other names or words have that letter. In preschool it is all about giving a context to learning - it is more important that a child recognise their letter in lots of different places that they learn to recite the alphabet without knowing what the letters actually mean. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Young children learn by doing and by having fun rather than sitting up at a table with books etc. Go for a walk if you can and have fun counting how many steps between lamp posts, what numbers you can see or letters or shapes. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">During the next few weeks I'll try and write a few more posts about how to try and have some fun whilst learning at home. Best of luck to everyone who is trying to home school, work from home and manage younger children. You can do this and schools have got your back. </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-71600481129298456072020-12-18T10:24:00.010+00:002022-09-25T12:45:17.392+01:00Seeing the positives of a pandemic!<p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We made it - my class survived the first term in nursery during a worldwide pandemic and man do I feel like I have dodged a huge moving juggernaut. I am fortunate to have lots of fellow educators around the world to connect with and share ideas, compare notes and tease out solutions to problems. I would have been lost without the friendship and support of these people the last few months as we navigated the unknown terrain of teaching with a deadly virus amidst us. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have tried my best to remain upbeat, I am an optimist after all but at times it was so hard to ignore the criticism being heaped on schools - we were lazy and hiding away during the initial lockdown and then we were being unrealistic when asking for lots of reassurances before reopening and now again we are being accused of being difficult and whinging because schools were asking for early closure so staff and families could relax and know they would not be self isolating over Christmas. We just can't win it seems. The same people who were calling for schools to open and 'get on with it' are now calling for them to close and it is so frustrating that we, the actual people in the thick of it are usually the last to know anything. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">But this is not a post where I moan and complain about how the powers that be seem to really dislike school staff, instead I am going to reflect on the all the good things that have emerged during the past few months in my setting.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvE2wRgbZEvaN_FBoXdYGw5Q31TedJ75xomyfUVGVBMB1rdkQqVIJkNzlgkTLnIcKxW3-2DCNyMn8kHT12_gGOVdAXRMp9pPmr_FxVELFiD7NpvIbcmg5NCc4pIQb7hw35Wzh-Xvrb5Nt0/s2048/E030C2A7-F8F8-4D8A-810B-E389C6822783.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvE2wRgbZEvaN_FBoXdYGw5Q31TedJ75xomyfUVGVBMB1rdkQqVIJkNzlgkTLnIcKxW3-2DCNyMn8kHT12_gGOVdAXRMp9pPmr_FxVELFiD7NpvIbcmg5NCc4pIQb7hw35Wzh-Xvrb5Nt0/w300-h400/E030C2A7-F8F8-4D8A-810B-E389C6822783.heic" width="300" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our lovely new dedicated dining area. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">A very wise friend, who used to be an inspector but is now an educational consultant, advised me to keep track of the benefits of any of the changes implemented because of Covid so I could justify why I was keeping them when we can go back to a normal school day. I loved this idea because I can see so many benefits to the changes we had to make and like my favourite tool, a risk benefit analysis, I can already see the benefits of the changes far outweigh any negatives. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">So what changes will we be keeping? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We have always started our day outdoors and can't imagine doing this any other way after 13 years BUT we never start outdoors during the initial settling in period. There are too many indoor skills to be taught first so we usually don't start the outdoor session until the 4th or 5th day. The children have to learn where the toilets are, where to hang their coats up, store their change of clothes, put their artwork etc. and that is all indoors, normally after 3 days of repeating these tasks we feel we can now start outdoors but this year we settled everyone in from outdoors and it worked so we definitely won't be starting indoors again. In fact we didn't go indoors for the first week at all except to show a child where the toilet was. We settled the children in much slower and in smaller groups and I will argue to keep this too, we had 6-7 children for 2 hours over 4 days and it was so lovely to get to know them in the small group and to feel they were happy to explore the playground in a small group. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhMpahIJa_VyrVtHodQGnSfIzoJCDOJXbwS0ilz2UzslUECQeB_LUd-CMIZJ7U4e7yxe2BqaI0M48R3SNaco3rRNL3yk-JmoMLZEdzdo4GI6LEy9IixAlpebblIdgBQIqnJWc1Ii9imUFA/s1920/IMG_7963.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhMpahIJa_VyrVtHodQGnSfIzoJCDOJXbwS0ilz2UzslUECQeB_LUd-CMIZJ7U4e7yxe2BqaI0M48R3SNaco3rRNL3yk-JmoMLZEdzdo4GI6LEy9IixAlpebblIdgBQIqnJWc1Ii9imUFA/w225-h400/IMG_7963.JPG" width="225" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Coming down the path to head to Bear Woods and this is how the families leave the nursery each day too.</span> </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;">Our restart document had allowed for parents in the playground at settling in time and we took full advantage of this with the small groups of 6-7 children, we did ask only one parent to attend if possible and they dotted themselves around the outdoor space over the 2 days of their child only attending 1 hour. We also had their taster day of 1 hour in August rather than June and we are definitely keeping this as it was much easier to meet the children on week and then have them come back the next week to actually start nursery. And this was the first year in a long time that most parents were away and children settled within the first week. We had 3 children who were more reluctant to say goodbye but even those parents were away within 30 minutes each morning. The biggest asset we have is that our entrance gate leads straight from the carpark into the playground and a few years ago we got holes cut into it to allow children to say goodbye through the gate and then watch parents drive or walk away. But guess what? We are in our building 14 years and they was the first time we ever thought to use the second gate we have at the other end of the playground! Home time has always been staggered over 15 minutes but as parents were having to stand 2 metres apart there was a real traffic jam at home time as one parent was leaving and another trying to come in the gate, so we started to look at how we could alleviate this without having parents come into the building. It was at his point we remembered we had 2 gates and so we now use one as an entrance and the other as an exit and everyone is easily accommodated in the 15 minutes. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We also realised that this other 'exit' gate was a much better way for us to take the children out of the playground to go to <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/09/new-experiences-are-good.html" target="_blank">Bear Woods</a> </i>as it avoids being near the carpark and we can let the children go ahead down the path at the side of the nursery on the way back and into the playground by themselves. I have no idea why it took us 14 years to realise this but there you go!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">The fact that we have so much moveable furniture on wheels has also really come into itself this term, we simply moved the unit where children put artwork, hats, gloves, notes or water bottles into from the hallway into the classroom at the back door so they can gather everything on their way home. They can also now put their artwork straight into the drawers instead of having to walk across the classroom and out into the hallway - where some invariable got distracted by books or toys and an adult had to go look for them. We won't ever use the hallway as it was before so that unit can stay at the back door and we will also use this as the main entrance from now as it is under the covered area and allows parents to collect their children from the building whilst staying dry on wet days. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">You can read about how we have turned our hallway into a dining area in this post:</span><a href="http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2020/10/can-we-fix-this-yes-we-can.html"><b><i><span style="font-family: verdana;">http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2020/10/can-we-fix-this-yes-we-can.html</span></i></b></a> <span style="font-family: verdana;">and suffice to say that will be staying as is no matter what. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Another positive is that all the children could put their own coats on by the middle of October. Normally we start outdoors and then move indoors so it is rare that the children are taking coats off and on again everyday. But now with so much hand washing and coming indoors to eat snack and dinner, they are taking their coats on and off a lot this year. One of the main assistants had always tried to show the children how to use the Montessori Coat Flip to put their coats on but as it wasn't a regular activity it never really 'took' but this year it has been amazing. The children are so proud of themselves and enjoy putting their coats on and some are now moving onto zipping them up unaided too. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Not having to clear the room for dinner has been the biggest change for us and one that we will fight to keep. This has had a huge impact on the routine of the day as normally we had to stop everything at some point in the morning to tidy up and then have story so the room could be set up for dinner. Now that we eat in a dedicated space that is set up already we can just play away uninterrupted and call half the class at a time for snack and dinner. Both myself and the main assistant visited a meeting in Finland last October and we both feel that we now have that same relaxed feel that we got in this kindergarten and that I have witnessed in settings in Iceland, Sweden and Norway. The nursery day flows even easier now we aren't stopping everything to hear the classroom for dinner. We are seeing a totally different ebb and flow to the play as well as the children have longer periods to enjoy playing together and in smaller groups as the day unfolds. It is lovely to have smaller groups playing for at least 30 minutes through the day as the other group is eating inside. We are also seeing that some children are getting that opportunity to warm up to play before deciding to put on their rain gear and go and play with water or in the mud kitchen whereas before they would have been told it was too late to do that as we were getting ready to go indoors or have dinner. Now if children are in their rain gear we simply take their coats off but keep the dungarees on over dinner and then they can go straight back into messy pay again afterwards. </span></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBMSeFdFybOzB6ef1VYOOrMzbFS6cAXJUUbCo_bmViXaPgx0_-tmoNYbKZsvNATbpwfhNwTBsNTWBEdamxGPHr0v4827qQFqd8uLj5MD1uExDzg2TPjgAt5q2sL0jqiMi33SjAOGtnVexF/s1080/IMG_7964.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBMSeFdFybOzB6ef1VYOOrMzbFS6cAXJUUbCo_bmViXaPgx0_-tmoNYbKZsvNATbpwfhNwTBsNTWBEdamxGPHr0v4827qQFqd8uLj5MD1uExDzg2TPjgAt5q2sL0jqiMi33SjAOGtnVexF/w400-h400/IMG_7964.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Having time to enjoy playing with friends outdoors over a longer period has huge benefits. </span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;">We also decided to let them take their shoes/boots off in the dining area to recreate that more homely feel and they love this and it is definitely one to keep too. We now have a long tuff spot just for shoes in the dining area. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixNmNYMma8z5i4WogmbsXPCEM6OC3kx12eFXI9cqImy3Wmx4GiclfIAuORNC684i_DKI2yjN-6BnfqPP49SAzYKjCqYn_CjkLztMGzy3aJZAmHTpeUkEHep_XmzeQIaUpwzZE4YlM3qiPY/s968/21F3BD26-8B06-4E6D-B79C-56D19EC76178_1_201_a.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="968" data-original-width="878" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixNmNYMma8z5i4WogmbsXPCEM6OC3kx12eFXI9cqImy3Wmx4GiclfIAuORNC684i_DKI2yjN-6BnfqPP49SAzYKjCqYn_CjkLztMGzy3aJZAmHTpeUkEHep_XmzeQIaUpwzZE4YlM3qiPY/w363-h400/21F3BD26-8B06-4E6D-B79C-56D19EC76178_1_201_a.jpeg" width="363" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Taking shoes/boots off to eat has proved very popular. </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br />Another nursery colleague said to me that she now felt we were back to how nursery was supposed to be before we all tried to recreate too many routines and do too much rather than simply letting the children play and I totally agree. I thought I had a relaxed, play based day until the term when I look back and realise how it was more like a hamster wheel of activities as we tried to cram too much in a 5 hour day. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">If we can we spend the day outdoors, only coming in to eat and for a story at the end of the day and so far it has fabulous. Obviously why the colder, wet days on the New Year we will probably move indoors around 11.30 so one group can have dinner and the other play in the classroom before swapping over. This means we have turned our day around and now spend the majority of time outdoors with a maximum of 40 minutes spend at indoor play, we will of course review this as the year progresses. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">So in conclusion, I won't miss all the cleaning and worrying about catching this virus but I will definitely be thankful that we had this opportunity to rediscover the joy of a truly play based curriculum and being based more outdoors than indoors. </span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy54tYQdI8_C8d4YMPRMc-Xu06tJXdsbKfccRzW7hi_DKWWzeik9N2HljzHtBzHAo2ByfYTn3BDlKWLZm6q3hQzA_yrK7QL9nO3kyOAiUbIG7S3Mi7aPQ3qlCBvF4LusfWHeM3irdlahND/s1080/E9CCC3F0-9672-48CC-AADC-389BAA193D64.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy54tYQdI8_C8d4YMPRMc-Xu06tJXdsbKfccRzW7hi_DKWWzeik9N2HljzHtBzHAo2ByfYTn3BDlKWLZm6q3hQzA_yrK7QL9nO3kyOAiUbIG7S3Mi7aPQ3qlCBvF4LusfWHeM3irdlahND/w400-h400/E9CCC3F0-9672-48CC-AADC-389BAA193D64.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If we need to we can get the whole class seated for dinner together. </td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><br /><br /></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-696983230085009932020-10-13T19:58:00.001+01:002020-12-18T08:59:30.163+00:00Can we 'fix' this - yes we can!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXo8f0VmHrlYEdzlk_7uB7Fmgh6OoJjpqeKFXjbUcLYJRDtnROVi0TGC3xxmv8qi5PF_9dViPn83uTb8z9AjDgn8CWNjsUm2GXGYwlFntvbrecAnFKFts8r6QxibhmhAxW7zS3rjH_K09W/s2048/IMG_7215.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXo8f0VmHrlYEdzlk_7uB7Fmgh6OoJjpqeKFXjbUcLYJRDtnROVi0TGC3xxmv8qi5PF_9dViPn83uTb8z9AjDgn8CWNjsUm2GXGYwlFntvbrecAnFKFts8r6QxibhmhAxW7zS3rjH_K09W/s320/IMG_7215.HEIC" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPL32NSh17mvXlV_K-qU_HaK18NPv18asWOn_Tt3SrJ6uBScU8oE8Qx3ufcgupM7oo4v5au6P4QasnlfWGQVV5KvLd2OY9mgktAJT0IN4F8Atv2ENqJzXDyC21iPBSb0QrU7M1Jg3I2chP/s2048/IMG_7216.HEIC" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPL32NSh17mvXlV_K-qU_HaK18NPv18asWOn_Tt3SrJ6uBScU8oE8Qx3ufcgupM7oo4v5au6P4QasnlfWGQVV5KvLd2OY9mgktAJT0IN4F8Atv2ENqJzXDyC21iPBSb0QrU7M1Jg3I2chP/s320/IMG_7216.HEIC" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Early Years people are great at finding solutions, we generally don't wait around for others to tell us what to do, we go off and find ways to make things happen for ourselves. This became very apparent to me recently during the months before we returned to school after lockdown. I attended lots of on line seminars and workshops and realised that I enjoyed the ones attended by fellow early years people the best. I always came away with lots of ideas and felt very positive after listening to the solutions people around the globe were coming up with to help get back into school and to help the children settle in as easily as possible. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I stored away many of the ideas as I listened or read about them - like the idea of having a bubble machine to help distract children as they had to leave their parents after a longer than usual time at home. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">When we were told that in the new norm of school reopening parents couldn't be in the building, we had already decided to have settling in time outside so parents could stay initially long before this advice was given by our Education restart committee. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This pandemic has thrown us all into disarray and caused lots of things that we normally do to be taken away or changed. At another webinar run by Playboard NI the speaker talked about how we, the adults would struggle with how the new school day looked but that the children would accept whatever we presented as normal. This is especially true for me as a nursery teacher, the children have never been to my class before (bar one) so whatever I present as a normal day, is what they accept. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">When we went getting ready to start back, it became clear that our hallway wasn't going to be used like it always had - the children used it to hang up their coats, store spare clothing and each child had a drawer for paintings, drawings, notes home etc. in a unit. Parents would come right into the hallway and spend time chatting to each other. We also used it as space for small group activities like Play to Learn More sessions. But now it was going to be a huge cloakroom that was a totally underused space. The 2 of us who work together looked at it with fresh eyes and wondered if we could use it as space for eating snack? Previously our snack was outside and the children could come and go freely but now we were going to have to sit with them to hand out food, so we decided to put a table out into the hallway and use it for snack. At settling in time the children were in smaller groups of 15 & 12 and just stayed for 2 hours, so we took them inside for snack in groups of 5 or 6. It was a lovely time to chat to the children and help them learn the names etc. Once we had used the space for snack we began to think if we could use it for dinner too, obviously we couldn't get all 27 eating at the same time but we thought we might get 13-14 at a time if we could get suitable seating. I began to look at new tables and benches that would allow us to have a dedicated dining space and luckily thought a combination of funding we were able to buy 2 large tables and a smaller one from the outdoor range at Hope Education. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-o5ekVuPJaoAfU-1jFTXWqURJb5E9bCf4erloTXrb8S_R_1-NlBLPKSlJGggMeZm1JJ5TCugbDtfZPWvmn7az7-YwsIXEIIxNxXz_vanVOuz8i-57T6OLBqiKdAIl83M9pQ15JEX5eN1H/s1080/IMG_7221.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-o5ekVuPJaoAfU-1jFTXWqURJb5E9bCf4erloTXrb8S_R_1-NlBLPKSlJGggMeZm1JJ5TCugbDtfZPWvmn7az7-YwsIXEIIxNxXz_vanVOuz8i-57T6OLBqiKdAIl83M9pQ15JEX5eN1H/s320/IMG_7221.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5syewJ5Tgio9mD3QH8Mu2eGpDHh5ycUMOoPlsdDVQSFiimHguFebnC_TM1TO-xxqXZ9HftGRksH9Wzv6xrxH62HYKPVLYVzeOISaCysj6JzCRvca02TQKnWRip7ec8s6JV6zQZ3yAqIYL/s1080/IMG_7222.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5syewJ5Tgio9mD3QH8Mu2eGpDHh5ycUMOoPlsdDVQSFiimHguFebnC_TM1TO-xxqXZ9HftGRksH9Wzv6xrxH62HYKPVLYVzeOISaCysj6JzCRvca02TQKnWRip7ec8s6JV6zQZ3yAqIYL/s320/IMG_7222.JPG" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGSIxLxx68dqDii0s4f-bNlZn1v9eTpVwPEmCOQrwrwizGvwEAI1ooljZHEiLjBtCa_pXT-W7bee2YZjbgdB4h6aHML2_mYuTsTXNJWRm1aew0VtPKuQYiUfXYfaiaLpUHiFb6jrp-vpRA/s2048/B39DFA37-C70A-450E-B4E6-1DDA7AAAD6BD.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGSIxLxx68dqDii0s4f-bNlZn1v9eTpVwPEmCOQrwrwizGvwEAI1ooljZHEiLjBtCa_pXT-W7bee2YZjbgdB4h6aHML2_mYuTsTXNJWRm1aew0VtPKuQYiUfXYfaiaLpUHiFb6jrp-vpRA/s320/B39DFA37-C70A-450E-B4E6-1DDA7AAAD6BD.heic" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0dcmUvYIxnwEEUgkD_kO0Du4LI3lxbaBGtSGa5X35mnSZJl1eX7V4TtbRWZJew-Wie5XKeHWjZdnRQAy-ZNoIubOnZtVFwExElw5wY_5mzGJYqy8VcmPMKV5a-E9U7gsToJq1bD34xSiN/s2048/EF0BBB6D-3AF2-4E95-8E0C-0745D692C76B.heic" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0dcmUvYIxnwEEUgkD_kO0Du4LI3lxbaBGtSGa5X35mnSZJl1eX7V4TtbRWZJew-Wie5XKeHWjZdnRQAy-ZNoIubOnZtVFwExElw5wY_5mzGJYqy8VcmPMKV5a-E9U7gsToJq1bD34xSiN/s320/EF0BBB6D-3AF2-4E95-8E0C-0745D692C76B.heic" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">In previous years we had made coloured glass lanterns with the children to put candles into and had some left over that I used in the story room to create a more relaxed atmosphere. We brought them out into the hallway and got fairy lights and LED tea lights instead of candles to soften the light so we don't need the overhead fluorescent lights on. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This immediately seemed to make the atmosphere much calmer and the children were definitely quieter than when the 'big lights' were on. We also have a TV screen that we use to show photos taken that month and the children enjoy looking at these too whilst eating. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Today we had our first dinners in the new space and it was just wonderful, with only half of the class at a time, it was very quiet and the adult has time to talk to the children. They sat chatting to each other across the tables more easily than before and with benches they were less inclined to be pushing chairs in and out. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">I have been fortunate to visit settings around the globe and was always very envious of their dining spaces, where the adults and children sat together chatting in a very relaxed manner. This was exactly what I wanted to recreate and today as I sat watching the children eating their dinner was the first time I felt we had managed to recreate a little of the lovely relaxed atmosphere I have seen in many Scandinavian settings. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">So, although the world seems like a crazy and quite scary place right now, we have managed to find something good to come out of all this and hopefully the children will enjoy this lovely calm space for many years to come. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqbG71nNpjR9F4fnBwgi-NLZCVNgyL5kafyNZtYhAjO83e8Kunwod4MF7F9rHfoWMRUk8poqsim5ZrJdDkA1WbONlS3NEoVkBPDqisTYt13XlX4w2YlDwMp7uvRjyva6hGCUZaCJzhJT0N/s1080/IMG_7223.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqbG71nNpjR9F4fnBwgi-NLZCVNgyL5kafyNZtYhAjO83e8Kunwod4MF7F9rHfoWMRUk8poqsim5ZrJdDkA1WbONlS3NEoVkBPDqisTYt13XlX4w2YlDwMp7uvRjyva6hGCUZaCJzhJT0N/s320/IMG_7223.JPG" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></span><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-54234517800491703152020-10-02T16:40:00.000+01:002020-10-02T18:43:44.110+01:00A first visit to Bear Woods for the Class of 2020<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWOQ_9pF9nhhlZXHtR-l_G-_29lIcXC6Mis7kPWUAiETWpej-bwpf5zCArr9erHqPKoMLtUTqR7rJ2bVEysUPZjwN42C5k50TIiV0cr1iSB0jEC-WM2ODB5qPKOmVlYbVLERFP-wY1PIA/s1080/IMG_7061.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWOQ_9pF9nhhlZXHtR-l_G-_29lIcXC6Mis7kPWUAiETWpej-bwpf5zCArr9erHqPKoMLtUTqR7rJ2bVEysUPZjwN42C5k50TIiV0cr1iSB0jEC-WM2ODB5qPKOmVlYbVLERFP-wY1PIA/w640-h640/IMG_7061.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;">The 27 children have all settled into nursery over the past few weeks. This week has been their first in the big class after spending almost 4 weeks in smaller groups of 15 and 12 for just 2 hours a day. This week and next they will be staying for 3 hours before starting full time from the 12th October (all going well!)</span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">We are normally outside every morning for at least an hour and have 2 outdoor days when we stay out all day, just coming in for story and dinner. This year, due to Covid-19 we are staying outside 3 days and only coming in for snack and for an hour 2 days. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwCEd7eyj5vujn4qTpunBUVEZeNh8PCDsyRuhFWJhH2DRDaz8ejy1w2lGJc1peTqV72BuujhHeYbNvabWQGmu1q-JmCqj_tKSQsWtrwT7CSVG1MXz6Y2uUWvq0XUNlErBUHCmBD40ZaYt_/s1080/IMG_7062.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwCEd7eyj5vujn4qTpunBUVEZeNh8PCDsyRuhFWJhH2DRDaz8ejy1w2lGJc1peTqV72BuujhHeYbNvabWQGmu1q-JmCqj_tKSQsWtrwT7CSVG1MXz6Y2uUWvq0XUNlErBUHCmBD40ZaYt_/w400-h400/IMG_7062.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-IjzlRUj_WkaMOpUGdLE-EO9m1MiMyDa0jZmAbcHAbxTBP881Rm2Bo0UyA0nM2fT96sxj4xgp7ZCK6JS71Jh5weJM3EhobC5D0MhaM4IZc5GokVHJ7ABx14EgtI1F6bnPRkdaUESfHXZ/s1080/IMG_7063.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG-IjzlRUj_WkaMOpUGdLE-EO9m1MiMyDa0jZmAbcHAbxTBP881Rm2Bo0UyA0nM2fT96sxj4xgp7ZCK6JS71Jh5weJM3EhobC5D0MhaM4IZc5GokVHJ7ABx14EgtI1F6bnPRkdaUESfHXZ/w400-h400/IMG_7063.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWotE6PB2TVAZSH-lUi9UPOL0SHyS5mN0UhwJ8vX4rEP5ZCJgoA7zmQAbOixZYtpb3VTKux8jhhW443eBlxUmQmbGkc3DBhL6oAK-NyQLhgstb1IO8fYC-nmGZpCdwil-VPvKXTV8RE69J/s1080/IMG_7064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWotE6PB2TVAZSH-lUi9UPOL0SHyS5mN0UhwJ8vX4rEP5ZCJgoA7zmQAbOixZYtpb3VTKux8jhhW443eBlxUmQmbGkc3DBhL6oAK-NyQLhgstb1IO8fYC-nmGZpCdwil-VPvKXTV8RE69J/w400-h400/IMG_7064.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo_gA2EM2QnZsNBNQywH1ytq-Qipv0soWb-REIDSuGmgAVygvR1eiZ2tIShAjqKId0cQRUs6CeVgG0faIzNkSZ2zBHdt8YTaeCE0_ccYayXXpC4ZdVUy3kliJoYxoeV3CyvARMuvU9YK17/s1080/IMG_7065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo_gA2EM2QnZsNBNQywH1ytq-Qipv0soWb-REIDSuGmgAVygvR1eiZ2tIShAjqKId0cQRUs6CeVgG0faIzNkSZ2zBHdt8YTaeCE0_ccYayXXpC4ZdVUy3kliJoYxoeV3CyvARMuvU9YK17/w400-h400/IMG_7065.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">Today all the children got on their rain gear and went for a visit to Bear Woods. We have now been using this wooded space within school grounds since 2014 and one of our current P7 children gave it the name Bear Woods. It is now truly a proper woods and the children have the opportunity to hide among the trees and climb on a big log we have up there and climb up the slope using a rope and roll down the hill. They enjoy looking at their older brothers and sisters over the fence in the main school playground. We have a shed up there where we can keep chalk and tarps etc. so the children had a lot of fun drawing on the shed. There are also mirrored numbers hidden amongst the trees. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVwmwdXAgsrQ7UEHY3TZuWshTvGzQsHU3IUcP8zpuQzxbH_PvcOqn-bZTuLLoVkh8005ipijoHUHPtBdgYMxjeLrTVwEG9_tWBpnuoOnt2X7aCMBw0eSYkXmh0JDDvqC9GOAzMLOde_qL0/s2048/76B4AD58-B09F-47BC-BCAE-6EDE2CD95284.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVwmwdXAgsrQ7UEHY3TZuWshTvGzQsHU3IUcP8zpuQzxbH_PvcOqn-bZTuLLoVkh8005ipijoHUHPtBdgYMxjeLrTVwEG9_tWBpnuoOnt2X7aCMBw0eSYkXmh0JDDvqC9GOAzMLOde_qL0/w400-h300/76B4AD58-B09F-47BC-BCAE-6EDE2CD95284.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn6c_RH8gTVrOHmZfOY6sjCMKrifs3f2yxZjOzmMtnXoPst_K7R06gPbns-3QrHw6UGW3Lnz5DNjW56do3TbBukgPW3Ufh2dX8a1KqeFrE9Uo1jYgHPBtYmci0NuznGEGK1NvbW0x6Y_J6/s2048/F7E1FAB6-9137-44DE-9589-F2F79366F4DC.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn6c_RH8gTVrOHmZfOY6sjCMKrifs3f2yxZjOzmMtnXoPst_K7R06gPbns-3QrHw6UGW3Lnz5DNjW56do3TbBukgPW3Ufh2dX8a1KqeFrE9Uo1jYgHPBtYmci0NuznGEGK1NvbW0x6Y_J6/w400-h300/F7E1FAB6-9137-44DE-9589-F2F79366F4DC.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">There are yellow lines at the bottom and top of the hill and these show the children where to stop and wait for an adult. The children were brilliant at listening to all the new instructions and stopping before walking up the hill to find the gate into Bear Woods. We had snack up there and the the children were free to explore the area. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">After an hour we all walked back down to the yellow line and stopped before walking back into nursery. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">You can read some more about Bear Woods in this post.</span></p><p><a href="https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2014/09/preparing-for-visit-to-bear-woods.html"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><i>https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2014/09/preparing-for-visit-to-bear-woods.html</i></span></a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-82415580567392645002020-06-15T12:56:00.001+01:002020-06-15T12:56:37.306+01:00On Line Learning & Learning from Home is not a one size fits all!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0v57ltdgplsqkknwq-qzbltDUaV1luKY5-bNDiYXM8dtZxzC6MCI6VwxCDdJXeRNerFbDRsBGE4ubAj0OfNsOV8IGjmCCdSCDky9nIHTE9Gon3rJxahC77xnmdRvZ6kiU25newh581krH/s1600/1C8A1573-69CC-4983-80AE-F1C78D1F763B_1_201_a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1022" data-original-width="740" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0v57ltdgplsqkknwq-qzbltDUaV1luKY5-bNDiYXM8dtZxzC6MCI6VwxCDdJXeRNerFbDRsBGE4ubAj0OfNsOV8IGjmCCdSCDky9nIHTE9Gon3rJxahC77xnmdRvZ6kiU25newh581krH/s640/1C8A1573-69CC-4983-80AE-F1C78D1F763B_1_201_a.jpeg" width="462" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My class have been following the caterpillars journey on line but is is not the same as seeing it in person.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Since March 12th my life as nursery teacher has been turned upside down. That is the last day I taught my class, I was at a conference the next day and we had 2 days off the following week for St Patrick's Day but on that Thursday at home time, I never imagined that that would be the last time I would teach my class or that I was saying goodbye for that whole school year. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thankfully we had already been using the wonderful <a href="https://web.seesaw.me/" target="_blank">Seesaw</a> app with the parents, so we moved seamlessly to home learning. I have been able to maintain contact with the children and their parents over the past months and it has been wonderful to receive photos and videos of the children and to be able to send them feedback and read stories to them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, if anyone is under the illusion that we can easily teach half the class in school & half on line they have have another thing coming, the key to the success of on line learning is that a bond must have already been made between the pupils and the teacher & the parents, in the case of nursery children. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is no way I can possible have the same relationship with new children and parents that I have had with those who I have spent actually time with. I think those who teach the youngest children in our system will need time to build up relationships with the children in their classes first before any real on line learning presence can be made use of. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I know which children have lots of siblings to help keep them busy and entertained, who is an only child, who lives with grandparents or moves between homes mid week. I know their interests and their favourite stories. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Throughout lockdown I have given my class 3 books to chose from each week, they vote for the order they will be read in. I have throughly enjoyed reading these books but they are almost all books i have already read in person to my class at story time. So I know how they usually react to certain parts of the story or I can say 'Oh you remember what happened when we opened this bit?' But I am missing the instant reaction form the children and I know them, it will not be the same to read stories to children who do not know me or vice versa. For those of us working with young children we will need time to get to know the children in person first and to build up a relationship with them and their parents before we move to on line learning. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By March I had a pretty good idea of who could do what skills wise and knew how to send appropriate activities home that would be fun whilst building on already developed skills. It is an entirely different concept to try to set home learning activities for parents to do with their children when you don't know the skills the children already have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Going forward I intend to use the Seesaw app even more fully with future classes so that we have access to the blog and home learning journals. This will address some of my concerns but there is nothing like face to face learning & relationship building. We have to get this aspect right with the pupils so that the on line learning can be successful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On a more positive note, will we ever have evening meetings again where parents have to struggle to get childcare? </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-18892745653142973772020-06-12T13:29:00.004+01:002020-06-12T13:29:48.709+01:00Now is the time to take the learning outdoors. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS07X0f6WKMZmmSYqsgm-0RVIbxRVvvp8vT2pC8jKUTPYPtzOYHl9-vQqsH-so-y1_U6nARrUPtGAEYs37EAviaaGpPXCxjjr87oxV9CG5SSXzY1e2qQRYzCje3wsH3vuA7QpZyfMie5zG/s1600/10669130_738394552908678_7002807025298320689_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1319" data-original-width="1600" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS07X0f6WKMZmmSYqsgm-0RVIbxRVvvp8vT2pC8jKUTPYPtzOYHl9-vQqsH-so-y1_U6nARrUPtGAEYs37EAviaaGpPXCxjjr87oxV9CG5SSXzY1e2qQRYzCje3wsH3vuA7QpZyfMie5zG/s640/10669130_738394552908678_7002807025298320689_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The little holes allow a child to say goodbye to parents. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since 2008 when I had the opportunity to spend a week working in the outdoor class at a Norwegian Barnehage (Kindergarten), you can read about that here: <a href="https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2011/01/stumbling-into-embracing-outdoor-play.html" target="_blank">https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2011/01/stumbling-into-embracing-outdoor-play.html</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have been an advocate for spending as much time as possible outdoors with my nursery class. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">All studies show that children learn more through a hands on approach and this is even more evident outdoors when they can feel the wind, taste the rain or snow and see the seasonal changes. I was that teacher who argued with a four year about wearing a coat but after a few years being outdoors every day, I now know that i don't need to fight with a small child about wearing a coat on a cold day, they will put one on when they begin to feel the cold. Some children are so active they can be warm enough in a body warmer whilst others will need to be layered up like an onion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now, we have a virus in our midst that can live on surfaces for 72 hours, so why would we want to be indoors with the heat on, lots of table top surfaces etc. and possibly up to 15 small children breathing all over the place? Studies are coming though that show there is less chance of catching the virus outdoors</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">: </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/coronavirus-what-to-do-outside.html?fbclid=IwAR2X8chh1-MgnYcrQ8vlNuFLbpSaIw2OeP7CuTrgaBouBb1gjTo2fE1cwsA" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/coronavirus-what-to-do-outside.html?fbclid=IwAR2X8chh1-MgnYcrQ8vlNuFLbpSaIw2OeP7CuTrgaBouBb1gjTo2fE1cwsA</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This is our opportunity to fully embrace learning outdoors, instead of money being spent on perspex for desks and stickers and arrows to show where to walk etc. money should be spent on outdoor clothing for all, covered areas to allow classes to be outdoors bu sheltered on wet days and on line training etc. for staff to help them become more confident about being outdoors. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoxRXi78NwXao7Z8zdM7VP3cnS_CzX4icJ4_de3GJQ4tylVWCSC_oo8F3RPmwmN7NV-mMOuqlxeH3tqj28Y1_LSYGZsaAKoC-9DpbangCBHnKdj9YZii-9JUiTwIBTJAM1bk4JhmV-3Cc/s1600/DSCF4159.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYoxRXi78NwXao7Z8zdM7VP3cnS_CzX4icJ4_de3GJQ4tylVWCSC_oo8F3RPmwmN7NV-mMOuqlxeH3tqj28Y1_LSYGZsaAKoC-9DpbangCBHnKdj9YZii-9JUiTwIBTJAM1bk4JhmV-3Cc/s640/DSCF4159.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We started going outdoors first thing over 10 years ago and I now couldn't imagine starting the day indoors. There are more 'distractions' outdoors to catch the childrens' attention but more crucially it is a bigger space to absorb noises that can be overwhelming indoors. A classroom can be a really noisy place and especially at the start of the year it can be too much for a child who is coming from a quiet home environment. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am adamant that parents must be part of the settling in procedure and if we are outdoors this is doable under any new regulations. I will not be taking children from parents at a school gate or door. My goal, every year, is for the child to be as happy as possible for their parent to leave. We have little peep hols cut into the fence and gate to allow children to say goodbye to parents on the other side. Of course, there is aways a point when a child is staled but not good at separation and together as a team we agree for the parent to leave and we comfort the upset child until they settle, by this stage we are all comfortable with each other and we trust each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I am fortunate, we have sets of outdoor clothing for the children and staff, enough to have a set that can be hung up outdoors between sessions. We have a big covered area that allows us to be outdoors but not in the rain or wind. And most importantly all staff have bought into the outdoor approach that we want. So for September I will be making the most of being outdoors, we have a small playground but it is big enough for the 26 children we usually have so if we have smaller groups it will be even better. We also have another secure wooded area on site that we can also use to give the children a change of scene. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I only wish our Education Minister and those in charge could also see the potential of the outdoors for allowing nursery education to return to normal capacity long before those planning to be indoors can. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I read this wonderful piece from Scotland and can but dream: <a href="https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/perth-kinross/1320038/coronavirus-how-outdoor-classes-could-be-future-of-schools-after-lockdown/?fbclid=IwAR2f_7mojnkJIXllzrZc25OU-2IrVNovGiGEP4jxfE0USEpmnZZj89E91Nc" target="_blank">https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/perth-kinross/1320038/coronavirus-how-outdoor-classes-could-be-future-of-schools-after-lockdown/?fbclid=IwAR2f_7mojnkJIXllzrZc25OU-2IrVNovGiGEP4jxfE0USEpmnZZj89E91Nc</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We can do this, there are lots of possibilities for smaller groups and better staff/child ratios as flagged up in this piece from Stranmillis University: <a href="https://www.stran.ac.uk/life-after-lockdown-in-the-early-years-classroom-embracing-challenges-as-opportunities/?fbclid=IwAR2bPG375tl5Io3WSGqVLYR4VVonAfPPtnXQIOP0PngFKk1RBH1tHHr8Z0k" target="_blank">https://www.stran.ac.uk/life-after-lockdown-in-the-early-years-classroom-embracing-challenges-as-opportunities/?fbclid=IwAR2bPG375tl5Io3WSGqVLYR4VVonAfPPtnXQIOP0PngFKk1RBH1tHHr8Z0k</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-65749679296187833082020-06-08T17:19:00.000+01:002020-06-08T17:19:52.147+01:00Discovering that I do in fact love being outdoors!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHz7_IjlaN8zpwxuOssOXDIOpKYx1BLklXIS3ZH9cetVKqRB9GEA4GqXcGSNTTDWy19eZ_WIkoGzNxXyufjvq210QlFDFL-G3qK1XX3_1sjbFAXUxuJpK1mEquj4y66NB_QLbsLxa3vUxL/s1600/CF7E4964-7A39-412F-86EB-8906D05E088D.heic" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHz7_IjlaN8zpwxuOssOXDIOpKYx1BLklXIS3ZH9cetVKqRB9GEA4GqXcGSNTTDWy19eZ_WIkoGzNxXyufjvq210QlFDFL-G3qK1XX3_1sjbFAXUxuJpK1mEquj4y66NB_QLbsLxa3vUxL/s320/CF7E4964-7A39-412F-86EB-8906D05E088D.heic" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ok, so some of you will be surprised to read that I have just discovered that I love being outdoors, after all my blog is mostly about getting outdoors with my nursery class in all weathers etc. However, anyone who has ever done any training with me will know that I always emphasise that outside of school I am to be found on my sofa reading or watching TV.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Well, that has changed when I was suddenly forced to be at home during the lockdown period of this COVID-19 pandemic. Our school was closed and I found myself at home without a class to interact face to face with each day, fortunately we have our class app so can keep in touch virtually but is is not the same. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However what I did find out is that I began to crave being outdoors, in reality when at school I am outside for at least 90 minutes a day 5 days a week. Now obviously the weather being so wonderful helped being outdoors much easier and attractive but what I noticed most was that I enjoy just <i>being</i> outdoors. I have enjoyed sitting outdoors listening to the bird song, watching the clouds roll by or reading in the garden. And when we did have a few days recently when it was too wet or cold to sit outside, I realised that I really missed being outdoors. I am used to being outdoors 5 days a week and appreciating all different types of weather, I love seeing seasonal changes first hand. I have missed watching the weather every evening to see what plans I can make for the outdoors the next day. I did sit outside under an umbrella one day in the rain to read but in reality I am not outside in the rain like I would be if I was at school. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEily0xUCnkDggY8APfVMH1c1JR3pMX49Tho-6sbSgET7_8s2Pd3cEpPUx0KNeObPS_z0fCu59yDKab9vWConcsUNJp2LMtCLo4v0DQWGcR6d0G4ICzJNOXi0CaxGHdObqEzCW2wRONSNE4Z/s1600/1AEB98A7-6170-4AD4-A506-56EF739B06BF.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEily0xUCnkDggY8APfVMH1c1JR3pMX49Tho-6sbSgET7_8s2Pd3cEpPUx0KNeObPS_z0fCu59yDKab9vWConcsUNJp2LMtCLo4v0DQWGcR6d0G4ICzJNOXi0CaxGHdObqEzCW2wRONSNE4Z/s400/1AEB98A7-6170-4AD4-A506-56EF739B06BF.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I am in school, I head outside first thing & have 30 minutes to myself before another member of staff arrives and I like that time when it is just me pottering about outside setting up for the day. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I also discovered that I enjoy silence, I am happy with no distractions except those from nature, I don't want a radio playing in the background or even people chatting to me too much! This made me realise that children too need opportunities to be at peace when outside, quiet spaces where they can be alone or with other quiet children to ponder the world without lots of noise and stimulation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Being outdoors is going to be even more important in the coming weeks and months & I can see lots of preschools making the move to be more outdoor based than indoor. The research does seem to be very clear that the virus doe not live or spread as easily outdoors. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some of the children coming into my class don't have safe spaces to play in so we try our best to ensure that when they are in nursery they have the opportunity to play in a safe, secure and challenging environment & I am very grateful that I have a quiet outdoor space where I can hang out with my cats (and sometimes other humans!) </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-60260922873836680832020-04-27T15:56:00.002+01:002020-04-27T15:56:38.158+01:00Story time during Lockdown - There are cats in this book.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwfLXz7aaCtzlNrb0OvPQ-yjUZ-zuIHUIn_CY2dqgDDLdWAwuVZezJufteybADSultnUC1UwjL6A2fQo9MLyyt4J6ApRNszL60HAebBwO1PtT6S7VTJ4isW77zBL7xk19whRQTPdR-ss3Z/s1600/IMG_4264.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1557" data-original-width="1600" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwfLXz7aaCtzlNrb0OvPQ-yjUZ-zuIHUIn_CY2dqgDDLdWAwuVZezJufteybADSultnUC1UwjL6A2fQo9MLyyt4J6ApRNszL60HAebBwO1PtT6S7VTJ4isW77zBL7xk19whRQTPdR-ss3Z/s320/IMG_4264.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Whilst nursery is closed I have been recording stories to read to my class. Normally we have a 30 minute story time every day & can read up to 4 books during this time, I am missing doing this & am sure the children are too. So each week I give them a choice of 3 books & then vote through our class app to decide the order they are read in. I had been keeping them just for my class but then I saw that in these exceptional circumstances permission has been given to read books aloud, as long as these posts are removed by then of June. So enjoy some story telling in the mean time & I hope you discover some lovely new books. Just click on the link below. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/403228734" target="_blank">There are cats in this book. </a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-12337141435654747742020-03-31T19:44:00.000+01:002020-03-31T19:44:01.711+01:00Going on a number or shape hunt. Ideas 33 & 34<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIq9I-jhyphenhyphenmY6086LA6XfbwvZTOMy40S2o6gZWvIMCKqbsT-7luGBibTLrw3_bfrbcmy3KpxG55cLuJiavJoWh_t2gQ22JHeH9D8xjNufUutgkNu7oCZZkblkbDHuv5zAvsNQ6-tESuM3Jl/s1600/IMG_3662.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIq9I-jhyphenhyphenmY6086LA6XfbwvZTOMy40S2o6gZWvIMCKqbsT-7luGBibTLrw3_bfrbcmy3KpxG55cLuJiavJoWh_t2gQ22JHeH9D8xjNufUutgkNu7oCZZkblkbDHuv5zAvsNQ6-tESuM3Jl/s320/IMG_3662.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">More ideas for when the children are at home from school during this pandemic from Creative Star's 50 Maths Outdoors cards.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTfVfJ3WEJmM1O75BKG9L2WwJCv8yBxSsFsUVuwvQIxYteeh81jWJJYXFSxvqnxbMK7ZJ0Zr_NjbGJnbL4AYpsVUPrjDrCFS0NNMoXW2KOGyJ4xuxs_o6VsRMeDGpxyuygpZzyMfPVpaw4/s1600/IMG_3803.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTfVfJ3WEJmM1O75BKG9L2WwJCv8yBxSsFsUVuwvQIxYteeh81jWJJYXFSxvqnxbMK7ZJ0Zr_NjbGJnbL4AYpsVUPrjDrCFS0NNMoXW2KOGyJ4xuxs_o6VsRMeDGpxyuygpZzyMfPVpaw4/s320/IMG_3803.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZwVdWoeIY2LAnVGpd5REWtyhqKvTmW7n4QWaIBQ2POjg776JVn9Dxch91L-FxBMqsTC6dD87QCLXP1r58YukhBN0qhBOCoYNLzsvZRncpyjkvC8PWCXJ5dWQ3_gpGF9zIKaq42aU_D5n/s1600/IMG_3804.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZwVdWoeIY2LAnVGpd5REWtyhqKvTmW7n4QWaIBQ2POjg776JVn9Dxch91L-FxBMqsTC6dD87QCLXP1r58YukhBN0qhBOCoYNLzsvZRncpyjkvC8PWCXJ5dWQ3_gpGF9zIKaq42aU_D5n/s320/IMG_3804.HEIC" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While we can still go out for a walk with children see what numbers they can find on their walk, where are they, do they recognise them or can they just point them out as numbers? It all depends on the age of the child, a preschool child might recognise 'their' number (3 or 4) and this is good way to build up their number recognition. Teach them the number of their house as well, it will make the number 'real' to them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you are out for a walk, maybe take a piece of paper with the numbers 0-10 on it and see how many they can mark off, then you can add more with each walk. Do they see any numbers that are the same? I can still remember my excitement when I realised there were numbers on the cars that I passed on a walk when I was a young child. use your phone to take photos of the numbers and make up a number line when you get home. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Older children could of course add the numbers up that they see and find out which car number plate totals the biggest number. What is the biggest number seen when out walking. Are there odd numbers on one side of your street/road and even on the other? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Shapes are another thing you could look for out on a walk - there will be 2D and 3D shapes, you could create a tally chart to see which shape is the most popular in your area. recognising road signs are usually in a shape and why they are different shapes for various messages could be an interesting observation. Why are some circles and some circles? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Of course numbers and shapes can be combined, like speed limit signs or house number plaques. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTdzVbK4VPB0UZCmRFS_tYdgTsng6GEbBQjnw3NIYK4Fj5xA9NFFGoH_eQzop_KAKAeYaUByqnIWrzXpXz-7n0Uq_S_3PZsNFkf0vN4U5-aaJRSfWi7cX_jy_4ZWh3gWFPfzGqBYWwQ3sD/s1600/IMG_1276.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTdzVbK4VPB0UZCmRFS_tYdgTsng6GEbBQjnw3NIYK4Fj5xA9NFFGoH_eQzop_KAKAeYaUByqnIWrzXpXz-7n0Uq_S_3PZsNFkf0vN4U5-aaJRSfWi7cX_jy_4ZWh3gWFPfzGqBYWwQ3sD/s320/IMG_1276.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When back home, you could make numbers shapes out of materials in the garden. Draw shapes or numbers on the ground with chalk and ask children to hop to the circle, run to the triangle, jump to number 5 etc. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am not expecting parents to be teachers at this strange time but you can have a lot of fun exploring your environment and seeing how your child learns and remembers new information. This is a time to really enjoy how a young child uses their whole environment to absorb new facts and make sense of them. It is not about learning numbers by rote but recognising that numbers have an actual purpose in everyday life and are real, not just something to be learned in a maths lesson.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Have fun!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-7018570138081029352020-03-25T13:33:00.000+00:002020-03-25T13:33:04.158+00:00Learning at home - Can you find me....?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNFYr6o64MyG0TOGR0skrg2rx0gPBhew9atObCBXaV5hbdHonhg01R0IbKxXEJ3Z75StxfbBjlfkuVoV02uVqfVujcFjP9pwHkxPp6rVntD8BCQRCRSHxRwRZqifff9VzxnbmR4wuVByAs/s1600/blogger-image-624356501.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNFYr6o64MyG0TOGR0skrg2rx0gPBhew9atObCBXaV5hbdHonhg01R0IbKxXEJ3Z75StxfbBjlfkuVoV02uVqfVujcFjP9pwHkxPp6rVntD8BCQRCRSHxRwRZqifff9VzxnbmR4wuVByAs/s400/blogger-image-624356501.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gathering some stones and painting them during this time will provide endless resources. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Here is another idea for those stuck at home with young children during this time of Covid-19. I don't want parents to stress about 'teaching' their young children, rather just enjoy this time with them and watching how they interact with their environment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One activity I saw when visiting a kindergarten in Sweden impressed me a lot and this is one that can easily be replicated at home. The children were asked to find 4 objects, 3 the same and 1 different and the children's level of thinking was excellent, way beyond 3 are green and 1 is blue. You can read about that experience here: </span><br />
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<i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2018/03/education-matters-erasmus-plus-visit-to.html">https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2018/03/education-matters-erasmus-plus-visit-to.html</a></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But let's start simple: ask your child to find you 3 things, you decide are they to be the same colour, size, shape, type etc. Once they are confident in this activity you can mix it up a little, can you find me 2 big animals and 1 small animal, 1 long sock and 2 short socks. The sky is the limit with this, you can ask them to find anything or just stick to toys. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">3 is an easy number to start with, children are used to hearing about things in groups of 3 - bears, little pigs, billy goats, owl babies etc. Once your child is confident about 3 you can start asking for 4, 5 etc. Stretch the activity out by asking can you hop and find me, can you crawl and find me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You can take this activity outdoors and ask them to find flowers, leaves, shapes etc. if you have a tablet or allow them your phone, let them go find the objects and take a photo and bring it back to you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Same but different is another great way to extend this activity, get young children to really look at the items they have collected, ask them what is the same, what is different. Young children are really good at this, much better than adults as they notice the tiniest of details. This is great way to get children thinking about sets and how objects are gathered together by their sameness or difference. Initially you, as the adult might have to give them language to describe their objects e.g. 'Oh so you brought me 2 tiny wooden things and 1 very long thing made out of wool' etc. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6pg9UKQgwccZVFLp9pDPc6ckHKr3hVCGFZdknrNXuDdXeMsGtf4qVtgc5YuaGyA0KkIly8uo3pIvaaCxlHR5c_FvCjbwKFNCzin64kJhztJJxSYZqXCObSX76Xv0o33kqrmRHQ5HrFPmG/s1600/DSCF1712.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6pg9UKQgwccZVFLp9pDPc6ckHKr3hVCGFZdknrNXuDdXeMsGtf4qVtgc5YuaGyA0KkIly8uo3pIvaaCxlHR5c_FvCjbwKFNCzin64kJhztJJxSYZqXCObSX76Xv0o33kqrmRHQ5HrFPmG/s400/DSCF1712.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bottle Babies are brilliant for this activity. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While you can get out for a walk, ask them to find things that are the same on their walk, as they get more used to this activity you can ask 'why are they the same', allowing the child to tell you why they think they are the same, don't say 'no they are not' if they don't quite get it, just step back a bit and keep giving them reasons why they are the same so they will begin to see it for themselves and be able to say why. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">All this is giving your child an opportunity to develop their listening skills; how many was I asked to get, memory skills; can they remember the number/type as they search around the room or house, language skills and mathematical skills. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At meal times use this as an activity to get children to help set the table, how many people are there for dinner? How many forks, knives etc. will we need? Can you get me 3 forks and 3 knives and let them set the table. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The possibilities for this activity are endless and I am sure children will come up with lots of new ways to play this. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Here is a wonderful website with lots of great ideas for helping young children grasp mathematical concepts:</span><br />
<a href="https://earlymath.erikson.edu/why-early-math-everyday-math/big-ideas-learning-early-mathematics/"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">https://earlymath.erikson.edu/why-early-math-everyday-math/big-ideas-learning-early-mathematics/</span></i></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-31620909806312632142020-03-23T17:15:00.000+00:002020-03-23T17:15:56.405+00:00Some ideas for learning at home - Where is teddy?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHKV42ISqrXF2mbyo3agOoyWjvRttiyjd7NUjLWEQyBxoiSDJ2Q2FEzyfRZnn93HZlnVUMLatg2W8sbXRM7dzQFPFKTlnDvv8aQlCKkHWOknCgqRyaoPW1LU4as8I0_QIZ7NKEI6JtoWtJ/s1600/IMG_3662.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHKV42ISqrXF2mbyo3agOoyWjvRttiyjd7NUjLWEQyBxoiSDJ2Q2FEzyfRZnn93HZlnVUMLatg2W8sbXRM7dzQFPFKTlnDvv8aQlCKkHWOknCgqRyaoPW1LU4as8I0_QIZ7NKEI6JtoWtJ/s640/IMG_3662.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We are living in very strange times as the Covid 19 pandemic sweeps across the world. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My year as a nursery teacher has been cut short and my little class have begun new chapter in their lives, learning at home with their families. I have faith that their families will get through this and have fun during the next few trying weeks and months. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My friend Juliet over at <i><b><a href="https://creativestarlearning.co.uk/blog/" target="_blank">Creative Star Learning Company</a> </b></i>has created a lovely set of cards '50 Maths Outdoors, Things to do before you are 6 and 3 quarters'. I plan to send the children in my class photos of some of theses ideas over the coming weeks, so families can get outside and have some fun but the idea can also be built upon indoors or outdoors to allow children to develop key skills. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Idea no. 25 is 'Where is Teddy?'</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSnNfWYIbRzvIIrC1hTdpvfd2PpOfuxxMGeQNfuV95gj_i49qXAOFUGwdSkwbxmejFQFbJpy0CFeg9lcHZT1oUDGqtAqZaOWqhdveZYAO2jtV2fyN8Bd19Adg71HHlSAq4FTGdFb8rAjKG/s1600/IMG_3663.HEIC" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSnNfWYIbRzvIIrC1hTdpvfd2PpOfuxxMGeQNfuV95gj_i49qXAOFUGwdSkwbxmejFQFbJpy0CFeg9lcHZT1oUDGqtAqZaOWqhdveZYAO2jtV2fyN8Bd19Adg71HHlSAq4FTGdFb8rAjKG/s640/IMG_3663.HEIC" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This idea allows for some many opportunities for young children to really grasp their positional language and 'feel' it as opposed to just hearing it or rote learning it as a phrase. If parents hide the Teddy (or any toy) and then give instructions, look behind the tree, the child will have the chance to grasp exactly what 'behind', 'on top of', 'beside', 'under' really means. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This activity can be extended, using a table or chair ask a child to put the toy on the chair, under the chair, in front of the chair etc. - you could also ask them to follow your instructions, it doesn't have to be a toy. Let your child give you instructions to see if they do understand what they are saying. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This could be extended further by gathering lots of toys, soft or otherwise or random household objects and asking your child to put the saucepan beside the socks or the crocodile in front of the coffee bean, beside the cat, behind the big teddy etc. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The possibilities are endless. I can guarantee your young child will have a better understanding of their positional language than if they were just listening to the words being used in every day conversation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-22132331592433943902020-02-09T14:09:00.001+00:002021-04-01T11:06:39.675+01:00Maths in the early years.<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like most people I have had a love/hate relationship with maths my whole life, I loved it at primary because of particular teachers but quickly I came to hate it at secondary school and in fact was so bad at it, I only passed my 'O' level after being coached outside school. I actually developed a fear of maths and would break out in a cold sweat when asked to do mental maths etc. and my P.G.C.E year did nothing to convince me that maths was a subject I could do or enjoy. However luckily since I began teaching in nursery I have fallen in love with maths as subject again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you had asked me a few years ago, I would have said that young children can learn their key academic skills in nursery through play by carefully chosen material to allow them to just develop skills like knowing colours, shapes, numbers, letters etc. But now I have revised this belief and it has been a journey that has coincided with many different events all coming together to help me realise that we need to actually teach key skills in a playful way with a particular emphasis on maths.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have made some great on line friendships with other early years educators and some of them have helped me begin to realise that I do have a role as a teacher rather a mere facilitator in in classroom. I have been so fortunate to meet up with some of these friends and see them interact with young children, either in their own setting or with children in another setting. Unnur Henrys, a friend and colleague who teaches in Iceland has taught me so much about maths acquisition. I have watched her playing with dice in the forest with children as young as 2 who were excited to match items to the right number. Unnur has inspired me to have large dice in my playground to allow children to explore maths in their play. Lesley Romanoff, another friend and colleague in the U.S had shown me how smaller dice could be incorporated into everyday play inside and used as another 'loose part'. Before seeing them in her setting I would not have thought to have dice in my nursery classroom. Now I can't imagine not having them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In 2018 our school began 2 new Erasmus Plus projects, a KA2 maths based project with preschools in Turkey, Finland, Croatia, Greece and Denmark and a KA2 staff based CPD project. During the latter I got the opportunity to do a course in Iceland with Kristín and Sarah from <b><i><a href="http://smartteachersplaymore.com/stpm-courses/" target="_blank">Smart Teachers Play More</a> </i></b>that opened my eyes to the possibilities of how to teach core academic skills in playful manner. In our KA2 I have been fortunate to learn many new maths & science games and activities from my partners, you can read about this project here:<b><i> </i></b></span><b><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/10/erasmus-plus-ka2-finland.html">http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/10/erasmus-plus-ka2-finland.html</a></span></i></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sharing some maths activities with children in our partner school in Croatia.</span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, for the past 18 months we have been running 40 minute Play to Learn More sessions with the children once a week, they take part in small groups of 6 or 7 at a time. It has really opened my eyes to the fact that I need to teach key skills and allow children time to revisit these skills again and again in order to prefect them. The main classroom and playground are still set up in such a way as to allow the children to explore materials and transfer skills learned during the teaching session to their play sessions but we are purposely planning what exact skills we ant to teach during our PTLM sessions. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">PTLM sessions on colour and number. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">We were fortunate to have Juliet Robertson from <a href="https://creativestarlearning.co.uk/" target="_blank"><b><i>Creative Star Learning Company</i></b></a> deliver training last year locally and she introduced me to the owners of the Hungarian ten frame and since then I have found this resource invaluable in helping the children to begin the see the 'numberness' of 10. This particular resource seems easier for younger children than the traditional square ten frame. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Hungarian ten frame in action during play sessions indoors and outdoors. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I was really interested to read the latest paper from The East London Research School this week that has shown that early maths has to be taught and can not just be simply picked up during play in preschools. This paper can be read here: </span><i><b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://researchschool.org.uk/eastlondon/news/early-maths-easy-as-one-two-three/">https://researchschool.org.uk/eastlondon/news/early-maths-easy-as-one-two-three/</a></span></b></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In particular this sentence stood out for me "</span><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #414142; font-size: 16px;">As a result, Davenall agrees with Sue Gifford’s earlier finding that children are 'unlikely to learn about number through independent play ... a laissez-faire approach to children learning maths in the 'secret garden of play' does not work. Opportunities may be there, but children will not necessarily take advantage of them'"</span></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So I will continue to flood my classroom and playground with maths resources as before but I will consciously teach the children how to use them first before putting them out, some will continue to explore them in a mathematical way whilst others will simply play with them, that is ok but I'll know that I have at least given them all the skills to be a mathematician and to love, enjoy and be excited by maths. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-51003918228939156602019-10-12T16:32:00.002+01:002019-10-12T16:32:43.166+01:00Iceland: Leikur ad læra - Play To Learn More <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I love how small the world has become since social media came along, it is now so much easier to connect with people around the world and find like-minded individuals to connect with to share ideas etc. I have 'met' so many preschool teachers around the world on Facebook and Twitter and have enjoying learning from them as we discuss our practice and curriculums. </span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, nothing beats meeting up in person with someone and finding a true connection in real life. In 2013 I got the opportunity through <a href="https://www.fafuplay.com/" target="_blank">Fafu</a> (an Icelandic company) to go to Iceland as part of #PlayIceland with 33 other educators from around the UK and US. You can read about this visit in these two posts: </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2013/10/settings-day-1-playiceland.html">https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2013/10/settings-day-1-playiceland.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2013/10/settings-day-2-playiceland.html">https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2013/10/settings-day-2-playiceland.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During this visit on Day 2 we visited an incredible newly built school and one of their staff, Kristín, took the time to show us around the school, give us a taster session of a new way she was trying out teaching in the school. Then at the sharing event where we gave presentations about our settings, we heard from Kristín about her new venture </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://leikuradlaera.is/" target="_blank">Leikur að læra </a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://leikuradlaera.is/" target="_blank"> </a>she was just about to launch to have young children learning core skills through movement. We became friends on Facebook and stayed in touch. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My colleagues & me in Iceland in February 2019</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Roll on 2018 and our school secured funding through Erasmus Plus KA1 for staff to attend training and courses around Europe and Kristín's course were the first I thought of. In 2019 8 of our staff both teaching and non teaching travelled to Spain and Iceland to attend one of her week long courses Smart Teachers Play More. These courses are facilitated by Kristín and Sarah (who has a business called </span><a href="https://www.smartenglishschool.com/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Smart English</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> in Spain)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This has been one of the best courses I have ever attended and I recommend this to any one working in a school. You can read about the course in this post: </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/07/erasmusplus-key-action-1.html">https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/07/erasmusplus-key-action-1.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Through this course another colleague, Jill, also did the course and began to offer Play to Learn More sessions locally and our school signed up all the classes for 4 weeks of activities with Jill. as both of us in the nursery are now trained we then ran sessions with our class over 6 weeks from Easter until June. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These sessions were the most fun I think we have all had whilst learning and let's face it as a nursery teacher every day is filed with fun! But more importantly the P1 teacher has noticed that the children are much more secure in their core skills this year after lots of practice during our PTLM sessions. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgz3v9QhG9HsRutEm4rH_WKo2XECmPD-DAkwlktoky7FWJfMjyLkWc91JOkEtgcdPEaSxcM-0G8xVEQhmYqF9FxWeJ6DWfN-fXX_WvCpY3KKP7fUxwbdMSM-pEm14jQtAINvSzyPW1OwV/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1272.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1366" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgz3v9QhG9HsRutEm4rH_WKo2XECmPD-DAkwlktoky7FWJfMjyLkWc91JOkEtgcdPEaSxcM-0G8xVEQhmYqF9FxWeJ6DWfN-fXX_WvCpY3KKP7fUxwbdMSM-pEm14jQtAINvSzyPW1OwV/s400/fullsizeoutput_1272.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Some of our PTLM activities. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Whilst in Iceland in February for the course, Kristín mentioned that she was running a conference in October on Outdoor Learning and wondered if I would like to come along to do a workshop. I jumped at the chance, of course. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In May Kristín came to Belfast to run a taster session for PTLM for local teachers and stayed with me and visited my class for a morning. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdnOSdI_ypBRXBfUXRzKYctZ-14gyh6xEUI6de7Y_yqx7CllIs7FPTZliUuMJYmtyjAv1xmphkFRBop2A0pf1jE9nAG54lvN47JFqWHGz5u3yZQbs-fShWwJWUD3KGec3JKgz3QJcL0_hZ/s1600/2019-05-11+15.09.38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdnOSdI_ypBRXBfUXRzKYctZ-14gyh6xEUI6de7Y_yqx7CllIs7FPTZliUuMJYmtyjAv1xmphkFRBop2A0pf1jE9nAG54lvN47JFqWHGz5u3yZQbs-fShWwJWUD3KGec3JKgz3QJcL0_hZ/s400/2019-05-11+15.09.38.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Myself, Kristín & Jill in May 2019</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So fast forward to October 2019 and I found myself on a flight to Iceland via Finland (where I had just been on an Erasmus Plus mobility) and attending a conference for over 450 teachers from Iceland who spent the whole day doing workshops to help them develop outdoor play and core learning skills for young children. The conference was held in an agricultural college and many of the events like lunch, coffee took place in an old green house with fish pond and exotic plants. The workshops were mostly outdoors but also some were inside. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: center;">My workshop was titled 'Outdoor Learning - it doesn't have to cost a lot' and I had to run it 4 times over the day with between 20 and 40 participants at a time. It took place outside in the most amazing grounds of the college and thankfully it was dry but very windy. The teachers were so receptive and engaged and willing share ideas from their practice too. It was wonderful to have this opportunity to talk with international colleagues and compare similar issues and discuss what was different about our settings and practice. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my 4th visit to Iceland and each time I visit I fall in love with it and it's people a little more. They are some of the warmest people I have every met and even more hospitable than the Irish. They have a true connection to nature and a respect for their environment that is lacking in a lot of other places. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to hang out with friends old and new and learn from each other. It also helped me firm up ideas for further workshops and most importantly I learned that I had to change my pronunciation of the words eight and shape to be understood!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXVjc590jT0sfCkRIxnGV5ie3EFnxYqxvZLV_hi2U-YnzFuOoalhfxTfOHyNPNYyrqRLgzPrMBUsnGvRrvxqY0ocgNytMU07jWFXtXa5DOFgegStcC_XEsZl_r57yyIAPO4-sGx3X88JK4/s1600/hKicZ%2525aRRi2qeaDCyw3gXw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXVjc590jT0sfCkRIxnGV5ie3EFnxYqxvZLV_hi2U-YnzFuOoalhfxTfOHyNPNYyrqRLgzPrMBUsnGvRrvxqY0ocgNytMU07jWFXtXa5DOFgegStcC_XEsZl_r57yyIAPO4-sGx3X88JK4/s400/hKicZ%2525aRRi2qeaDCyw3gXw.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A huge thanks to Unnur & Kristín (and her whole family) for picking me up, putting me up and drinking coffee with me over the few days I got to stay in Iceland. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-10428640370818123262019-10-12T11:42:00.000+01:002019-10-13T20:16:01.234+01:00Erasmus Plus KA2 Finland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc6puEFnaVb73omP-_01rmjY5Lewr46XnMuqEHiOfGh5-B92USq7QgXQc0DeNqy1mPtZdH7h3b1-gelbyNefzFTKi4VBM8VtSooDdeOJuMXWBPdvzs63qMJnj-3nBrm_mJEEY2-OGVveyY/s1600/IMG_0724.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="929" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc6puEFnaVb73omP-_01rmjY5Lewr46XnMuqEHiOfGh5-B92USq7QgXQc0DeNqy1mPtZdH7h3b1-gelbyNefzFTKi4VBM8VtSooDdeOJuMXWBPdvzs63qMJnj-3nBrm_mJEEY2-OGVveyY/s320/IMG_0724.JPG" width="309" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our school is involved in a two year Erasmus Plus KA2 Project 'European New Generation' with preschools from Denmark, Turkey, Croatia, Finland and Greece. You can read some more about the project in this post: <a href="http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/03/maths-everywhere.html" target="_blank">http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/03/maths-everywhere.html</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So far we have all met up in Turkey and N.Ireland and then this past week we had our third meeting in Finland. Our project is all about STEM/STEAM in the early years curriculum and at some of the meetings the partners share some games for the children in the host school to enjoy playing. This has been a great way for us as educators to gain some new ideas and gather lots of new innovative maths lessons. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">This project has helped us as staff in the nursery and Foundation Stage classes to realise how to ensure that maths is integrated into all aspects of learning and not just seen as a stand alone subject - this is more of an issue for colleagues in the primary when curriculum subjects are very clearly divided up. In nursery and preschool, in general, we tend to teach subjects across the board all day long and realise that maths is everywhere and not just something to be taught for an hour a day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In Finland we got to take part in some outdoor games with a small group of children and share some maths activities indoors with them too. We also spent time in the forest watching the children take part in maths/ICT games, this was followed by having lunch around the fire.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As I watched some of my partners in the forest it made me realise how far we as a nursery have come on our outdoor journey and how we as a staff have developed our outdoor curriculum over the past 10 years. When I visited Norway in 2008 and took part in a job shadow in an outdoor preschool, I spent a lot of time asking 'Can they do that, should they be up there, are they allowed to do that?' as is was so different from our playground and outdoor play. This time I was very comfortable in the forest and almost blasé about the adventurous, risky play that we saw but I could see some of my other partners were amazed by it and it made us realise that we have benefitted so much from being involved in European projects since 2004.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Sometimes you enter a project with one aim but end up with a completely different one or you get something out of a partnership that you never expected and of course life long friendships are made. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Our next meeting is in Croatia and then we have 3 more left before the project comes to an end. The children and staff in Windmill can only but benefit from all the shared learning going on from across Europe. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">of course the idea that we are now being dragged out of the EU and that the possibilities of the amazing Erasmus opportunities may be lost for out students and staff makes me so angry but in the meantime I will continue to take part in projects and learn from my colleagues. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To end on a more positive note, our school was recently awarded the International School Award by the British Council.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwrA8XW-j63u3qtHi1vzzGsgEu_9pXzi6K6Gr9dSn6M2GngMorcV9iRYcL2CNcSedrm4-wMFc2lpMhf5G4ixRP-eV4bpNenQGycA3Rywt4hTSbTjydRngTwSJf4Qn9bo4F9LCMNKWiKPZb/s1600/brit-counc-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="466" data-original-width="1600" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwrA8XW-j63u3qtHi1vzzGsgEu_9pXzi6K6Gr9dSn6M2GngMorcV9iRYcL2CNcSedrm4-wMFc2lpMhf5G4ixRP-eV4bpNenQGycA3Rywt4hTSbTjydRngTwSJf4Qn9bo4F9LCMNKWiKPZb/s640/brit-counc-2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-80056925729686190802019-09-24T17:40:00.001+01:002019-09-24T17:40:17.838+01:00New Experiences are Good.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0x1DpNzaXLbPuRIspnLlDJbRGwF06ZKHYL17V0Ku9G43mp1eycg63fK46S11BhPLdWVyLj0h6Mwnne96k4Cf13Uhcy_0Aq5KtxrREYsye-3s9lh5tMkw1LdgvpmVmogTroWo2-cgQ-Ra/s1600/DSCN0055.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz0x1DpNzaXLbPuRIspnLlDJbRGwF06ZKHYL17V0Ku9G43mp1eycg63fK46S11BhPLdWVyLj0h6Mwnne96k4Cf13Uhcy_0Aq5KtxrREYsye-3s9lh5tMkw1LdgvpmVmogTroWo2-cgQ-Ra/s640/DSCN0055.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Climbing up the slope using a rope is always a popular activity.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We are very fortunate to have two wooded areas within school grounds that were planted by pupils, parents and staff over 5 years ago. The nursery has the sole use of one of them, called Bear Woods and it is just above the nursery accessible by a path that runs around the front of the building. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This week we decided to introduce our new class of 28 3 - 4 years olds to this space. So far the children have been staying for 2 hours in separate groups of 15 & 18 and today was the last day before the groups merge into one big class. This proved the ideal opportunity to take the children up in the smaller groups to allow them time and space to explore Bear Woods and learn some of the ground rules. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD1F3GhTI-qjfHxfjzUVwfnnB4NtCgDRoNDBSOVUhwukKvlwxcdfVWYKQKHHqYTXm-J-Pu-t6sE5CIFpaJupLdD_RWQzPuYTGmT0iSU5BYfy5b3dciEDXg_24u9oPE9LUR0LqsCg5zErDh/s1600/DSCN0053.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD1F3GhTI-qjfHxfjzUVwfnnB4NtCgDRoNDBSOVUhwukKvlwxcdfVWYKQKHHqYTXm-J-Pu-t6sE5CIFpaJupLdD_RWQzPuYTGmT0iSU5BYfy5b3dciEDXg_24u9oPE9LUR0LqsCg5zErDh/s400/DSCN0053.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There aren't many rules for when we go to Bear Woods but the ones we do have are important: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A grown up goes first through the nursery gate and the children must follow behind until they reach the first white line. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The children can run ahead once we reach the first white line but have to stop at the second white line. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then when coming back the rules are the same: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A grown up first through the gate of Bear Woods until we reach the first white line.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Run ahead but stop at the second white line. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The children can just run ahead on the path or go through a willow tunnel parents created last year during a maintenance morning for the wooded areas. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7gr8lliNrvya8-pQWYW27R7t_521FVOsoYbzUbpzcAuGRzCpVqu0qGCPBakRy_OJiYWj2Y11e7-ej6BBWNhqEkLSc2KJZs9ZQkhHhjp_KUA20GVjaDq4Awl8hENJmdF0YVcdzJVKCcNV/s1600/DSCN0050.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ7gr8lliNrvya8-pQWYW27R7t_521FVOsoYbzUbpzcAuGRzCpVqu0qGCPBakRy_OJiYWj2Y11e7-ej6BBWNhqEkLSc2KJZs9ZQkhHhjp_KUA20GVjaDq4Awl8hENJmdF0YVcdzJVKCcNV/s640/DSCN0050.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The willow tunnel - you can see the nursery playground below.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Once we get to Bear Woods the children have a small snack and when finished eating they can go play. This small area has really become a proper wood in the past couple of years and it is wonderful to see the children explore this space and enjoy just being outdoors with very little resources. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The area we have is on a slope and it really challenges the children at first to navigate walking up and down the gradient & sometimes they enjoy just rolling down the hill.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Today as we arrived one child commented "Woah this is very steep, we need to concentrate guys!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">An adult usually goes to stand at the second white line just to make sure the children stop( as the path is out into the main school car park) but today I was so impressed when both groups stopped without anyone having to remind them. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt5YGE_pfipvnL2fCbdUP-60cgBVYFvXlIHOUU_d_Jze49O0L0t7iWsXWee16Bwys6_OdLTH_x2M0il1B_6PW8vpwliYpYZV7WCo2UMFaa-HcNCrdhSzfmYE6N2tbtlEeR7yx_S3vLXMc6/s1600/DSCN0059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt5YGE_pfipvnL2fCbdUP-60cgBVYFvXlIHOUU_d_Jze49O0L0t7iWsXWee16Bwys6_OdLTH_x2M0il1B_6PW8vpwliYpYZV7WCo2UMFaa-HcNCrdhSzfmYE6N2tbtlEeR7yx_S3vLXMc6/s400/DSCN0059.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I can't wait to have a year of fun and adventures in our our little piece of nature.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-42190429669775940772019-07-11T15:46:00.003+01:002019-07-11T15:46:40.675+01:00#ErasmusPlus Key Action 1<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">*<i>Whilst not deliberately a political post, it is impossible to talk about funding opportunities without mentioning Brexit and the loss of such opportunities for future pupils and teachers*</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Since 2004 my school has taken part in many opportunities to travel and engage with colleagues and partners in projects and training across Europe through EU funding from the British Council and the <a href="https://www.erasmusplus.org.uk/new-to-erasmus-plus" target="_blank">Erasmus Plus</a> programme. The impact this has had on my teaching and therefore on the lives of the pupils who cross my path is immeasurable but needless to say it has been a positive one. It is one of the many reasons, I am disappointed and saddened that such opportunities are slipping away for future generations as England and Wales drags the rest of the UK out of the EU, against our wishes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Since October 2004, I personally have had the opportunity to travel to Italy, Norway, Poland, France, Germany, Sweden, Czech Republic, Iceland, Malta and Turkey to visit schools and take part in workshops and training. The friendships I have made during the past 15 years have been invaluable in helping me to develop my practice and grow as a preschool teacher. Our school has also hosted colleagues from Poland, Spain & Sweden and as a result I have had to really understand the 'why' of how I do things - when you have to explain your practice to someone else, you really begin to articulate why you do things or to question why you should continue to do things.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">In 2013 I travelled to Iceland and met a very enthusiastic teacher called Kristín, who wanted to develop her ideas about how young children learn by moving and to show others how to make learning fun beyond preschool. Social media has made staying in touch with new friends in far flung places a lot easier & so Kristín and I were able to touch base ever so often through Facebook & I watched as her business </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://leikuradlaera.is/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px;">Leikur að læra</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-size: 14px;"> </span></span></a><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif; font-style: italic;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">grew and went from strength to strength. I saw that Kristín was now offering training for school staff funded by Erasmus Plus and planned for some staff to attend this training in Iceland. Our project 'Inclusive Creative Education for All' allowed 8 members of staff - both teachers and assistants - to attend a week long training course run by Kristín and Sarah from <a href="https://www.smartenglishschool.com/" target="_blank"><b>Smart English </b></a>in Alicante under their partnership of 'Smart Teachers Play More', 4 went to Spain and 4 to Iceland and 2 of us to also travel to Malta to do another language based course. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2bhMFDKhCpWu650n3m9iglOek3nyBjdBSeAceQycQ_Rwxk9So3UixXJ8wvhf1lqviJhy03cH-bWJyNxhxTQfcb6kW4l58NFQtXqaN-au4PIjVVaqncjj4oexSezRO0AvBxFEZjMg1uKMe/s1600/2019-02-11+11.01.00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2bhMFDKhCpWu650n3m9iglOek3nyBjdBSeAceQycQ_Rwxk9So3UixXJ8wvhf1lqviJhy03cH-bWJyNxhxTQfcb6kW4l58NFQtXqaN-au4PIjVVaqncjj4oexSezRO0AvBxFEZjMg1uKMe/s640/2019-02-11+11.01.00.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">On our course in Iceland there were 22 people, it seemed like a big group but everyone worked really well together and it was incredible to get to mix with teachers from across Europe and who work with different age groups from preschool to adults. I learned so much from each of the participants over the week, never mind what I learned from our course providers. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-qa5M3DU3eYfEfWQ2R5l88x7sqFOx0eRoBJiDRqfzlXJGJ9EqBDhGcDr_ZIdcSmodFnYod-Gk0ol1oKpnOLIkxKlO5Oa2sk6ek78PJQ1uY1Oj65brNIHVgEt9A9G9t9daISPDnmZN2RL/s1600/2019-02-12+11.36.38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-qa5M3DU3eYfEfWQ2R5l88x7sqFOx0eRoBJiDRqfzlXJGJ9EqBDhGcDr_ZIdcSmodFnYod-Gk0ol1oKpnOLIkxKlO5Oa2sk6ek78PJQ1uY1Oj65brNIHVgEt9A9G9t9daISPDnmZN2RL/s640/2019-02-12+11.36.38.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The inspiring Kristín in action.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">The course operated from 9-3 every day for 5 days, each day flew by as we were learning a lot and on the move so much too. I have rarely attended a course where I gained something every hour that I knew I could take back to school and use immediately. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Luckily both of us in the nursery - teacher and assistant were able to take part in this course and so we have been able to introduce aspects of the course into our everyday teaching. For the last 8 weeks of the school year we split the class into 4 groups of 7-8 children and had weekly 'Play To Learn More' sessions with children embracing the opportunity to climb over and under tables, move like crabs or snakes across tables and learn and consolidate core skills e..g numbers, colours and letters. We both can't wait for September when we can have a whole school year using the innovative method to introduce and consolidate academic skills. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjIYGZKLQZB56PNdsfl0a-qI19GweWSh_eQiOv0kZHyVI-rT8Eq70BVvd7OIvs7SzBbHzgwhY79NUcrXRpPUoNt78Kfhfo3aCNQ1E1EnDmMc88QnEAX2ZDv6xdase5gs5FB6eXQOe2jkgH/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1272.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="1366" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjIYGZKLQZB56PNdsfl0a-qI19GweWSh_eQiOv0kZHyVI-rT8Eq70BVvd7OIvs7SzBbHzgwhY79NUcrXRpPUoNt78Kfhfo3aCNQ1E1EnDmMc88QnEAX2ZDv6xdase5gs5FB6eXQOe2jkgH/s640/fullsizeoutput_1272.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our Play To Learn Mat has been wonderful for reinforcing key skills. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">During the first week of the summer break 2 of us travelled to Malta to undertake a 'Teaching English to Young Learners' course with <a href="https://alphaschoolmalta.com/805.html" target="_blank"><b>Alpha School of English</b></a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This course offered practical advice on teaching young children English and the other participants were all Italian teachers wanting to introduce an element of English to their classrooms as opposed to ourselves who were thinking of how best to help our 'Newcomer' (the term used in N.Ireland for children who speak a language other than English at home) pupils acquire a good level of spoken English, quickly. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYYJXme1GLSSJa67xbxSwDe0a7bR968Mo-ftipLD6HeXmK453_7lAccEiYX2JP2SznXAs4GdIcFwOc-g7UkA-SnfqfVT3XG_j56V1vFpERQZTk6ZhUKhfc1LYqwvcBVtuVpiXqdOmpnZAI/s1600/Cert2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYYJXme1GLSSJa67xbxSwDe0a7bR968Mo-ftipLD6HeXmK453_7lAccEiYX2JP2SznXAs4GdIcFwOc-g7UkA-SnfqfVT3XG_j56V1vFpERQZTk6ZhUKhfc1LYqwvcBVtuVpiXqdOmpnZAI/s640/Cert2.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One of the best aspects of this opportunities is the chance to connect with like minded teachers from across Europe - to share practice, ideas and talk about how we can learn from each other. Chatting with colleagues over coffee after the courses often provided valuable insights into ways to improve practice. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Whilst we were in Malta for the last course of our current KA1 project I received word that our new application for a two year project enabling 15 members of staff to attend courses and a job shadowing scheme had been successful so thankfully these wonderful opportunities are still available for UK schools for now. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-56314936789534692172019-03-19T17:45:00.000+00:002019-03-19T17:45:14.357+00:00Maths Everywhere!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8FkA9cDiVE_ftUn4y84TARAinjed6dPQWrt9cDi5g6DArMhViZwHZvQ5ugobdrkVH_rmK7Yo4sDsCHpGfWSZsTM2LXzWfNTjUbOdvl6xVzcSygx86JV9y8P2DHbCYbDPFX_47o9zHO6s4/s1600/IMG_0724.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="929" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8FkA9cDiVE_ftUn4y84TARAinjed6dPQWrt9cDi5g6DArMhViZwHZvQ5ugobdrkVH_rmK7Yo4sDsCHpGfWSZsTM2LXzWfNTjUbOdvl6xVzcSygx86JV9y8P2DHbCYbDPFX_47o9zHO6s4/s400/IMG_0724.JPG" width="386" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This year our school is involved in a 2 year Erasmus Plus KA2 Project called 'European New Generation' with school sin Greece, Turkey, Finland, Denmark and Croatia. The theme of our project is maths, science and the arts: the STEAM subjects as it is know referred to. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7iuUK_B2Kog3wf-fClp8mgkWQlnUMgBJ6mzwhR7bRQ2PFX5FwhjPtZCH2X-08gzfm4-KIZ_aIoWuMmJ3zCg7FnDbk0H9C-Ul0ssxs8u782n6UhcEFlyrDznR1bxR0tS7i9L5M90Ax_MUm/s1600/IMG_0841.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7iuUK_B2Kog3wf-fClp8mgkWQlnUMgBJ6mzwhR7bRQ2PFX5FwhjPtZCH2X-08gzfm4-KIZ_aIoWuMmJ3zCg7FnDbk0H9C-Ul0ssxs8u782n6UhcEFlyrDznR1bxR0tS7i9L5M90Ax_MUm/s400/IMG_0841.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Izmir, Turkey. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We started the project off with a teaching event in Izmir, Turkey in December when 3 of our staff travelled there to meet up with all the other schools and began to plan out the 2 year project. We will host a visit form the partners in April.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This project has come at the perfect time for our nursery and foundation Stage classes as all the staff in these classes have also had the opportunity to take part in some Erasmus Plus training through a KA1 Project with '<b><a href="https://smartteachersplaymorecourses.com/" target="_blank">Smart Teachers Play More'</a> </b>in both Alicante and Reykjavik. This course emphasises getting children moving whilst introducing new key concepts like colour, shape, number and also literacy.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxqiMhPczM7B1ZYITKhc278jgC9ruzZ4E-V-vZYE4KgKeGYuS6MiPKxqOpi1PxJWHOXcz-5qyti5J9nFabh89xl0hpPVVHFFsO2hYjHReflmA8n34Lvd2DDuAGQkTR-Ihxn_Ww_cnOp667/s1600/IMG_1360.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxqiMhPczM7B1ZYITKhc278jgC9ruzZ4E-V-vZYE4KgKeGYuS6MiPKxqOpi1PxJWHOXcz-5qyti5J9nFabh89xl0hpPVVHFFsO2hYjHReflmA8n34Lvd2DDuAGQkTR-Ihxn_Ww_cnOp667/s400/IMG_1360.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Iceland.<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf0ZXq7Xl9PxCKhGeskh1oIYz8dGiOGpLcbq8Bkp5e4H01q_uM-CeTgIyi7-Kl-F4aSS8hY7_WmLXQZm9GMtP2j4KOzMSyKdCHHWjlBQmlvRDK_-UzNWsQQMJNKxOo60qs3ULgIsYR8Y2O/s1600/4f2daf5a-b055-4ab0-ad79-496869daf534.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf0ZXq7Xl9PxCKhGeskh1oIYz8dGiOGpLcbq8Bkp5e4H01q_uM-CeTgIyi7-Kl-F4aSS8hY7_WmLXQZm9GMtP2j4KOzMSyKdCHHWjlBQmlvRDK_-UzNWsQQMJNKxOo60qs3ULgIsYR8Y2O/s400/4f2daf5a-b055-4ab0-ad79-496869daf534.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Spain.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The children are really embracing all the opportunities to have lots of new maths activities and are particularly drawn to playing with the bigger dice and finding numbers in their environment. They love looking for shapes as well and I just drew some shapes on the playground and made a simple dice with the shapes on it so they could make up their own game. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-mwOsG_lboGpuzateVj-FBXbLudcPl08P-eaB05l59H52AdKkeAWki_qVUHvnBEMM9S1X_AuVbSgijmjfulbyGkYy_Ie8jeX4QwgiDqViWckvLDVSjZXFba3sk6mBa2_N1gNmgbiUhzdp/s1600/IMG_1816.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-mwOsG_lboGpuzateVj-FBXbLudcPl08P-eaB05l59H52AdKkeAWki_qVUHvnBEMM9S1X_AuVbSgijmjfulbyGkYy_Ie8jeX4QwgiDqViWckvLDVSjZXFba3sk6mBa2_N1gNmgbiUhzdp/s400/IMG_1816.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Numbers </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlN6A90bPaMKZLpE0-qtJd69RU8j1guy913KJ498EaQKfPdPRTbOjBr94saMSB0yKcUZ_TACRLFI373QInL7OI8ehS3HU_vhnzv5VFcwC_4QsgOrjYfqtFUO4nIk-altYkwJW6lMcZO02q/s1600/IMG_1824.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlN6A90bPaMKZLpE0-qtJd69RU8j1guy913KJ498EaQKfPdPRTbOjBr94saMSB0yKcUZ_TACRLFI373QInL7OI8ehS3HU_vhnzv5VFcwC_4QsgOrjYfqtFUO4nIk-altYkwJW6lMcZO02q/s400/IMG_1824.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rolling dice and finding the same number of objects.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7cAFjbp8CVgRTq3L8FWci9eH0WusuW6vemfYsGpuQe5mHs3HCEFTf53fpVVVZ5GjPICNd38ipL1Lg0YUWpE-3KKmvi9uAQz2_NBcCpXKrvELf4uxoIp5sNL2qY4mjmGJf27PzbU60-dQy/s1600/IMG_1825.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7cAFjbp8CVgRTq3L8FWci9eH0WusuW6vemfYsGpuQe5mHs3HCEFTf53fpVVVZ5GjPICNd38ipL1Lg0YUWpE-3KKmvi9uAQz2_NBcCpXKrvELf4uxoIp5sNL2qY4mjmGJf27PzbU60-dQy/s400/IMG_1825.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorting by colour. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWojySCLrUAu8n2UoHo9aPODRdRga7oyRzRXIooCbSRqhslSYEtxzJb1faZHEZ5aNMrJ_nZUZS93HZluCb_lUayrv97StWC5rm4WQYUHVlBU5tlMjJFPbX0LtfbR1cTFSjPGpCLtB8CSu/s1600/IMG_1868.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZWojySCLrUAu8n2UoHo9aPODRdRga7oyRzRXIooCbSRqhslSYEtxzJb1faZHEZ5aNMrJ_nZUZS93HZluCb_lUayrv97StWC5rm4WQYUHVlBU5tlMjJFPbX0LtfbR1cTFSjPGpCLtB8CSu/s400/IMG_1868.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finding shapes. </td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGHC_V6hNyumklBSc0aqoYm2dEWMmEy4ojZZqsk7uSQON03ja5-RCi61WPc-Xi8pF8PTtrQ9Qw54drWyWPMRKl-qoZ9-SUCF5jVhyphenhyphenR5D1hoxOv9xiN9ACoC67GV-1brUgfFpS6BSjlKaSZ/s1600/IMG_1872.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGHC_V6hNyumklBSc0aqoYm2dEWMmEy4ojZZqsk7uSQON03ja5-RCi61WPc-Xi8pF8PTtrQ9Qw54drWyWPMRKl-qoZ9-SUCF5jVhyphenhyphenR5D1hoxOv9xiN9ACoC67GV-1brUgfFpS6BSjlKaSZ/s400/IMG_1872.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Making shapes.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-25457080308632005812019-01-17T19:10:00.001+00:002019-01-17T19:10:46.064+00:00Enjoying life through the eyes of a child.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiE6Si-hmnOxiGsyw6ffp64hyphenhyphenPm123DQDEWPxLsWGChFF7eIthYxkywl3ZQWPHSnTT8kGEXgq6iNq0QoMEowVABj0rtmAqHDd8Cv6cf4nCNd7Pw7lBt0ruCsYQgMTmg5OpwrgOgN1kh4Pb/s1600/s1+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiE6Si-hmnOxiGsyw6ffp64hyphenhyphenPm123DQDEWPxLsWGChFF7eIthYxkywl3ZQWPHSnTT8kGEXgq6iNq0QoMEowVABj0rtmAqHDd8Cv6cf4nCNd7Pw7lBt0ruCsYQgMTmg5OpwrgOgN1kh4Pb/s640/s1+002.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_bwuZ2eXlHuarEzFIrrJuSCH_Bcux2-YtBSE-4fysMx1qkOi7kUvCfHyJBVp3FXWte4EUMZ7F6fu5P6WGcdsRmK1X0XbW2tCbrvMBRzea_xW5MJZuA5VPL3Inj6SrltGEOPG5ilDpwulu/s1600/s1+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_bwuZ2eXlHuarEzFIrrJuSCH_Bcux2-YtBSE-4fysMx1qkOi7kUvCfHyJBVp3FXWte4EUMZ7F6fu5P6WGcdsRmK1X0XbW2tCbrvMBRzea_xW5MJZuA5VPL3Inj6SrltGEOPG5ilDpwulu/s640/s1+001.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The path was glistening with lovely light 'snow'.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This morning as the children arrived for class it began to snow, very light snow like icing sugar but snow nonetheless. The children were so excited and rushed to get on their wet gear, or as they called it today 'snow gear' and had so much fun exploring the playground with this new dusting of snow on it. There was much celebration of there being so much ice in the mud kitchen and the had fun zipping down the icy slide. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">They experimented with pouring water on the snow and seeing what happened, lots of cries of 'It's disappeared', 'Did it melt?' etc. could be heard. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggn2bipIB-xoDw6BpPSYJDDB1_GnylocjMvgGcWUPH3J9KrNWNpHIr6nYaWHk8b_B5yPoewt_MATaMttAuaVWLIq-XM3BS-wLWN3hBTzUlDpgcQDpxI6wYogOQWCUmA2pyxFKDcD48tuym/s1600/fullsizeoutput_1090.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggn2bipIB-xoDw6BpPSYJDDB1_GnylocjMvgGcWUPH3J9KrNWNpHIr6nYaWHk8b_B5yPoewt_MATaMttAuaVWLIq-XM3BS-wLWN3hBTzUlDpgcQDpxI6wYogOQWCUmA2pyxFKDcD48tuym/s640/fullsizeoutput_1090.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When everyone was all dressed we head up to visit Bear Woods to see if there was snow up there too, the children were amazed to that they could still see the white line where they stop on the path under the snow.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There was a little patch of snow up in Bear Woods and they had fun climbing on the big log, rolling down the hill, hunting for sleeping bears and avoiding wicked stepmothers. The children were amazed that their little hiding places were so visible now that all the leaves have fallen off the trees. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNXbVwHlgZTB8wZT5mie8wwc3acuuDdFmhp7PA7XjwRTOVPx7chZ8uiY0oUuIWtA5ZXd9nNsg1AJzYU5dtjPAAFQij2Oo5n6eBPVXXKr6PEGHOJHzjJeKVISolg2rhvfeOzaggKzhXGqSA/s1600/fullsizeoutput_108f.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNXbVwHlgZTB8wZT5mie8wwc3acuuDdFmhp7PA7XjwRTOVPx7chZ8uiY0oUuIWtA5ZXd9nNsg1AJzYU5dtjPAAFQij2Oo5n6eBPVXXKr6PEGHOJHzjJeKVISolg2rhvfeOzaggKzhXGqSA/s640/fullsizeoutput_108f.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bear Woods looks very bare at the moment but the class still love being up there. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was truly wonderful to see the joy of light snow in their faces and it reminded me once again, what a privilege it is to work with young children and experience the everyday as magical. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And it was even better as they had made some paper snowmen the day before.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgalIqYr_1V7GXo7tXzDipu9bvDWVvBfP-icyp9mffbJn-7aR2TuDVOAfhFSLF4HCza8dA-XK2sbF3bNLKoJX1Zd6mMdsfLxi2CdYKLYiA-Udjdq_atb6pxYI2U5pPFknemCCDn0XcGcwla/s1600/snowmen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="640" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgalIqYr_1V7GXo7tXzDipu9bvDWVvBfP-icyp9mffbJn-7aR2TuDVOAfhFSLF4HCza8dA-XK2sbF3bNLKoJX1Zd6mMdsfLxi2CdYKLYiA-Udjdq_atb6pxYI2U5pPFknemCCDn0XcGcwla/s640/snowmen.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5254764571956782670.post-49337327655332610462018-08-04T15:24:00.000+01:002018-08-04T15:24:09.376+01:00Talking, talking everywhere!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So, I have finished my 4 week study travels as a Churchill Fellow. I actually can't believe how quickly the time went by, as initially I thought 4 weeks away from home would seem like a long time. It has been amazing to actually live in another country for an extended period and to get the opportunity to live like a local as opposed to being a tourist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">After this time spent talking to various people on the ground dealing with children and parents from migrant backgrounds on a daily basis in Dresden, Berlin (Germany) and Norrköping & Stockholm (Sweden) there is a common theme running through all the discussions - language acquisition and communication between parents and children. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Whatever the home language of the family, all those I have met with have all agreed that it's not about what language a child hears at home but how much of that language they hear and therefore can begin to use themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I love this quote from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_N._Britton" target="_blank">James Britton</a> "Reading and writing floats on a sea of talk" and it sums up perfectly how important communication is for all young children but particularly those who are trying to learn a second or third language. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Early years settings - be they daycares, kindergartens, preschools or nurseries - should be places filled with the noise of children and adults communicating. Those of us who work with young children know that they can communicate by more than just speech - they hum, sing, makes noises and move when communicating. I have so many things to reflect on from the past 4 weeks but the one big thing that I have taken away is that in the UK context, our children are being asked to be quiet and listen too early - if literacy floats on a sea of talking why are we so keen to have children writing and reading at the age of 4 or 5? The young children I met in Germany were confident communicators, it was obvious they had had lots of time to watch, listen and talk rather being expected to listen and then write. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The 5 and 6 year olds talked fluently (many in their second language) whilst sharing memories provoked while looking through their 'Language Learning Diary' with me and other members of staff. The 'Mein Sprachlerntagebuch' was introduced by the Senate Department of Education Berlin as part of their initiative to make parents realise the learning that was going on in the kita. What I particularly like about this document is that it involves the parents from day one - they are asked to fill in the early pages 'What they child likes, dislikes, favourite toys, food, siblings etc' so that the staff can build up a picture of the child and use it help comfort the child at settling in time. Many settings have an 'All about me' type document that is similar but the Berlin one is more of a working document and is added to over time, and used to record the child's language development over their time in the kita. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There was a little girl from Poland in the group that was looking at their diaries and when asked if she wanted to talk about the activity she had taken part in earlier that day to record in the book, she said no but did enjoy looking through the book and got very excited when looking at photos of her cousins. When she headed outdoors the teacher explained that she had been selectively mute until recently and by flicking through the diary she was able to show us exactly when the child had first spoken in the kita and what her first word was. (Incidentally it was chocolate!) This is when I saw the full potential of this document and how it could be something we introduce in our system to help staff and parents see the language progression at a glance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms, sans-serif;">A huge thanks to Dr Gesina Volkmann from <a href="https://www.berlin.de/ba-mitte/politik-und-verwaltung/sprachfoerderzentrum/" target="_blank"><i>SFZ Berlin</i></a> for taking the time to meet with me on numerous occasions to explain the important work her organisation does in relation to language learning. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have much to mull over from my 4 week travels and a report to write but for now I am taking the time to try and write posts about some of the observations I made. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here is an excellent article on the importance of talk in the classroom: </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108035/chapters/Why-Talk-Is-Important-in-Classrooms.aspx">http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108035/chapters/Why-Talk-Is-Important-in-Classrooms.aspx</a></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here is a great post that explains how a German Kita operates: </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://christywardleblanc.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/german-kita-part-ii/"><i>https://christywardleblanc.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/german-kita-part-ii/</i></a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0