As an early childhood teacher I regard children’s play as an important aspect of their learning and development. Play is a broad subject area and can be defined under specific headings such as imaginative play, rough and tumble play, structured play, heuristic play, gun play, and more. Wood and Attfield (2005) suggest that, “play cannot be easily defined or categorized as it is always context dependent, and the contexts are varied”.
Imaginary play is a natural and essential aspect of early development as children play on their own or work together as a group. As a teacher I see imaginative play all around me on a daily basis and have to agree that it is an essential ingredient for early development as children make connecting links to the world around them through their play.
Opportunities for curiosity, collaboration and creativity
An ELP series presentation by Jeanette Clarkin-Phillips & Margaret Carr
This presentation was around three research projects where aspects of children’s learning and dispositions were identified. The three projects centred around excursions to exhibitions in Te Papa and examined:
Read more: Learning from excursions outside the early childhood centre
A short reflection on this Summit held at Bethlehem Tertiary Institute 8th and 9th April 2016
The EC-MENz Summit is an annual event and O have attended quite a few of them in the past. This was the tenth Summit and the goalk was to try and get more men into the workforce. This could be achieved if we had enough funding to employ someone part-time to visit schools and tertiary institutions to support male entrants there.
I have always considered it essential to identify learning and more importantly document this learning in our working environment. The first workshop dealt with research on assessment practices specific to four year old children. The second was an ERO presentation on what's happening in curriculum in early childhood services.
This musing on assessment and practices is centred around two workshops that I attended recently.
Read more: Assessment practices – an early childhood perspective
This short reflection is an attempt to unpack the essence of hauora, or well-being, from an early childhood perspective.
Hauora is a Māori concept that relates to the health model in Te Ao Māori (the Māori World). It encompasses a holistic viewpoint and is defined within four distinct dimensions (http://health.tki.org.nz). These are:
Read more: Hauora - well-being from an early childhood perspective
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