Play Time in Prep - Play Based Learning

It is becoming more an more difficult in our Queensland Prep Classrooms to promote the avenue of 'Play' as a valuable and useful tool for learning. With the implementation of the National Curriculum, it seems that "Structured Learning" has become the overall component and skill building has been forgotten. I believe little people need to interact with their world in order to fully comprehend and understand it. They need to interact with each other to better build their communication skills. They need to imagine it, to feel it and to connect with it. This is why I am holding on to it with sheer grit and determination as it is my strong belief that children learn 'best' through appropriate "Play Opportunities".

 

Last week little 'Stella' broke her arm, Lil had her needles and Sophie's mum was rushed to hospital.

No prizes for guessing what our 'Play Area' is this week!!! YEP! Kalkie Hospital is alive and well!

(nice pun, Mrs Ward) ;)

 

 

The children have been playing so well in the Hospital. They have been learning about the appropriate clothing for workers in hospitals.

How Hospital Staff communicate with Patients.

 

How to give needles, compassionately!! OUCH!

 

 

 

The safe ways to handle and keep medicines.

Gender equity - power to Female doctors and Male nurses !!

 

 

 

They have been responsible for cleaning up after themselves ... well, with a little prompting ... but they have been exceptionally good with it!

 

Time management ... I hear you say ....

How? How? HOW? With 24 children?? They all want to be in there at once!!

 

Well, this is how I do it....

 

The class is divided into 3 groups.

 Group 1 - plays in hospital.

 

 

 

 

 

 

      Group 2 - plays with blocks and builds Hospitals and car parks etc.

 

 

 

      Group 3 - writes up Patient Lists and organizes Patients in the waiting area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ring a bell after 10 -15 minutes and they rotate to the next activity.

 

Long Live PLAY BASED LEARNING!!

 

To download a Free Patient List

CLICK HERE

 

 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Happy Mother's Day to all our Mum's!

We hope you enjoyed the gifts we made for you and

hope you have an enjoyable day.

Thanks so much for your support, so far, this year.

 

As well as our 'usual'  writing paper set, we made great

little sun catchers this year.

We started with the laminated pouches cut in half. We traced a heart shape onto the laminate using a permanent marker.

 

 

I had some signs ready that said, "Mum, I love you." So we opened the pouches (carefully)  and placed them on, writing side down, so as not to get sprinkles covering the words. Also, making sure to get the message up the right way!!

 

Next,  we sprinkled on the cellophane sprinkles and some glitter.

 

 

Next we closed the pouches, making sure to get the correct sides together!! Yikes!!

Next, we ran them through the Laminator and cut around the outline.We put a hole punch in the top or the side and added some ribbon.

 

 

We love how they turned out!!

 

Introducing CVC Words

We've been looking at sounds and how they come together to make words. CVC words are a great place to start. We started with 2 different coloured hoops on the carpet. 
The left had the Vowels A E I O U in it. The second hoop had all the Consonants.

Then, on 2 different coloured mats (the same as the hoops) I had the titles CVC.

The children had to choose a letter from the Consonant hoop, then one from the Vowel hoop, then a final sound that made sense, from the Consonant hoop.

We then wrote a list of all the words we made as we made them. We will add to the list as we stubble across more CVC words in our classroom.

NOW, CHECK THIS LITTLE TIKE NOT CROSSING THE MID-LINE ... but being very clever to test his ambidexterity.

He was making patterns using 2 different colours.

We are going to be doing some more Brain Gym this week.  :)

ALSO...

For all who have contributed or bought the 

Flood Fundraising Pack for Bundy...

We have raised $1083 for East Bundaberg State School!!!

My wildest thank you to you all!!

I will present them with a cheque as soon as the money comes through. :)

Early Reading Help and Activities

Our Home Readers have been sent out a little while ago and I wanted to give my Mums & Dads some ideas to help with Home Reading so if your child is simple reading their books with the eyes closed as they tedious turn the pages (in other words you know they've simply memorized it) then here are some ideas to help. 

But first, some background information.

Repetitive Text / Picture Cues / Sight Words
The books children begin reading with have very repetitive texts. This helps with identifying smaller sight words, helps develop prediction skills and encourages good reading self esteem. Simple repetitive texts means young readers can predict the test by using the pictures as clues. (Picture Cues - don't hide them - if they are using them, they are understanding that reading has to "make sense".) Only one or two words will change. This allows an opportunity for building a strong foundation with words, especially sight words - words they recognize by sight.
There are some reading behaviours I do want to see in my young readers and some we are better off not encouraging. Personally, I believe little readers benefit from using a pointer when reading. I appreciate and understand that some educators don't appreciate these items, but I feel they help focus children's eyes on individual words and they help with tracking (the ability for the eyes to follow along the lines and move with left to right progression). These pointers can take the form of special little character pointers like the ones on my Brisbane colleague, Casey's blog page.    

 
Or they can simply use their finger. I ask children to have their pointing finger ready before we begin reading each page.



It's important to allow the time it takes for your child to read their book and then some, for follow up activities. It isn't necessary to do activities every time, but it will help your child to gain a better understanding and gain greater confidence.
If I can stress only one thing in this ramble, it is the power of suggestion to your child that they ARE a reader!! The power of this statement cannot be underestimated. Seriously, if your child BELIEVES they are a reader, then they soon WILL be!! :)
Okay, so here's some ideas to do with those little first repetitive readers.
The text says : "My bus is little. My truck is little. My car is little."
Write the text and cut the words out. Your child can then use these to re-make the sentences in the story by matching each word with the words in the book.

 Mix up the words, read, and see if it makes any sense.

These words can be duplicated (printed twice) and children can play a matching game.




Choose one word at a time and see if your child can find it on another page.



Choose one word and count how many times that word is in the story. List the word and the number of times it appears in the story.







Delete a word and have them find that word and place it in the correct position.

Ask your child to find a particular word. Can they use that word in a 'new' sentence?

Look at the beginning letter of a particular word and find other words beginning with that same letter.
 eg  "My / me / mum"    OR   "This / Things / These"

IF CHILDREN IN MY CLASS ARE DOING ALL OF THESE THINGS, I'M ONE HAPPY TEACHER - THESE ARE THE THINGS BEGINNING READERS DO...

- recognize familiar words.
- understand that reading has to 'make sense'.
- appreciate that pictures help predict a story.
- comprehend that words can be decoded using   
  beginning/middle/final sounds.
- realize reading is FUN!!

HAPPY READING!!