The real life touch of play dough.

Social Interactions

Noticing the weather changing from summer to autumn, with sunny mornings becoming chilly and misty, our toddlers have felt the cold and have started to spend more time inside engaged in activities. The children love play dough. Each week a new batch is made with their help, choosing the colours, mixing, pouring and measuring; all which have a scientific and mathematic contribution to their learning   development. Each time this is set out, the materials used are changed to suit the children’s interest. This is seen as a challenging way for the children to create many ways play dough can be manipulated. 

Investigating the material

 “The soft consistency of play dough and its soothing texture aids social play” (Somerset, 2000). Some of the values children contend with play dough are, extending the use of familiar material, exploring the texture, experimenting, developing co-ordination of the eye and hand. During this time I observed the children and the so many different ways they engaged with it. Majority of the time was them mimicking each other; because one child was making ‘spaghetti’ the rest of the children were, or rolling the dough out for pizza, making a transformer and so forth. “Children learn from other children. By interacting with their peers, infants and toddlers learn much about the world, their power in it, and their effect on others” (Gonzalez-Mena, 2009). 

Spaghetti

I noticed one child on her own quietly playing, I asked what she was doing, she replied “cookies for mummy” I continued to watch as she rolled the dough out, used the cookie cutter and placed each cut on the side to go into the oven to be baked. “Children develop the knowledge that playing with ideas and materials, with no objective in mind, can be an enjoyable, creative and valid and approach to learning” (Ministry of Education, 1996). 

"Cookies for mummy"

This evidently shows the concept of ‘baking’ which most likely was formed in the home and the continuation of the idea in the centre by us teachers. It also allows children to bring to life their creativity and imagination through this non technology interaction of play. In addition to this, some special values of play dough becomes an aid in forming social groups, a means of dramatising and an aid to identifying with adults work (Somerset, 2000). A lot of this was seen amongst the children’s observations. 

In extension of the child’s concepts of baking which was also convenient and aligned with dramatic play, the children made some traditional Indian bread with one of the other teachers. The children helped combine the mixture, spoon each mixture into the electric pan and helped flip it with hands on supervision at all times. They really enjoyed this experience and play dough time after that reflected their realization of events they encountered during the real life take of it. 

Reality concepts

I noticed now that their play was more refined with the baking experience, they were more aware of how to do things with the play dough, it had purpose. “Through the kinds of problem solving situations that present themselves in child-child interactions, youngsters come to learn such valuable skills as how to resolve conflicts” (Gonzalez-Mena, 2009). 

Exploring the texture

Through this activity with the children I have learnt how much of a contribution it has to them socially, mentally and physically. It encourages friendships, child-child interactions, problem solving, creativity and making the connection of ideas to visual result.

References:

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te whariki, he whariki matauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Gonzalez-Mena, J., & Eyer, D.W. (2009). Infant, toddlers, and     caregivers: A curriculum or respectful responsive care and education (8^{th ed.}). boston, MA: McGrawHill Higher Education.

Somerset, G. (2000). Work and Play in the early years. Auckland, New Zealand, New Zealand Play centre Federation.

Going shopping!

In discussion of non technology resources in our room, the children’s interest has been focused on dramatic play; dressing up, shopping, role playing mummies and daddies, impersonating cartoons characters, rein acting super heroes and much more! The most common interaction to stand out amongst these is ‘shopping’ the children LOVE shopping! Whether its blocks in a basket or Lego in a handbag it’s always referred to as “my shopping teacher” I’ve observed how the children come together in the family corner to get ready for a day out of shopping. The communication that goes on between peers; suggesting what they should wear, making comments to each other such as “my mummy wears a top like that” and “Il wear this because it’s pretty” “put this on your the dad” are ways of expression that simply contribute to a child’s language development. I believe a lot of these acts the children role play are experiences they encounter in the home, “how mummy and daddy go shopping” “what they buy” “how they talk” and the children’s conversation usually reflect this and is the base of where the imitation is created. In support to this the Ministry of Education state children experience an environment where they discover and develop different ways to be creative and expressive through various activities such as pretend play, storytelling, drama, and making music (Ministry of Education, 1996). This is part of the early childhood curriculum.

I also noticed how observant the children were while shopping, only choosing certain objects and referring it to “milk” or “chocolate cake” or “ice cream” this defines how much a child comprehends what we adults do, and then makes sense of in his/her own way. “Dramatising is a natural path to language. As a child grows, adult words to fit into a situation are borrowed, practised and adopted” (Somerset, 2000). This interaction initiated turn taking, sharing, conversation, communication, friendships, cognitive development and exploration. Piaget’s preoperational stage where the child begins to represent the world with words and images is displayed through the children’s imitation of real life occurrences that happen in the home (Santrock, 2010).

The children have continued to engaged in pretend play ‘shopping’ where I have extended their ideas of a supermarket, to going to the ‘Butcher’ for meat or the ‘Bakery’ for bread and the ‘Ice Cream Parlour’ for ice cream. This has made a huge contribution to their language development, more conversations, more use of words, more thinking and creating ideas. They have learnt so much in ways of expressing themselves and building and maintaining relationships. I’ve learnt how to extend a child’s imagination, the extent of how they think and beyond, how children imitate real life into their learning environment and their understanding of  daily events.

In comparison to later days to today in terms of dramatic play, I believe not a lot has changed. Yes we do have more materials and resources provided to support children's play but the core of imagination and interaction is still there. Today's society is more technical considing technology is pretty much taking over and children have more to associate with, where as the later days had less to, therefore 'dramatic play was efficient enough to suit those times.                               

References: 

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whariki: He wariki matauranga mo nga mokopuna o Aotearoa/ Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Sommerset, G. (2000). Work and play in the early years (4^th ed.). New Lynn Auckland: New Zealand. Playcentre Federation.

Santrock, J.W. (2010). Lifespan development (12^th ed., International). Boston, MA: Mcgraw-Hill

Smorti, S. (1999) Technology in early childhood. Early Education, 1, 5-10

Electronic Stories

Recently we have noticed the children in the Kiwi Toddler room have become a little distracted with other resources and each other at mat time. During this time we usually read books, sing songs of the children’s choice, converse about what they may have done the previous day or their experiences in relation to the book we are reading. I think at this point they were getting bored with the reoccurrence of these happenings, so I suggested that we read along with an electronic story. Before I put this on for the children, I talked a bit about it and they were excited to hear it. As the story started, there was absolute silence! They were so into the book, listening and sitting ever so quietly, it was amazing! The children followed the book as it was being red and actually paid attention to the words, pictures and even started to sing along with the tune. With this use of technology the children learnt recognition and recalling through the sound of each word pronounced and the pictures on each page. Their reaction to certain parts of the story like "I like that teacher" and "I got that in my home" displayed their comprehension of what was happening in the story. In addition to the learning that took place, it also encouraged the children’s use of language and that it was another form of communication.

Throughout the day I noticed some of the children were rein acting what we red in the story through their dramatic play. The story talked about jungle animals and the children were dressing up in these costumes and making the sounds effects to each one they were. This shows how effective the use of this piece of technology was. It benefited the children in ways where they still remembered and it was dictated throughout their play continuously. From personal experience, the attention span of toddlers is quite short and the use of electronic stories was a good way to keep them interested and focused. Ministry of Education stated in regards to experiencing exploration, that toddlers have opportunities to use different skills, such as listening, observation, remembering, reflection, decision making and language skills (Te Wharki, 1996). This refines and supports the technology I used for mat time. The electronic story did enable the children these opportunities that contributed to their way of expression and communication.   

Although technology is everywhere in the room, it’s not quite recognised for what it is in our room. Smorti stated technology is about helping people and solving problems, it’s also a creative and purposeful activity aimed at meeting needs and opportunities through the development of products, systems or environments (Smorti, S. 1999). In support of this statement I strongly agreed and applied this to my teaching. I observed mat times weren't working out accordingly and I found a solution through technology. I will continue to use electronic stories but every so often so children don’t form a pattern of always expecting it. I have learnt for myself as an educator how to enhance learning opportunities by using technology and other ways of scaffolding a child's learning with positive outcomes.