November 2014 – Child On Ground

This last week at Forest Kindergarten…..

The play was evolving again – this is what emergent curriculum is all about. Last week I watched and facilitated the move from mainly displaying functional play to using Constructive and Dramatic/Symbolic play. This week their process moved one further step towards games with rules. They began to assign roles – weapon maker, the guards, the adventurers going into the woods to search for dragons.

Some roles were fluid, allowing some or all to participate, some were relegated to one person. All the kids worked together to discuss roles and rules and work out their play providing wonderful opportunities to learn and really practice communication and social development.

Preparing – the cook is feeding the troops, weapon maker is preparing weapons, the adventurers are preparing to scout.

The Kids covered personal and social development, language, science and technology. physical development, the arts.

Practicing before scouting for a Dragons.

The Kids covered personal and social development, language, science and technology, physical development.

The adventurers out looking for dragons.

The Kids covered personal and social development, language, math, physical development.

Making / fortifying the castle.

The Kids covered personal and social development, language, math, science and technology. physical development, the arts.

Guarding the castle.

The Kids covered personal and social development, language.

This Last Week at Forest Kindergarten….

With the second week of snow the kids are moving from an almost purely sensory experience of the snow – rolling, tasting, touching (with and without mittens) to evolve these experiences into various games. The move from last week from mainly displaying functional play to this week Constructive and Dramatic/Symbolic Play is an amazing unfolding process to watch.

Eating fresh snow transforms this week to making cake and serving cake to everyone, counting ingredients and sculpting the finished cake. The kids work on social development, language/communication, Mathematics, Physical Activity (fine motor) and Art.

Running jumping, rolling in the snow, snow fights and snow ball fights both to feel the snow but also to keep warm and slowing down to make snow angels transforms this week to elaborate monster games of running, jumping hiding and tending to the “hurt” the kids learn Personal Development and social skills, Language, science and physical activity (gross motor).

Digging in the snow, making snow angels, building snowballs transformed to projects in the snow such as raising trees by digging in, trial and error for how deep they need to dig and how to brace it with snow so it doesn’t fall. The kids learn communication, science, Physical Activity (gross and fine) art, project planning.

Experiential child directed play is so important in the learning process for kids in the preoperational stage. It is through their play they themselves learn the complex process of not only what doesn’t work but why, how to deal with it and the flexibility and strong self confidence to try again until they find something that does work. This builds not only a knowledge base but an experiential understanding of why it does work.