Pumpkin play!

“Babies immediately begin taking information about the world through their sense of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell” (Cherry, 2015)

As a pair, we decided we would explore messy/ sensory play as this something we were both very much interested in, and believe children learn effectively using this type of play. Children are able to develop motor skills, and also build their knowledge of the world around them. The flexibility of sensory/messy play also presents children with the opportunity to choose what they wish to learn at their own pace.

The children who took part in the activity were only 10 months old; however, the activity could be used with children up to 5 years old by increasing the difficulty and changing the materials used, for example.

The activity

The activity was presented by giving the children the pumpkin with the top cut off and letting the children explore. Later on in the activity, the adult gave the children some sticker faces for the pumpkin and suggested to the children what they should do with them (because they are only 10 months). The adult only helped the child when the back of the faces need to be peeled off to make them sticky. The adult gave it back to the child, letting them stick it on and then the adult just pushed it down to make sure it was stuck on (the children are too young to be able to push the stickers on properly). Other than helping the children with this, the adult was only there to stop the children getting hurt (by eating the pips, for example).

Theories to support the activity

Piaget’s Theory of Development (Mcleod, 2015)

Children explore the world solely through the use of their senses and motor movements. All senses can be used when exploring the pumpkin, and both fine and gross motor skills can also be used (fine motor skills when picking up the pumpkin innards and stickers, and gross motor skills when bending down and picking up the pumpkin). Children expand on current schemas through the process of assimilation and accommodation. The use of the pumpkin means that the children can develop their schema of foods by understanding that while it is different in colour, size and taste, a pumpkin is still a fruit just like an apple, for example.

Montessori Play Theory (Montessori St Nicholas, 2015)

Play activities are vital for healthy development in all areas, particularly socialisation, emotional wellbeing and problem solving. Play activities should be child-led, and should stem from the child’s own imagination and experiences. While there is some adult input in our activity, this input is based on the child’s reactions and what the child wants to do. The nature of our activity allows this to be possible

Reflection

The activity went as well as we thought it would, both children took part in their own ways. We knew from the start that E would not like the messy part as much as M would; and we knew M would like the messy part rather than the decorating part. The babies took more interest in the activity than we thought and we managed to keep going with the activity more for than 10 minutes which is a first for them. E tried the messy play part by sticking her hand in the pumpkin and feeling, but much preferred the decorating. She managed to put sticky eyes on the pumpkin herself, with little help from an adult. M was very much interested in trying to eat the pumpkin and feeling it in his hands. He loved the feel and taste; trying to squeeze the inner pumpkin together in his hands. He also loved the mini pumpkin we had available, he enjoyed picking it up and carrying it around with him; and trying to put the mini pumpkin inside the bigger one. These results highlight the flexibility of the activity to allow children to learn in their own ways.

By.
Lauren Baalham (SID- 1309795) 
Charlotte Drewell (SID- 1404669)

References 
Cherry, K., 2015. An Introduction to Child Development. [online] Available at: http://psychology.about.com/od/early-child-development/a/introduction-to-child-development.htm. [Accessed 10 December 2015].

McLeod, S., 2015. Jean Piaget. [online] Available at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html. [Accessed 10 December 2015].

Montessori St Nicholas, 2015. The Philosophy. [online] Available at: http://www.montessori.org.uk/what_is_montessori/the_philosophy. [Accessed 10 December 2015].

                                                                                     

<My Favourite Things> Mathematics Area

We chose to focus our activity on Mathematics provision as it was highlighted as being an area of priority in the setting Hannah works in. It is also an area that is a very important part of children’s development and children should be able to explore mathematical concepts through play and in creative ways.

The mathematics area of learning includes: seeking patterns; making connections; recognising relationships; and working with numbers, shapes, space and measures, counting, sorting and matching. It also allows children to develop their abstract thoughts and generalise which develops logical thinking, such as problem-solving, reasoning skills; and analysing events that occur in the world around them (Selmi, Gallagher and Mora-Flores, 2014). By allowing and giving opportunities to explore, practise, learn and talk, this area supports children’s understanding in different situations and becoming confident and competent in learning.

The activity we chose to do was called ‘My Favourite things’ and involved a group of children collecting some things they liked from the room and talking about the properties of the object eg. Shape, size, colour. They were then able to weigh their objects using bucket scales to see which were heavier. The children then explored these objects independently, with an adult there to encourage children, to think about the shape, weight and size of their objects and engage children in mathematical thinking.

Our activity was a balance of adult led and child initiated. It is stated in the EYFS 2014 that this type of balance is important for children as they learn both by their own play and play which is guided by adults. The practitioner is there to be able to demonstrate mathematic language and introduce children to terms and words they may not be familiar with. An activity such as this would be planned individually for a child or a group of children by their keyworker based on interests and next steps gained from observations which the keyworker will have recorded on a next steps sheet.

‘I think the shell will be heavy like B’s. See it is heavy. Rocks are heavy too.’

‘It’s gone down’

‘That’s cos it’s heavy.’

‘Look at all these I have…mine is full.’

‘Mine is empty.’

 ‘Let’s go measure the sand.’

‘Ok. I’m going to see how deep it is.’

Through engaging in this activity the children demonstrated learning outcomes from Development Matters in Mathematics: Shape, Space and Measure 30-50 months of ‘uses positional language.’ The adults were also meeting the ‘Positive Relationships advice for this area to “Demonstrate the language for shape, position and measures in discussions, e.g. ‘sphere’, ‘shape’, ‘box’, ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘inside’, ‘under’, long, longer’, ‘longest’, ‘short’, shorter’, ’shortest’, ‘heavy’, ‘light’, ‘full’ and ‘empty’.” (BAECE, 2012, p.36).

The children engaged particularly well with the second part of the activity, enjoying exploring the objects in a number of ways combining all areas of learning. They used mathematical language in role play, experimentation and resolving conflicts with their peers. This was a very good demonstration of how holistic the learning of mathematics can be. This activity demonstrated well the effective use of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal development with social interaction between adults and children on how to find things out and asking appropriate questions meant that their learning was being advanced. The children were observed on a long observation sheet and a keyworker could use this to further the individual children’s learning by planning activities which allowed them to further their mathematical concepts through play such as making a ‘cake’ with scales and ‘ingredients’ to measure such as flour, water, oats etc. and different sized cake containers.

References:

BAECE, 2012. Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). [pdf] The British Association for Early Childhood Education. Available at: <http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/files/2012/03/Development-Matters-FINAL-PRINT-AMENDED.pdf> [Accessed 20 November 2015]

Broadhead, P. and Burt, A., 2012. Understanding Children’s Learning Through Play: Building Playful Pedagogies. London : Routledge.

DfE, 2014. Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. [pdf] DfE. Available at: <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/335504/EYFS_framework_from_1_September_2014__with_clarification_note.pdf > [Accessed 21 November 2015].

Selmi A,M., Gallagher, R.J., Mora-Flores, E., 2014. Early Childhood Curriculum For All Learners. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

By Hannah Lintott (SID 1434365), Melissa Buxton (SID 1432753), and Hyun Sul Lee (SID 1425811)