Entry Five

Entry Five

For this planned provocation it was inspired by the children’s interest in gardening. I decided to take a group of children to our backyard to check on our vegetable garden and explore the nature in the garden. The children have always loved visiting the centres garden so one day I took a group of children with me and check on the garden to see what vegetables we need to plant for the winter season. As we got to the vegetable garden, one child noticed a yellow and black insect on one of the cabbage. I took a closer look and it was a “Caterpillar”, there were three caterpillars on the cabbage. Children were very interested in the caterpillar that they wanted to keep some. The children have taken a strong interest towards the caterpillars and how they want to see the caterpillar turn into a butterfly, I decided to take two caterpillars inside the centre for the children to watch and experience the life cycle of the butterfly. This is how our inquiry-based learning started, the children shared a common interest and wanted to explore and find out more about the life cycle of the butterfly (Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett, & Farmer, 2015). 

  

 I set up a table with papers, colouring pencils, magnifying glasses, and a small plant with the two caterpillars on it. I made sure that children understand the importance of looking after the creatures in our environment. My role as a teacher was to listen and ask open-ended questions to the children about what they know and what they don’t know. As MacNaughton & Williams (2009) stated, “When teachers use listening as a teaching strategy, then try to understand what the children are saying, and through doing so’ try to better understand them”. (p. 116). 

As I watched children observing the two caterpillars munching on a leaf, they were very involved into how they eat so they used the magnifying glasses so they could get a closer look at the details of the caterpillar and the way they move around the leaf.

I planned on introducing the technology to this learning experience, by giving children iPads to watch videos based on “The life cycle of a Butterfly”. Children took a turn on the iPad watching the caterpillar story but then more children noticed what was happening and therefore the table was crowded with children trying to watch the iPad. So, I decided to put the video on the Apple TV for everyone to watch. This allowed me to give children the opportunity to connect with the wider natural environment (Ministry of Education, 2017, p. 35). This also allowed me to support children’s learning by letting them observe and identify the characteristics of the life cycle of a butterfly as well as listening to what they are saying and the comments they make.

As the video goes on about the caterpillar changing its size and shape, I heard children mentioning the word “Pupa”, “Cocoon” and “larva”, I found it very interesting that some children knew the words to the butterfly life cycle, so I asked the teachers if they have already learnt about the life cycle of butterfly and they said that it was only in the book called “The Hungry Caterpillar” and watching videos on YouTube about butterflies. Therefore, this will be the first time that children will get to watch real-life experiment on the life cycle of a butterfly. After watching the video, children started asking questions about “What food does the caterpillar eat?” or “How do we keep the caterpillar from falling down the leaf?”. I decided as a centre, we gathered more information about what caterpillars eat and not eat, and how we can keep them on the leaf without falling and so on. In doing this I was facilitating the children’s learning by giving them what they required to learn and reach a successful outcome. “Facilitating is a process of making children’s learning easier” (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009).  

This provocation helped the children deepened their understanding of the environment and developing confidence in working alongside others to explore the nature and making sense of their social world. Ministry of Education believes that children problem solving together with their peers, they develop the understanding of how things work (Ministry of Education, 1996). This experiment will be an ongoing learning process for the children in the centre.

References 

Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Death, E., Dockett, S. & Farmer,S. (2012). Programming and planning in early childhood settings (5^th ed). Melbourne, Australia: Cengage Learning.

MacNaughton, G. & Williams, G. (2009). Techniques for teaching young children: Choices for theory and practise (3^rd ed.). Frenchs Forest, N.S.W: Pearson Education Austarlia.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education (2017). Te Whāriki He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Mātauranga House. 

Entry Four

Entry Four

At my home centre, we have several ICT resources that the children are able to use and enjoy without teacher’s supervision. We currently have an Apple TV, two iPads, Bluetooth speaker, and an Apple computer for all the children to use. In our centre, we limit the use of technology by giving children 10-15 minutes of quiet learning using the iPads, or 15- 20 minutes of singing, dancing and watching school programmes on TV. Throughout my teaching experience in the centre, I have observed the use of technologies in early childhood education and how technologies can play a significant role in children’s learning as they connect effectively to people, places, things and events.

One day I noticed child B playing on the iPad and he was very engaged in what he was doing. I sat next to him to have a closer look at what he was doing, I saw that he was focusing on connecting the dots to form the letter “M”. From this, he was very patient on connecting the lines even though he kept drawing over the dots and therefore loses the lines and have to start again. I observed him for few minutes and he saw that I was watching him. He asked for my help, but I did not want to intervene because he was halfway to connecting the last two lines for the letter “M”, so I encouraged him to keep his eyes on his index (pointer) finger and slowly follow the line by pressing down smoothly on the screen. He tried it again and he kept starting over and over. This time he took my advice by slowly following the lines and connecting the dots together and therefore he successfully form a capital letter “M”. I was very pleased to watch him complete this task without giving up. He excitedly showed me what he had done, then he went to the teachers and his friends to show them the iPad with his writing on it.  He was very proud of doing so as he had learnt a new skill. With technology “solving practical problems contributes to self-confidence and wellbeing” (Ministry of Education, 1996, p 94).

Following his interest in writing and drawing, I decided to expand on this by incorporating another aspect of technology, so I played a video of the alphabetical order on the Apple TV and encouraged child B to sing along to the ABC song, this will help him recognise the letters of the alphabetical order. His friends started joining in by dancing around and singing along to pronounce each letter of the alphabetical order.

During this experience, Child B had learnt the skill of hand-eye coordination by visually following the dots on the screen and actively participating in the activity. He was able to learn how to write the letters on the iPad and used it to engage with his friends and teachers. This learning experience enhances social interaction skills as children develop their language skills by using technology and such skills will then develop their understanding for the world around them (Ministry of Education, 2017).

References

Cook, T., & Hess, E. (2007). What the camera sees and from whose perspective: Fun methodologies for engaging children in enlightening adults. Childhood, 14(1), 29-45.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education (2017). Te Whāriki He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Mātauranga House. 

Reference List

Reference List

Arthur, L., Beecher, B., Dockett, S., Farmer, S., & Death, E. (2008). Programming and planning in early childhood settings (4th ed.). Melbourne, Australia: Thomson Learning (or 2012 edition). 

Berk, L. (2007). Development through the lifespan (4^th ed.). Boston, Ma: Allyn & Bacon and Pearson Education.

Drewery, W. & Claiborne, L. B. (2014). Human development: Family, place, culture. (2^nd ed.). North Ryde NSW, Australia: McGraw-Hill Education (Australia) Pty Ltd.

Fleer, M., & Jane, B. (2011). Design and technology for children. Frenchs Forest, Australia: Pearson. Australia.

Kirova, A., & Bhargava, A. (2002). Learning to guide preschool children’s mathematical understanding: A teacher’s professional growth.  Early Childhood Research & Practice, 4(1). Retrieved 6 August, 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v4n1/kirova.html

MacNaughton, G., & Williams, G. (2009). Techniques for teaching young children: Choices in theory and practice (3^rd ed.). French Forrest, Australia: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Ministry of Education. (1996). Te Whāriki: He whāriki matauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Ministry of Education. (2017). Te Whāriki: He whāriki matauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa: Early childhood curriculum. Wellington, New Zealand: Learning Media.

Santrock, J.W. (2009). Lifespan development (12^th ed., International). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

Subrahmanyam, K., Kraut, R. E., Greenfield, P. M., & Gross, E. F. (2000). The impact of home computer use on children's activities and development. The future of children, 123-144.

Woods, M., & Taylor, J. (2005). Early Childhood Studies: an holistic introduction. Hodder Education.

Entry Three

Technology can impact both positively and negatively on young children’s lives. The positive effect of technology on children’s lives is that it helps them find more information about people, places, things and events (Fleer & Jane, (2011).  Young children develop new knowledge from investigating through technology and they will be more likely to open their minds about reasoning and other possibilities. This gives children opportunities to use their imagination to develop questions and expand their knowledge (Arthur, Beecher, Dockett, Farmer & Death, (2008).

However, technology can also have a negative effect on children’s lives. Children who come from dysfunctional families that struggle financially and emotionally could result in the child coming into the centre and having behaviour issues. “The children of permissive parents are often found to be aggressive in their relationships with parents, adults and other children”. (Woods & Taylor, 2005). This explained the way children have a lot of difficulties with forming relationships because of the child’s negative influence at home results to the child not knowing how to make positive relationships. This will affect the child’s social competence of not knowing how to interact with people around them.

“Technology for most people means… ‘labour saving’ technology, ‘high consumption’ technology, and they also see the use of such technologies as a measure of social and cultural development” (Fleer & Jane, (2011).

In an early childhood setting, technology is used to help children engage with things that they have not seen or heard before. For example, some children have not been to the zoo, museum or on a plane. Teachers would use the iPad and T.V to show the children some pictures of animals that are in the zoo, or pictures of things in the museum, and videos of aeroplanes flying in the air. These things made children connect to the world that they have not yet experienced but have seen it through technology. It is important to have technology as it provides children valuable learning opportunities. This influence young children to “think logically, strategically, creatively and critically” that they are much likely to continue to engage in ICT later in life (Kirova & Bhargava, 2002). Although technology can also take away children’s “Hands on experience” with people, places, things and events around them. In my centre we make sure that children can only use iPads when they need information to answer questions about what they have discovered in the centre, they would also get to spend only three minutes on iPads then they are sent to create things they have watched or seen on TV. The increasing amount of time children are spending on technologies at home and school has raised questions about how the use of technology may make a difference in their lives--from “helping with homework to causing depression to encouraging violent behaviour” (Subrahmanyam, Kraut, Greenfield & Gross, (2000).

Entry Two

Entry Two

Social sciences have a significant impact on children’s learning and development. Science is the study of the nature and behaviour of natural things and the knowledge that we obtain about the environment. Children explore the world of science in their everyday life. Young children have a natural curiosity about their world and how it works. “The social sciences learning area is about how societies work and how people can participate as critical, active, informed, and responsible citizens. Contexts are drawn from the past, present, and future and from places within and beyond New Zealand” (Ministry of Education, 2007).

“Science allows learners to generate different theories and gather knowledge and understanding of the world around them” (Ministry of Education, 1996).

 

In early childhood settings, as teacher's we explore the science of how children learn and how they associate and interact with the world around them. This helps teachers to observe the value of play in children’s development. When children are playing they are exploring, creating, testing, trying, tasting, questioning and observing. These experiences build the foundation of a great future scientist. Teachers provide stimulating science experience for children to explore and become active explorers to make sense of the world (Ministry of Education, 2016).

Another way teachers can help children scientifically is by asking open-ended questions this enables children to think beyond measure use their current scientific knowledge and skills for problem-solving (Ministry of Education, 2007). Open-ended questions are used to find out how others are thinking and making sense of the natural and social world (MacNaughton & Williams, 2009). Teachers support children’s holistic development through a range of science experiences from simply being in an outdoors environment where children can get closer to nature, to participate in safe experiments that encourage children to think outside the box and explore the many possibilities (Ministry of Education, 2016). I strongly believe that children experience cognitive, emotional, physical, social and cultural development through science. For example,

Cognitive development: Children build essential science processing skills such as ¨ observing, classifying and sorting

Emotional development: Young children experience a range of emotions, including happiness, pride, shame, sadness etc. These feelings can influence children to interact and communicate with others. Children use a range of communication strategies including gestures, movements and sounds to express feelings (Arthur, Beecher, Dockett, Farmer & Death, 2008)

Physical development: Children experiencing the way they become better at controlling their bodies by repeat the same physical action or skill over and over until they master it. Through science, children can inquire information about the physical nature of things.

Social and Cultural development: Young children learn how to work collaboratively with others. They learn to communicate and interact in social groups. Science acknowledges that learning occurs through the co-construction of ideas and sharing knowledge.

“Children experience the stories and symbols of their own and other cultures, developing awareness of the richness of communication” -(Ministry of Education, 1996, p.97).

Children learn to acknowledge their own identity and learn about the culture they identify with.