THE MAGIC OF CHILDREN'S PLAY!'

OUTDOOR PLAY LINK-UP: STICK INSECTS IN OUR GARDEN

10 12 12'

Written by Karen

1 Comment

WELCOME TO THIS FORTNIGHTS OUTDOOR PLAY LINK-UP!

As Spring has arrived in Melbourne Australia, we have been having a lot of conversations with the children about insects and other small creatures we might find in the garden.  We have spent time studying this wonderful book, Backyard wildlife (the link is to a more recent edition than ours), which assists children to identify a number of common garden insects and determine whether or not they are safe to handle.  Just yesterday, we were talking about stick insects, and today a group of boys were ‘blown away’  by finding one in our garden! Their excitement could not be contained!

According to the Australian Museum, “There are estimated to be approximately 150 species of phasmids in Australia with a total world wide number of 3000 with new species being discovered by scientists regularly.

Phasmids are found in a range of habitats and have adapted to both resemble and feed on a variety of plant species. Some such as the Goliath Stick Insect are found in the forested areas of eastern Australia there are also species which occur in arid, coastal and monsoonal environments. Most phasmids feed on either or both Eucalyptus (gum trees) and Acacia (wattles) however some are specialists such as the Peppermint Stick Insect, Megacrania batesi, which only eats the leaves of the Screw pine, Pandanus tectorius, and receives its name from the peppermint-like smelling secretion it produces when alarmed.

Australian stick Insects range in size from a few centimetres long to the longest species; the Titan Stick Insect, Acrophylla titan, which can grow up to 250mm from head to tail, and often appear longer when the front legs stretched forward.”

We observed the stick insect as it walked along the branch with its long twiggy thin legs. Occasionally it fluttered its wings, giving us a view of there delicate transparency. We allowed it to walk up our bodies, and even into our hair!  We noticed that it tended to rock its body back and forth and the children decided that it was dancing! We were amazed by just how much it looked exactly like a stick and talked about how cleverly it was camouflaged.

We compared our stick insect to the images we found in our book. It looked identical to one of them!

After spending some time marveling at the uniqueness of our stick insect, we returned him to a tree in our garden, hopeful that we might meet him again someday.

What a great experience for the children!

MY FAVORITE POST FROM LAST FORTNIGHTS LINK UP: PAINTED ROCKS GAME

from ‘One Perfect Day’ (click on the image below to access post)


How did your kids play outdoors this week?

Any kind of children’s outdoor play-related posts are welcome!

 We’d appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we’ll gladly further share your post on Facebook/ Twitter/ Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back.

 Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured. (If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the ‘featured’ button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!



Category:

Animals In Preschool, Emergent Curriculum as it Unfolds., Science Concepts in Play

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OUTDOOR LINK-UP: NATURE WEAVING

09 27 12'

Written by Karen

3 Comments

Welcome to our…

 Outdoor Play link-up!

Just recently, here in Melbourne (Australia),  we have experienced some beautifully calm Spring days with clear blue skies mixed in with some wild ‘n’ woolly windy days. A fairly typical spring really!

The wild ‘n’ woolly days have been just what we needed to help bring down an abundance of sticks from our playground trees.  And hey, show me a child who can walk past a stick lying on the ground without picking it up!  Yep, we all know that is NOT going to happen!

A stick holds so much magic for a child. Their imagination can turn it into a million-trillion useful, and perhaps not so useful, different things.  It can be a poker, a prodder, a walking stick, a wand, a gun, a laser, a sword, a snake, a stirring stick, a writing stick, a fishing  rod… you name it, these examples are just the ones that immediately come to mind! However it is used, there is no doubt, there is much potential for learning in the humble stick!

As a means of encouraging the children to widen their ‘stick-use’ ideas and perhaps see the potential for using sticks within their artwork, I settled down outside with a few interested children to introduce a stick-weaving exercise.

The children were quickly able to understand the technique involved and were excited to participate. Each child chose their own colour to add and wove their magic.

As the weaving grew, the children decided that it was beginning to look like a web. This in turn promoted a lot of discussion about spiders and ‘orb webs’ and how cleaver spiders were to know how to make such a wonder design for their webs.

 

When it was finished, the children decided that we should hang our ‘web’ up in the outdoor art centre for a spider to find and perhaps use for his web. ‘L’s’ imagination lead her to perceiving the potential for using the same technique for making her own spider for the web.

And here it is! A redback spider!

 ‘L’s’ spider impressed many of her friends and prompted a flurry of spider making activity. ‘L’ became the ‘expert’ on spider making and confidently instructed her friends in the process.

When we get back from term break, I wonder what other adventures we will be having with the humble stick! 🙂

 My favorite outdoor play post from last link up: It’s a Dino Dig! (Ms Barbara)

Click on the image above to read more! 

How did your kids play outdoors this week?
  • Any kind of children’s outdoor play-related posts are welcome!

We’d appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we’ll gladly further share your post on Facebook/ Twitter/ Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back.
Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured. (If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the ‘featured’ button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!



Category:

Art Experiences in Preschool, Nature Play, Outdoor Play Link-up, Weaving and Sewing with Children.

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LET’S GO SHOPPING!

09 25 12'

Written by Karen

0 Comments

Recently, our children have been incorporating ‘shop play’ into their dramatic play experiences. We have had a ‘fish ‘n’ chip’ shop in the cubby house, a ‘cake stall’ in the sandpit and an ‘ice-cream shop’ under our climbing forte. So as a means of supporting and promoting further learning in relation to this interest, we decided to set up a ‘supermarket corner’ in the space that is normally our ‘home corner’.

Once the shop area was established, we were amazed by how the children began to play in a manner that reflected an incredible attention to detail. They had clearly closely observed the behaviour of supermarket shoppers and ‘check-out’ workers critically and thoughtfully. They were able to take on the characteristic actions and ‘model’ the typical ‘small-talk’ that might occur between customers and sales staff.

I was instantly reminded of this quote:

“Education is not Preparation for life; Education is Life Itself”.

(John Dewey)

Children are ALWAYS learning. They are tuned in to our every move and every action, eventually modelling and imitating all that they observe in their day to day encounters. It is a necessary part of their ‘making sense’ of the world in which they live and coming to terms with the social and cultural ‘norms’ of their society.

In her book, “The Cultural Nature of Human Development” (2003), Barbara Rogof highlighted that ‘culture matters’ in children’s learning and development.

“The theoretical perspective that I put forward focuses on both the cultural and the individual processes involved in human development. I argue that individuals develop as participants in their cultural communities, engaging with others in shared endeavours and building on cultural practices of prior generations.”

“One aim of the book is to bring to awareness the cultural aspects of everyday practices that seem ‘natural’ to those whose upbringing is limited to the dominant European-American middle-class culture. Rather than being ‘normal’, they are closely tied to cultural traditions of this community.”

You can read more here if you wish.

In her book (page 6) Rogof provides a photograph (courtesy of David Wilkie) of an 11-month-old Efe child (In the Ituri Forest of the Democratic Republic of Congo) with a large fruit as he “…skillfully uses a machete, with his grandmother monitoring in the background.” How different is this child’s cultural experience with regard to attaining food to that of our children’s experiences?

Dramatic play provides children with opportunities to practice the social behaviours and cultural traditions of their society. But in addition, it provides children with opportunities to develop literacy and numeracy skills as they re-enact typical ‘real life’ contexts.

Considered the following outcomes of the Victorian Early Years Learning Framework (Australia) in relation to the children’s ‘supermarket play’:

  • Demonstrate an understanding of mathematical concepts in play.
  • Take on roles of literacy and numeracy users in their play.
  • Take on the characteristics and actions related to a role.
  • Share the stories and symbols of their own culture and re-enact well-known stories.

 

Category:

Early Childhood Research and Education

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SQUISHY SQUASHY CLAY PLAY

09 14 12'

Written by Karen

7 Comments

Hi and welcome to this weeks…

OUTDOOR PLAY LINK UP! 

 The “Food in Play” debate continues to be problematic for many early childhood professionals. It really is hard to determine exactly where to draw the line on what can be classified as food. At our preschool, we have decided that:

  •  anything that can be directly consumed as food without adding any other ingredient, will not be used in play (eg. rice and pasta).
  • anything that requires mixing with other ingredients to be consumed as food, will be used sparingly if a substitute cannot be found (eg. flour and salt).

 For our preschool staff, this was an appropriate ethical decision, based on demonstrating respect for global food availability. Because we have access to food in abundance, should not mean that we adopt flippant or careless approaches towards its use. We are seeing a steady increase in the number of families enrolling at our preschool who have come to Australia as refugees from Burma. Imagine how these families would respond emotionally to seeing children playing with large tubs of coloured rice following on from their own personal experiences in refugee camps!

So for us, rice and pasta are out, and where possible we seek alternatives to using food substances. In the past, we have made up batches of “Goop” from corn-flour and water, but recently we have discovered that clay and water can create almost the same sensory experience.

We started out with large blocks of firm clay in a tub of water. It took the children quite some time, mixed in with a lot of fun, to break these large lumps of clay down into smaller more malleable pieces.

Eventually it formed into a silky smooth consistency that proved to be irresistible for some children.

And as the water evaporated from the tub and the clay began to thicken, the children added more water to achieve their preferred consistency.

 A great sensory experience that sat comfortably with staff. We have resolved our uncertainty over the issue of the use of food in play with the added benefit of the children working with natural materials!

For an alternative to using rice and pasta, follow this link. 🙂

How did your kids play outdoors this week?
  • Any kind of children’s outdoor play-related posts are welcome!

We’d appreciate it if you included a link back to this post (either in your post or sidebar) to help us spread the word about the importance (and fun!) of outdoor play! In return, we’ll gladly further share your post on Facebook/ Twitter/ Pinterest. Please feel free to grab the Outdoor Play Party button from the sidebar and/or include a text link back.
Please note that by contributing you are giving permission for an image and link to your post to be republished if featured. (If you have been featured, please feel free to grab the ‘featured’ button from the sidebar.) Share your ideas for outdoor play activities with us every other week!



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Category:

Outdoor Play Link-up, Sensory Play

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