A. Curriculum Plan
The child I will be describing is 3 years old and I will name him Mark for the purpose of this assignment to maintain confidentiality.
Mark is interested in Dinosaurs, cars and Den Making. He has few different houses as he spent some time with his mum, some time with his dad, some at my house and time with his different grand parents and other extended family member.
I have written a curriculum plan of learning experiences and activities for a two weeks period (see annex A).
The plan has been based on:
What’s motivating him: when children are interested they are captivated in learning. I will adapt the story "Guess how much I love you" by Sam McBratney in using a small dinosaur and big dinosaur instead of the Little and Big Nutbrown Hare. I am doing it because he really likes dinosaurs and have little interest in books.
My other childminding commitments: Every afternoon my three and a half years old boy goes to Nursery school and I pick up a four and a half years old girl from same school at 3:10.
The time of the year: We are in February, It’s cold, we spend a lot of time at HOME, next week Valentine’s Day will be celebrated and the following week is half term holiday.
Mark commitment: he arrives and lives at set time agreed with his mother and sees his dad every 2 week from Thursday to Sunday.
Children basic needs: love, food, shelter, stimulation, play, sleep
LOVE: is the principal theme of week one because of Valentine’s day
SLEEP: He is still young and often he needs a nap in the afternoon. If he is tired he will not be able to concentrate and his learning will be affected. After the long walk to and from school I give him some quite time and he fells asleep within 5 minutes.
FOOD & SHELTER will be out theme for the next 5 weeks
The observation of his progress to work towards the next stepping Stone. (See formal Assessment Sheet annex B). I build on his ability and what he already knows.
My long term plan to ensure that all six area of learning are given equal emphasis and that all aspects of learning within the six area are covered.
What is available at home and in the community i.e.
Someone has given us some stick insects; we need to give them an appropriate Habitat.
Horses live nearby; we give them hay and see owners cleaning the paddocks.
Last time a builder was mixing cement in the builder’s yard, lets count how many spades of water, sand and pebbles he uses, then sing Bob the Builder song.
This plan is appropriate to Mark’s stage of social and emotional development because I have included plenty of role play and symbolic play to allow him to use his imagination and play with the others but be in control of his own play. As Mark is 3 years old, he is only becoming social but not fully co-operative.
I am not asking him to do something he is not ready to do but I will give him the opportunity to do it when he will be ready. I give him lots of prize to boost his self esteem when he tries something.
According to Christine Hobart and Jill Frankel "Imaginary play allows children to express and release positive and negative emotions. It gives confidence, and allows self-esteem to develop."
The playgroups we go to gives him the opportunity to play away from me, with or alongside others, but with the reassurance that I am there for him. He still needs support and interaction with adults and just start to experience independence.
According to Marie Montessori a child learns through sensory exploration of the world around him. This plan is appropriate to Mark’s stage of sensory and intellectual development.
Mark has lots of opportunities to look at, feel, taste and smell the different ingredients we use when he helps me prepare breakfasts, lunches and snacks as well as baking the dinosaurs cake and feeding the horses and the stick insects. Lots of time is freed up to stop and listen to planes, birds, dogs, horses, oncoming traffic and of course music and songs during our Wednesdays French Songs sessions.
Mark has lots of opportunities to repeat an activity until he has perfected it. We have been constructing the train tracks every time Mark wanted to play with the trains. The shapes of the train tracks fit only if the end is placed into the start of the next one, this understanding is a good start for early mathematics and it helps his cognitive development.
Mark helps me to put the toys away; it’s like a game; the train in the train basket (le train dans le panier)
- the Legos in the yellow box (les logos dans la boite jaune)
- the wooden cubs in the green box (les cubes en bois dans la boite verte)
- the basket for the music instruments,
- one basket for pretend play,
- one plastic box for the cars and trucks,
- one plastic box for little people village
- one toolbox for the tools
- the small toys who have no other places in a shoe box
- and small every day object in the treasure basket.
We describe what we do in French and English. We speak about the colours, the shapes, size, textures and position (inside, outside, under). Mark speaks English, I speak French and we understand each other as we point, touch, feel the object we are talking about. According to Penny Tassoni there are a cognitive benefits for multilingual children. Children who can speak more than one language fluently gain additional routes in terms of their thinking, reflected in IQ scores.
This plan is appropriate to Mark’s stage of language and communication development because we speak a lot, in French (the language of the childminding setting) and English (his home language). I give opportunity for expression via art and craft (although it’s not his favourite media it’s there). I am attentive to his body language, when he dances on one leg I encourage him to go to the toilettes, when his face show early signs of distress I give him plenty of affection and opportunity to speak by letting him know I understand him.
The planed learning experiences will promote Mark’s learning in early language by having lots of opportunities for taking and asking questions and taking part in Storytelling "Guess how much I love you?" and Role Play. He shows a clear understanding.
The planed learning experiences will promote Mark’s learning in early mathematics by counting how many horses we see in the fields and how many are in the paddocks. By counting how many glasses and plates we need to put on the table for lunch or snack. By encouraging them to say how many pieces of grapes they have in their plates and how many more they would like to have. For him it is Math for a purpose.
The learning in the area Knowledge and Understanding of the World will be stimulated by the creation of an habitat for our insects and encouragement of exploration for other insect (and maybe dinosaurs) on the way to or from school or to see the horses. Discussion about what they eat and where they live. Learning is holistic, Mark will learn about the world around him with every activity provided.
Observation and Assessment
Using formal "Foundation Stage Assessment Sheet" I have Assessed Mark with the form shown in Annex B before starting the curriculum planning and I will assess his progress again in spring.
The form is like a colourful tick-list where the child have each aspect of learning assessed by orange, blue, green and grey stepping stones before having the box ticked for Early learning goal achieved. The form shows all six area of learning and the aspects of learning within the area. When I make my assessment I refer to the range of statement for each aspect in "Curriculum guidance for the foundation Stage" by QCA and SureStart and chose the best fit for the child. In the column autumn 2005 I colour in orange if I think the child I observe has not yet fully reached the second stepping stone. I colour in blue if I think the child has reach the second stepping stone and I put both colours when I think the child is nearly there.
According to Christine Hobart and Jill Frankel "Checklist often highlight area of a child’s development that have previously gone unnoticed". I share the observation with the parent because results of a checklist may be distorted by the impact of an unfamiliar adult or a recent event.
Alongside this formal assessment I have a notebook for each child where I record his progress i.e.: Today at 10.40 Mark has been to the loo on his own, flushed the loo and washed his hands. Or record incident if necessary with a very small dated narrative called Longitudinal Observation. Plenty of small comment and milestones to build up into a picture of the child progress to share with parents only to protect confidentiality.