Guest Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 This week we changed our planning completely, i'll try and explain what we are doing now. We have introduced a learning wall and changed the planning by getting staff to write their own focus activities to cover their key children's individual needs but we are sitting the children down in the morning and afternoon to decide on what activities they would like to do that session. The children have decided on what topic's they would like to learn more about. This term the children decided on transport, they even told us they would like to look at the transport on their way in to nursery and visit the train station. this has all gone up on the learning wall and like Biccy said the parents absolutely love it within a day we had photo's of journey to nursery coming in and of their cars. The staff have gone from a team of walking out the door at six and leaving any planning till the end of the week to discussing through out the day and staying to discuss their acheivement at the end of the day. A completely different preschool,ar the staf have less work and we have even caught the children sitting down and disscussing their day before we started circle time . i'm so proud, what a difference thank you biccy for all your advice. dizzy x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_10713 Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 You should be very proud of your achievements!! Sounds like you have had a really positive time. Well done you!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 So glad its working so well for you.It's always a gamble recommending anything to others-film, restaurant, planning!!! you never know if they will agree or like it. With the parents every couple of weeks they will need fresh stimulous (like the children ) to keep their interest. One thing thats come to light recently is that some parents especially second language parents take a while to catch on or need the example of other parents to show them the kind of support they can give their children. We asked children for photo's of themselves as babies 3 weeks ago to see how they had grown/changed and they've been put on the (ever expanding learning wall).This week the mother of twins asian children who we have not managed to engaged in conversation brought photo's they had downloaded and printed off specially.We managed a conversation with her about the adorable photo's of 2 tiny babies in one moses basket top and tailed.It was obvious by her body language it meant alot to her our interest in the children and she left smiling instead of hurring away and has said good afternoon to us since on arrival. On our weekly home notes we give examples of other ways to find things to bring to support-colouring book pages, newspaper cuttings, adverts from magazines, bus tickets, empty seed packets. I'm sure thinking and reasoning skills have improved.The children are great at short term planning their days so we're trying to stretch that a little.We've been planning our 'garden party' this week with the children and weather permitting it promises to be a good day in the last week of term.This way of planning also allows for going backwards.The log pile we made has 'matured' and mini-beast interest returned this week.I'm thinking about writing a book about how many times you can oh, ahh and hold without flinching a slug!! (then watch gardeners world and learn how to kill them without chemicals ) please post photos of your wall to share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_705 Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 Sounds fab! Have you got any job vacancies? I can only dream about such things, but I am writing about planning using learning walls for my assignment to show how I would like to do things so I will continue to read these posts with interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_2157 Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 biccy and daisy this sounds fab. What type of setting are you? We are a 52 place part time school nursery. I would love to do this but unsure how to manage it with so many part-timers (we do have about 17 full timers) Have you seen the Mindstrechers website- Thinking and Talking floorbooks for example? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 10, 2008 Share Posted May 10, 2008 Apple I'm in a 30am/30pm school nursery-1 teacher, 1 NN, 1TA and most of our children are well below average on admittance and from a socially deprived area.There's lots more about learning walls in another thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 biccy and daisythis sounds fab. What type of setting are you? We are a 52 place part time school nursery. I would love to do this but unsure how to manage it with so many part-timers (we do have about 17 full timers) Have you seen the Mindstrechers website- Thinking and Talking floorbooks for example? we are part of a 99 place full day care nursery (private). our preschool takes 32 a day max but usually only around 24. We have 4 staff all nn and no teachers unforunately. We have few full timers but when we talk about what they have already covered it is general and the children help others who maybe were not there to recap. Im due to leave in a couple of weeks to cover mat leave at antother nursery so its very odd to have to leave as things are doing so well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 thank you again biccy for your help i will post some photo's this week as soon as i can. But i think that this idea can work for most people they may just need to adapt it. do you still do adult lead activities/focus if so how many a week? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 We do one activity per session which is adult supported and one member of staff is a basic provision focus person (prior to them doing snack) which is timetabled.Today that was me and the focus was 'role play 'so I've been shopping for the vegetables in the greengrocers for my husbands tea ) & getting my car washed outside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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