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Firstly my apologies if the title of this is confusing - I really didn't quite know what to call it.

 

Secondly, my apologies for yet another e-mail with a question (probably a stupid one) from me? As you can probably tell I'm doing a lot of reflecting on my own practice and provision this holiday!

 

So, the question...

 

In my classroom I have the usual construction, small world, playdough, making area, reading corner, writing table etc etc set up. I have continuous provision plans for some of these and am working on the others. At the moment I put a 'Can you...' question in each area e.g. Can you build some new furniture for the 3 bears? when we were doing Goldilocks.

 

I only do this because other people have asked me to in order to show that the activities available are 'purposeful' and to give other adults 'visiting' the classroom a clue about what they could suggest for the child who is wandering round aimlessly. As far as possible the activities are linked to the overall theme/book/maths focus for that week. There is no expectation that the children will follow them and on the whole they don't apart from the time we had white glittery playdough and they made snowmen. They make/build/play what they like and we celebrate that. The expectation is that I do a similar thing outside too.

 

Each day my reception children have a phonics session and either a PSRN or a CLL focus activity in the morning and in the afternoon we are moving towards having a focus for the other areas.

 

I find thinking of and then writing out the 'Can you...' questions takes ages, I rarely get them done before Wednesday (that's just the indoor ones) and I'm not sure that it has any benefit. I don't know whether I'm just being lazy or not working efficiently enough.

 

Do others do something similar? If so what/how much etc.

 

and once again, apologies for all the stupid questions, you're probably all wondering what on earth I'm doing teaching reception!

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I think it is pretty pointless putting "tasks" in areas that are just open ended continuous provision for any particular session. Why not have some permanent signs showing the possible learning that can come from the area, and some look, listen and note statements for the adults?

 

If you want a task to be completed in an area of continuous provision, like your build a house example, then I would assume an adult would be working in the area as a planned sustained shared thinking/adult initiated activities anyway so it might be relevant as a starting point for the children and the activity.

 

 

Cx

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Hi Helen,

I would like to say i find a relief with your posts as I know its not only me , I am a newly appointed Supervisor in preschool and continually reflecting or questioning myself , I understand what you were trying to achieve but i think like Catma says it could be an adult leading or suggesting ideas. i tend to inform staff and also make suggestions and prompt ideas from the children at register time.

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We have to have key questions in each area for every session inside and out. This started to mean a lot of writing until I started to think of generic open-ended questions which I then laminated and folded in half with a treasury tag to make it stand up like a card. Now most days I can just go through my box of cards and find an appropriate one for each area. Initially I did a whole batch to get me started and now when I want a new one I write it on card and then laminate it later.

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Guest hfitz12
We have to have key questions in each area for every session inside and out. This started to mean a lot of writing until I started to think of generic open-ended questions which I then laminated and folded in half with a treasury tag to make it stand up like a card. Now most days I can just go through my box of cards and find an appropriate one for each area. Initially I did a whole batch to get me started and now when I want a new one I write it on card and then laminate it later.

Hope that you don't think I'm being chheky but do you have copies of these that you could upload/send me.

Thank you

Helen

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Not cheeky at all and if I had them on file I'd send them to you - but sadly I handwrite them all - never occured to me to type them! If I get a spare 5 mins I'll see if I can list them for you.

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