AnonyMouse_35585 Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Hi This may seem like a silly question but how often do you change the activities you put out in the room each day? At the minute, we plan at the end of each week what we will have out the following week and the same activities are put out each day for that week. I have been thinking that maybe the children get bored of the things that are out? We are also finding that the children do not actually play at an activity very often- they would rather run around the room or play in the cloakroom pretending to be animals and crawling round. Any advice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Hi We put out different activities twice a day, every day. Mainly because some children stay all day whilst others do mornings or afternoon sessions. We also have 2 adult-led activities daily. Children can also help themselves to other resources to enhance their play. Hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest terrydoo73 Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 I am watching this topic with interest. My Deputy is obsessed and I mean obsessed with changing once a month. She made the point to me on Friday that our next changeover is Friday 30 November and that is the night we have planned a fundraiser so there will be no changeover as far as she is concerned! This after having training last month from an Independent Early Years Consultant who stated that we should go with the children's interests and not change things dramatically unless we really see children needing some sort of change. I have been wanting to do it like this as it is an absolute headache trying to ensure every area is changed - usually my Deputy leaves at 1 and if it is not completed I am left to do it for the next hour or first thing on Monday morning. My Deputy also makes a point of having all the stuff to be put in left in the office during the week before changeover to ensure everything is ready to move on the Friday after session. Guess who ensures all the stuff is left in the office - me! Last week we returned after a week off and we didn't change everything preferring to leave out the Hallowe'en stuff just to see if children were still interested and talking about it. They had been so excited before Hallowe'en and it gave us some great observations and extending their learning. It was a wise move as we had loads of interaction for Monday and Tuesday but then we felt we had to move to a topic they themselves were talking about - senses. That came about because they had ice in their outdoor water tray and so many wanted to touch it, crack it, see it melting etc. We have had some great times in little groups within the session doing feely bags, melting ice cubes, making playdough with vanilla essence, talking about and making pizza with soda bread, ham, cheese and tomato ketchup. Our plan for next week is to focus on the taste element and maybe even do another feely bag as the got such excitement from it. Yes December will be Christmas but I think it would be good to go with the flow in terms of listening to when the children talk about the season and then planning from that. it is all too easy just to pull out the same things year on year but sometimes the children may not be interested in what we associate with the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_19782 Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Hi This may seem like a silly question but how often do you change the activities you put out in the room each day? At the minute, we plan at the end of each week what we will have out the following week and the same activities are put out each day for that week. I have been thinking that maybe the children get bored of the things that are out? We are also finding that the children do not actually play at an activity very often- they would rather run around the room or play in the cloakroom pretending to be animals and crawling round. Any advice? If you haven't already done so, plan to use the animal connection in many of your activities. Find out what you can about the animals they are pretending to be and extend their learning from that. I am sure you can think of many activities to do with animals that you have in your setting which can be used or adapted. Base it around a book maybe, there is often lots of info on the book Dear Zoo. At the moment we are having pets corner - children are bringing in photos of their pets, or nanny's pet etc. and we are talking about those with the group, and their pets habits etc. their photo then goes up on the display board. We have had stories about pets etc., but this is not a huge activity for us, it is just an interest we have been following now and again as the info comes in for about a month. I am a packaway setting so many of our activities change frequently, there are many activities the children can access for themselves on trolleys etc. so they can go with the flow to. I have always been of the understanding that children do not get bored very quickly with the activities we put out, rather the adults do and whip them away before the children can get really stuck in, so we do have a few staple activities out every day but the resources that go with them may alter over the period of the week, or not, given how the children are using them, i.e. sand, play dough, water, paint. From memory your children are quite young - so I would go along with the whole role-play of animals and their habitats, find some engaging songs to teach them and funny number animal songs etc. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 10, 2012 Share Posted November 10, 2012 Hi during C.I.L time the children have access to whatever they like in our setting in and outdoors. I extend the learning in certain areas of the classroom each week- depending what the children's interests are and also on what I would like to achieve in regard to objectives- i.e. trying to encourage writing in and outdoors so I modelling it all the time and trying to think of real reasons to write! I have a group of boys that would only dress up as super heroes and fight on the yard, we added out a story, made masks, thought about our super hero powers and also drew maps of different ways to get to the villain's hide outs. In the water tray this week we have had phoneme ducks and I have modelled fishing them out in making vc and cvc words which is getting them reading and writing, and in the sand I put shaped containers water etc. Maybe you could set up a new role play area in your class if some of the children are into animals, or make masks and act out a story or narrative. Maybe work towards doing a puppet show. Hope that is a bit of help. I bet you are doing so much in your setting without even thinking about it already Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_19920 Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 we put out activities first thing in the morning on first week back after a break - we then talk to the children during snack time about what they have done and what they would like to play with after activity time - we then use these ideas to decide what to put out going with the most chosen ideas eg 8 children choose trains, 3 choose animals - we would put out trains - we note what the children have decided they want out so that we dont have the same out all week. we are a sessional preschool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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