Skills for early Writing (part one)

On Saturday I went to a seminar about literacy in the Montessori setting.  I was struck by the large number of skills that a child needs to have developed in order to write successfully.  Generally across early years settings there seems to be a lot of focus on mark-making and 'emergent writing' with little consideration given to preparing the child to be able to do those things!  If a child is pushed to write before they are fully prepared and developmentally ready then there can be long term effects that actually hamper the child's efforts to write.  These effects take the form of 'bad habits' that have become ingrained such as a distorted pencil hold or backwards formation of letters.  So what are the attributes that a child needs to develop?

• Tripod grip - strength in fingers and hand needs to develop, alongside good control over fine-motor movements in order to hold a pencil and write.
• Lightness of touch - needed to avoid pressing so hard that pencils break and paper becomes gouged.
• Flexibility of wrist and hand - needed for continuous fluid writing.
• Hand-eye co-ordination - this is how the hand responds to what the eye sees, controlled by the brain, and will aid in controlling a pencil to form letters.
• Memory of shapes - the mind is almost like play dough, shapes leave an imprint upon it making a lasting memory.  This is why correct letter formation from the outset is so important, and why leaving out letter tracing activities can be counter-productive for young children.
• Visual discrimination - recognising the difference and similarities between things; this will help to tell apart letters such as b and d.
• Self-esteem - A child valuing him or herself and being valued by others around him or her will feel confident enough to give things a go that are new or a little difficult.
• Concentration - this is a skill that needs to have developed in order for children to be able to focus for a long enough time to learn letter shapes and their sounds.
• Sequencing - knowing what becomes at the beginning, middle and end.  it provides a structure that the child will use as a foundation to build grammar upon.

All of these skills are equally as important as each other and when taken all together provide a mighty looking list of skills that we can support very young children to develop in order that they may have a good chance of beginning to write successfully when they are ready.  In part two I will look at activities that can support each of the skills, both shop-bought and home-made.

Saturday's Selection!!!!

Well, you might have noticed that Friday's favourites passed me by this week; it probably had something to do with having had a manky sore throat and falling asleep whilst putting my children to bed last night (and waking up with a dead arm hours later!!).  I thought that I would do Saturday's selection instead as I have kept a few links to pass on to you!

• Making puzzles from felt for children to learn the parts of a tree and parts of a flower.
• Silhouette cards of vegetables and fruit for a matching game with a twist! (Thanks to Hayley for this link!!).
• Making solar night lights...... this type of jar is 69p in Ikea if you have one near to you...... I think this is such a pretty way of using quite an ugly lamp!

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend enjoying this weather..... I'll be posting again tomorrow!

An E-Learning Degree?

Just a quick post tonight, I'm interested in this way of studying..... thought I'd put it out there for others that hadn't heard about it to look at too!

There is an article in Nursery World about it here.

And a link to the course information here.

Block play and the EYFS

As part of a series on core experiences I have looked at Block play and what children can gain from it as part of continuous provision.  Although the ideal is to have unit blocks, they are expensive and for many people they will still be on a wish list!!  I have mobilo, stickle bricks, duplo, mega-bloks, small wooden blocks, tree blocks and am waiting for a set of hollow blocks to arrive.  They have all been well-used by different children at different stages of their development; often they go back to them after a few months and use them in a more sophisticated way.  It is recommended to have an area for building in that isn't in the middle of the room so that structures don't get knocked down and the children can come back to them later if they want to.  This is hard to achieve in many settings due to space constraints - you could have a rolled up mat to put out to build on that provides a visual boundary that encourages the blocks staying on the mat and other children to walk around.  Without further ado, here are some things that block play supports children to explore:

• PSED - A safe way to express emotions, particularly if children are small-world playing with block constructions.  Building something that wasn't there before and being able to express ideas in this way raises children's confidence and self-esteem.  Working together with other children provides opportunities for practicing turn-taking, sharing and negotiating.
• CLL - The vocabulary that children acquire directly related to what they are doing is very important, introduced to them by an adult or older child; Talking about the blocks that children choose and what they are building supports conversational skills, sequencing and expressing ideas. For younger children the symbolic representation of a block or blocks as other items is an important step towards recognising words as having meaning. making signs for their block structures or drawing pictures of them before they have to be taken down to tidy away, introduces new ideas of what writing is about for children. Positional language such as on top of, next to, behind begins to be used.
• PSRN - using language such as more than/longer than, cube, square, triangle.  Exploring ideas of half and whole, area and length are all important concepts that the children will be exploring.  If you have unit blocks for them to use they will see equivalency in action as four blocks that size are the same as one this size so fractions are seen and used before they are understood as being fractions!
• KUW - Children investigate the scientific principles of balance, gravity, stability and cause and effect as they try out various structural arrangements.  They learn about how the blocks can be put together to make different types of structures.
• PD - hand and finger strength is developed as children manipulate smaller blocks and the control of large motor muscle groups is refined during the use of large blocks such as hollow blocks.  Children can experience risk taking within a safe environment that is important for them to develop a sense of safety.
• CD - Children can develop new ideas about the world around them and then bring their concept to life with the blocks, they are working with different textures and shapes often, combining sizes and colours of bricks and blocks to achieve new effects.  Imaginative problem-solving abounds as the children create a stage for their stories and imaginations to flourish in.  Children see their building from different perspectives as they stand up and move around, giving depth and understanding to buildings they see on the street.

Sources used are here.
How to make your own blocks!
Lots of ideas for setting up a block play area and resources you can use!
Brilliant article from Nursery World about blocks

Nature's Palette

Today we made paints from natural materials.  We tried three.  This is dandelion yellow in progress.  We crushed the petals with a pestle and mortar then added some patio chalk and crushed that up, then added some water.  We also did brown (mud) and green (mint leaves so it smelt nice too).  This is the painting in progress......

 

The brown and green worked the best.  Dandelion yellow was a bit pale, but then maybe we are just too used to gaudy bright manufactured paints!!  They left a nice texture on the card we painted on and definitely provided a sensory experience.  I want to continue exploring this with the children. I wonder if something could be made with cornstarch?

Here is suggests using paprika, chili powder, turmeric and ginger from dried ground spices.  It suggests using gum arabic from art shops to make a cake of paint that can be used like those palettes you can buy for children to use.  I've ordered some from e-bay tonight and we'll give it a go!

How do Plants Grow?

I am doing a Montessori Early Years Teaching Qualification and my latest assignment requires that I write a planning web for a topic before choosing one of the 'cultural activities' and doing it with the children.  As it is currently a 'hot topic' with the children here, I decided to plan for 'How do Plants Grow?'I thought of lots of things to extend children's knowledge about plants and their growth and decided to share them here as I'd like to do lots of them and post about them and then you will all know what I am talking about!  I have combined Montessori curriculum headings with EYFS to suit all interested parties!!

Literacy (Communication, Language and Literacy)

• Booklets or spinning books (i-dials) on the life cycles of seeds.
• Sequencing cards on stages of growth.
• Books and stories
• Language tray with initial sounds that relate to seeds and plants (b-bean, p-pot, c-compost, s-sun, w-water, g-grow, l-leaf)
• Word wall - new vocabulary relating

Mathematics (Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy)

• Measuring the plants as they grow.
• Ordering seeds and beans from largest to smallest.
• Making bird cake from seeds - following a recipe card.
• Volumes of compost in pots.
• Measuring rainfall.

Creative (Creative Development)

• Make bean collages.
• Sunflowers - Van Goch painting, pallet of colours mixed to match and paint sunflowers.
• Natural paints using mud, dandelions, other flowers, leaves.
• Maracas with dried beans/rainmakers.
• Music and Movement - growing as plants grow.
• Songs and poems about growing.

Activities of daily living (Physical Development - fine motor)

• Sorting beans.
• Transferring with tweezers or tongs.
• Spooning beans/seeds.
• Pouring dried beans and seeds.
• Matching seed packets to seeds.

Cultural (Knowledge and Understanding of the World)

• Cooking and tasting recipes from around the world that use beans.
• Biology - set up a wormery and put leftovers from the children's fruit into it.
• Botany - parts of a plant/ what parts of a plant do we eat?/ life cycle of a bean
• Science - what plants need to grow/ celery stalks and food colouring/ dark box for plant to grow to the light.
• Leaf shapes/types.

Sensorial (CD, PSRN)

• Paint colour swatches in green to match to leaves of plants as they grow.
• Matching herbs by their smell.
• Leaf skeletons in the nature basket.
• Matching shapes to plant related items - cone (pot) seed(ovoid) etc.

Although Montessori curricula don't specifically have a section for Personal, Social and Emotional Development, by the approach that Montessori setting take, PSED is supported through all other activities, so you can look for aspects of this as the children take part in activities, just as you would normally.  I'm hoping to post about these activities as we go along, and will link them back to this plan as I go to make it easier to find them.  I'm anticipating that we will spend all summer investigating the way things grow though, so don't be disappointed if it isn't all here in the next couple of weeks.... if you want more information about any of these activities now, please leave a comment and ask and i will do my best to help you out!

What to Buy?

I notice on the childminding forum that I go on that there are often questions about what resources should be bought when child minders are setting up for the first time.  There are usually a range of responses but often they focus on large scale and very commercial items.  Last week Nursery World magazine had a very sensible supplement with it that suggested what was needed for under threes.  I have summarised the main points here for anyone that is interested, and added a few comments of my own here and there! First off some quotes from the article:

"It is easy to get seduced by glossy catalogues offering colourful must-haves that actually have limited learning potential"

"Look for versatility, durability and longevity.  Wooden toys are more expensive but buying cheaper plastic items can be a false economy"

"It is the role of the adult to plan how children will be able to use the equipment, rather than buying the equipment without a purpose"

"Wood is more sensory than plastic and more durable.  Wooden toys retain children's interest for longer"

"The best resource for children is a knowledgeable and highly attuned adult"

"Invest in some high-quality items and then bulk out your provision with cheaper buys, natural materials and recycled items such as cardboard tubes and cartons"

Suggestions for resources:

• Cushions and mats for creating cozy spaces and defining different areas. 
• Rocking Toys.  I am cautious about having these indoors as a childminder due to the potential for squashed fingers underneath. 
• Stackable toys - good old blocks and bricks.
• Sorting toys - rather than shape sorters, that can be frustrating for little ones, collect 'heuristic play' materials - a range of natural materials and various small boxes and baskets for the children to discover shape and space for themselves.
• Small-world play - small wooden cars, trucks and planes and very simple wooden people, as well as a plain wooden, open fronted house that can be many things.
• Role-play - go easy on the fancy costumes that limit possibilities and stock up om various fabrics, hats shoes and accessories that expand the possibilities of dressing up.
• Pullable and pushable toys - carts, trolleys, animals, wheelbarrows, pushchairs.
• Soft toys - not highly rated by the author of the article but I value the gradually expanding collection of very beautiful and life-like British wild animal soft toys that I have.  They are used daily wither for play or cuddles!
• Dolls - a range of genders and ethnicities and fit for purpose such as hard bodied to go in the doll bath and soft bodied for changing clothes quite easily.
• Puzzles - simple is better, shape peg puzzles or those demonstrating size from largest to smallest.
• Mirrors - wall-mounted, infinity cube or hand held.

Dare to be different..... you don't have to have all of the same resources that everyone else has!  I decided a long time ago to declare an embargo on bleeping, buzzing and flashing plastic toys and I have never regretted the decision.  It makes for a more peaceful background where I can hear the children making their own sound effects!  Also consider that less is more - you don't have to have the super-giant sized tub of duplo or 30 figures to play with....... smaller amounts call for children to be imaginative and creative with the resources and you will see fascinating ebb and flow in the way their play develops!

I'd love to hear your comments on this article and how you decide what resources to invest in!