LEARNING PLAN

Learning Plan

Learning Plan

Introduction

I work in a centre located in the eastern suburbs, which caters for children 2-5 years. The age groups are divided into two groups. However, all the children get a chance to interact, further develop their social skills and share their learning experience at outdoor play time twice a day. I am responsible for the 3.5 - 5 years age group, known as the 'kangaroos'. I choose Noah from this group as my focus child. Noah is 3 years and 8 months old. He likes to express his creativity, and his oral language has been expressed through his use of enriching and descriptive vocabulary, which he uses to express his creativity and imagination. I observed Noah across the week and have used my observations of him to plan appropriate experiences and activities to further enhance his knowledge of the essentials of science, mathematics and technology. The project will help me in personal learning as a practitioner, as well. The project will assess my skills and identify new means for the development and learning of a child.

Science Observations

Piaget said that children's play reflected their developing understanding of the world (Frost et al, 2001). Science learning is present in the activities within the environment provided if, the children are given the opportunity to explore their learning through simple and tangible experiences. Through science activities, Noah will be able to develop significant concepts, which will be relevant to his life. Noah can learn about science through simple and tangible experiences. Tangible experiences will incorporate those experiences which Noah can physically experience or understand by using different senses (Rogoff, 2003).

Observations

I observed that Noah's interest lies in the sand pit where he transforms his imaginary world through his verbal and non-verbal language, which supports his expressive way of communication with his surrounding and building theories. During outdoor play time, Noah played in the sandpit with his friends for the majority of outdoor time, approximately 30 minutes. Noah and his friend Enzo were playing in the sand pit when Enzo dig a well in the sand. Enzo hide a cube in the well pretending that the cube was a treasure. Then Noah put the spade in the upright position and put lots of sand around that spade to sport the spade to stand out. On asking about what the spade was doing on the hidden treasure, he expressed that it was a “BIG flower we planted in the sandpit”. He then started to talk all about gardening which he did with his grandfather on the weekend. He asked if we could pretend to grow some plants in the sandpit. Noah got some small leaves as seeds and a bucket to water the plants.

Gardening is a process which can teach Noah about life cycles of plants. Noah can learn how a seed grows to a plant, to a flower, and to a seed again (Toth, Klahr & Chen, 2000). With a little help from me, Noah was able to recall the procedure of ...