Planning days

In childcare, educators plan activities for the children in there care up to two weeks ahead. These activities are bassoon the developmental needs and interests of each child as a indervidural and the reasonable skills that the parents wish to see passed on the age of the child. The activities are designed though observing the children within play, and documenting the children’s games and developmental skills. From here they can build an understanding where the child is at so that they formulate activities aimed to assist children in exploring the world. Here’s how they do it.

First they observe. What do they enjoy playing with, conversations you’ve had with them, actives that they enjoy, books they can recite. Compare the Childs skills and abilities to the developmental milestones. This is a list of skills that each child should have based on age. From the conversations you have determent there interests. You should look into other actives that they have enjoyed in the past and take inspiration. Take what they enjoyed from other actives that you’ve prepared and find other things to do down a similar vain. You could also repeat activities that they liked. Say that they love the museum you could plan to take them there again.

Next document, record in your notes what your child is interested in on your notes app, right down your observations so that you don’t forget forget them. If you want to see progress in there development date each record and refer to the developmental milestones  booklet and tick of competencies based on your child’s age. Based on what you’ve observed, find new actives that they may be interested in. It may also be useful to record what didn’t work. When you trying something new there’s going to be hits and misses when you document what didn’t work and why so that you don’t repeat the same errors.

Then we find, think about actives that you wish to do that they do with your child. Look at the interests you observed, than your documented actives. Think about what has worked in the past and try to apply those lessons to the new activity. Build a list of what they might be interested in and what you might need to make those activities possible. Add ingredients or equipment you need to your shopping list. Continue to look at out last steps, observe and document, observe the skills that your child is demonstrating and the actives that your child engages with. Document what you’ve observed so that you don’t repeat the same unsuccessful actives and build that game.

Sounds easy, to some extent your probably already doing this at home. The only thing us educators are doing differently is applying this on mass and producing evidence. The evidence is pessary for two reasons. Firstly, if we’re absent It provides the colleague stepping in an idea of what the absent co-worker wants. The evidence is also to prove to the regulators that we’re teaching children something. We have to prove we are educating your children at some point, this is in the Early Childhood Education and Care sector. My suggestion to you as a parent is to try to do this at home as well, It might make a home day with your child flow a lot smother. The less panic, the better, right?

Remember the steps, observe, document, find. Repeat what works, discard what doesn’t find a attentive when it’s meh and ask why it’s meh. Remember the importance of new skills and competencies and document those too, if anything, it shows the your child is growing up and that’s important too. Don’t put too much effort into everything being picture perfect either, it doesn’t have to be Pinterest worthy, just functional. Your goal is to help your child learn under the guise of play. Look, the most important thing is that your day flows smoothly, your child feels loved and sleeps that night. The rest will live.

Last but not lease, activity of the week:

Bi-carb eggs, is your child interested in baby animals, or maybe there looking for treasure.

You will need:

Bi-carb soda

Water

Food colour

Something to hide

Mix 4 parts bi-carb soda to 1 part water and add some food colure if you want and mix well. Form into balls around the object that you wish to hide and freeze overnight.

Place on a plate and fill a bowl of vinegar, use droppers to drop the vinegar onto the bi-carb eggs and allow them to sizzle.