Construction Center

 

One thing that I tried this year was to rearrange the construction center so that students had an area to leave their creations up for a day or two.  What I found was that I picked a spot that became a  walkway and most creations got damaged throughout the day.  The area had

all my wooden blocks but all the other blocks were stored in other areas in the room.

 

I was reading for my class when I realized that I needed to change it again to make it more usable for the students.  I removed everything from some shelves at the front of the class and one afternoon we moved and arranged the blocks.  Six kids spent their whole play time setting it all up.  I added all blocks to this area - wooden, coloured, soft, cardboard, and assorted items like styrofoam and pringle cans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The area was extremely busy for a few days but has now settled into a few students every day.  The area is bordered by a cupboard, a table and the carpet area.  The students have been very careful if they have to walk through the construction zone. They seem to really like the organization and put the blocks away neatly every time they play there.

 

My goal for construction center was to allow students the option of taking the time to build and then play.  Often they have time to build but must then put it all away before playing. 

 

So far I have seen some creations played with but not by the original builder.  I'm wondering if that will change over time.

 

This is the book that I was reading.  It's the main text for my class on Play.  It's quite good and an easier read than most textbooks.

Van Hoorn, Judith. et all., Play at the Center of the Curriculum. Pearson. 2011

The Beginning

                This blog has been started by five kindergarten teachers after we were awarded a grant to study mature play.  It’s not often that we have the opportunity to get free money for doing research about a topic we are already interested in.

The goal of our study is …

Play-based learning is essential to early learners, particularly in kindergarten.  Playing allows students to become independent learners through play-based activities.  Unfortunately many students are not able to play in a mature way; that is they are not able to create scenarios using substitution, often end up repeating the same actions over and over again and/or resort to aggressive actions during their play.  Children must develop a mature way of playing and interacting with objects if they are going to develop cognitive tools which allow them to develop higher levels of thinking. 

Our goal is to enable students to develop mature play so they can fully benefit from play-based learning.  The districts strategic plan aims for students to be engaged in their learning.  Kindergarten students will have an easier time being engaged when they are able to progress in their learning as they play.  If children are playing in a mature way they are able to plan their own activities, develop language skills, solve problems and become self-motivated learners.

This grant would enable us to develop strategies to help kindergarten children become mature learners.  These strategies could be used by other teachers to help their students as well. 

As we are doing research in our classrooms we will post things here to keep an account of what we are learning.  Three of us are taking a graduate diploma (Learning in the Early Years) in advanced professional studies through Simon Fraser University and our district.  

 http://www.educ.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/education/gs/fieldprograms/grad-diplopma/Program-Information/LTE%20Coq%20bro.pdf