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CHCFC505A: Foster cognitive development in early childhood

Assist children to develop thinking and problem-solving skills

Contents

Provide varied and appropriately challenging opportunities and resources related to each child’s stage of development and interests 4

What is cognitive development? 4

Using opportunities and resources at different ages and stages 6

Provide opportunities for children to experience the consequences of their choices, actions and ideas 7

Challenges, questions and choices 7

Balance between challenging and allowing development of ideas 8

Encourage children to explore, understand and solve problems in their environment 10

Discovery learning 10

Using opportunities and resources 11

Stimulate thinking skills 11

Using opportunities and resources in the centre environment 12

Providing encouragement and support 12

Use a variety of strategies to maintain children’s interest in solving problems 15

Using everyday experiences and routines 15

Using learning centres 16

Planning cognitive experiences 16

Provide challenging and engaging experiences for each child to develop their attention span and give them time to stay with the activity until they are ready to move on 20

Developing attention spans 20

Providing time 21

Introduce new ideas/activities that may build on existing knowledge, skills and interests 23

Providing opportunities to foster thinking skills 23

2 Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCFC505A: Reader LO 9314 © NSW DET 2010

Extending thinking skills 24

Use questioning and non-verbal communication to develop children’s abilities to observe what is happening around them 25

Fostering children’s observation and reflection skills 25

Assist children to develop their understandings 25

Difficult concepts 26

Identify and monitor children’s cognitive development and thinking skills 28

Fostering memory skills 28

Exploration 29

Piaget and toddlers 30

Memory and the preschooler 31

Appendix 1—Learning centres 33

Setting up areas 33

Using learning centres 39

Diploma of Children’s Services: CHCFC505A: Reader LO 9314 3© NSW DET 2010

Provide varied and appropriately challenging opportunities and resources related to each child’s stage of development and interests

What is cognitive development?Cognitive development is the development of abilities and skills around memory, imagination, problem solving, concept development and creativity.

Cognitive development in toddlers

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These skills emerge through the child’s interaction with their environment, including the people they interact with. It involves trial and error, exploration, investigation and discovery. There are a range of key concepts we need to understand in order to appreciate the development of thinking skills.

Thinking about how we think and how we learnt to think the way we do is like thinking about how we learnt to breathe. It is something that we do constantly and automatically, but how we do it is not always the same throughout our life spans.

In this unit we will be examining how we developed the ability to think through complex tasks, such as where we left the car keys or whether we turned the iron off before we left. While these may seem like simple problems compared to a solution to global warfare, many of the thinking skills we have learned in day-to-day problem solving will be similar to those used in solving big picture problems.


With enough information and an ability to think through issues and processes, you can both find the car keys and a strategy for world peace.

Caregivers have an important role to play in the development of children’s thinking skills, and therefore need to understand the development of this important set of skills, just as they need to understand the development of social skills, language, or physical skills. Without that knowledge, planning interactions and activities will not be appropriately pitched to meet the needs of children at different times in their development.

Activity: Reflection on thinking

When you were thinking about these things, you were probably linking tasks to be done with actions needed to do them. Perhaps you needed to put the tasks into a mental list of priorities, give yourself reasons why they should or should not be done now, and finally think about what you needed to have out to start this module. Well done! I’m sure you made the right decision.

These are all thinking skills we have developed. We are not born with the ability to think through complex actions, make mental connections, or reflect on our reasons for doing something. All these skills have developed over time with encouragement and modelling from those around us.

Thinking skills include our ability to:

• Think through tasks i.e. don’t just hit it harder, try another approach.• Solve problems through trial and error and deduction eg. Boxes usually

open. If this side doesn’t, another side might.• Understand logical consequences of actions eg. I spilt the drink on the

chair. If I sit on the chair I will get wet.• Anticipate change through remembered past experiences and logical

thought eg. Last time I heard that ‘vroom vroom’ sound daddy arrived home. If I go to the door he might come through it.

• Imagine and be creative about the problems we face. Through imagining the consequences of different approaches we can choose the one we feel will be most effective, and perhaps at the same time come up with a solution no one has previously considered.

The ability to remember and to reflect on our memories is an important part of learning. We will look closely at how this skill can be fostered in the caregiving environment.

It is important to think about how we think in order to encourage particular skills in the children we work with.


Using opportunities and resources at different ages and stagesFrom your earlier exercises exploring the theories of thinking skills, and from your own observations of children, you will have some ideas as to how children learn to think at different stages. Use this information to respond to the following activity.

Activity 1


Provide opportunities for children to experience the consequences of their choices, actions and ideas

Challenges, questions and choicesChildren enjoy being challenged as long as they feel safe and secure within their environment. It is the caregiver’s responsibility to ensure that children do feel safe and secure and that the challenges in their environment are seen as fun rather than threatening.

Carers can interact with children to maintain a child’s interests in what they are doing

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Caregivers can use questions to maintain a child’s interest in what they are doing. Questions should be more open than closed in the way they are structured and the caregiver should also be sensitive to times when silence is more appropriate. Children can be over-stimulated as well as under-stimulated and caregivers must allow quiet time for children to assimilate and accommodate new information.

Children also need to make realistic choices about what is happening to them in their environment. Choices should only be offered where all alternatives can be accommodated by the carer. Never offer a choice you can’t manage. Children must also be supported to understand the consequences of their choices—that if they choose one thing, another may not be possible.


Scenario 1Lenny is playing Monopoly with a group of children. He looks at his watch and says: ‘If we don’t go to the park now, there will not be time before your parents come. What do you want to do?’ The children say they would like to continue. Ten minutes later Emma wins the game. Jeremy asks: ‘Can we go to the park now? Why not?’

It is important that Lenny sticks by his original choice that he offered the children and explains again that there is now insufficient time to get to the park, play and be back in time, however fast they run. The children will learn that there are consequences for all decisions; they will not persist with requests if they understand this concept.

Activity 2

Balance between challenging and allowing development of ideasIt is important to remember there is a balance between challenging and allowing children time to develop their own ideas. There are no rules on this one—you have to use your own skills in observation and know the children you work with in order to keep this balance.

It’s a skill to balance between challenging and allowing children to develop their own ideas

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Children will have their own questions, sometimes constantly, and it is useful to have thought out how you will best respond to them. At the end of a long day it can be hard to keep responding to the number of questions young children have but where possible it is most useful to put the question back onto the child, eg ‘Why do planes stay up in the sky and not fall on us?’ ‘Why do you think, Fiona? Does anyone else here have any ideas on this?’ With young children there are also a range of reference books and computer programs available for a range of


abilities. These are well worth investing in so that both you and the child can benefit from additional knowledge.

Sometimes children’s questions may be inappropriate or embarrassing, for example, ‘Why is that lady so fat?’ However, children are driven to find out everything they can, to build on their knowledge of the world. They learn very fast and one talk about what questions are appropriate in different situations should be enough. Other than this, it is fascinating to wait as children process chunks of information and form a whole new question to follow the last one, even more challenging to the adult than before, eg ‘If she is so fat because she has a baby in her tummy, who put the baby there? How?’

Some problem solving is easy, some is much more complex. Once learnt, the skills of thinking through issues logically and using tried and proven strategies can be applied to a range of problems. Caregivers have a vital role to play in helping children develop these skills.


Encourage children to explore, understand and solve problems in their environment

Fostering the thinking skills of children is more than provision of a stimulating environment and the use of encouragement by the caregiver, though these things are important. Another thinking skill that is important to begin developing in early childhood is the ability to solve problems. While ‘problems’ may have negative associations for many, try putting in the word ‘challenges’ instead!

Caregivers play an important role in encouraging children to solve their own challenges positively, and to begin to learn the wide range of skills necessary to continue doing this in life.

Problems or challenges are decisions and reactions we face daily. Figuring out how to get to work or college when the car is broken or there is a transport strike is a problem. How to convince your teacher not to take off marks for a late assignment is a problem. When and how to introduce solids to a highly allergic baby, or how to deal with an acting-out 10 year old—these are all problems or challenges.

Activity 3

Discovery learningPiaget alerted us to the fact that children enjoy actively exploring their environments, adjusting their thinking to new discoveries. Vygotsky, another theorist, emphasised the role of the adult in that learning and how the adult can shape a child’s learning so they can understand their culture and society. While Piaget advocated a more ‘hands off’ approach to programming, Vygotsky emphasised more adult intervention. The discovery learning approach reflects parts of both these theories.

Discovery learning is one approach where the adult works with the child, following their interests and supporting them in discovering new ways of gathering and understanding information. In discovery learning, the adult follows the child’s lead in identifying topics of interest, then supports the child’s interests


through the provision of an environment rich in resources and information relevant to the child’s interests. However, the child is left to make the connections and organise the information themself.

Activity 4

Children exploring

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Using opportunities and resourcesIt is important for caregivers to use opportunities in their environment, both the physical and the human, to foster children’s thinking skills. Once we have some knowledge about what these skills involve, we become more aware of opportunities within the environment to foster their development.

Activity 5

Activity 6

Stimulate thinking skillsChildren need to be presented with opportunities and provided with resources to stimulate their thinking skills. Environments should be colourful and have movement, accessible toys and equipment, and space to explore. Adults need to be interested in what the children are doing, ready to ask questions and provide further challenges at different points.


A colourful, stimulating environment

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Using opportunities and resources in the centre environmentLet’s now put our thoughts so far into looking at the resources in a room in a children’s service.

Activity 7

Providing encouragement and supportActivity 8

Scenario 2Lizzy, four years, and Daniel, five, are building a castle. They are up to the windows and can’t decide on the cellophane colour they would like. Their caregiver comes over and says: ‘ I think we have a book of castles in the book corner. You might get an idea of what they used if you look. After looking at the book, Lizzy and Daniel are disappointed to see that most castles didn’t have glass windows, but Lizzy points out that big churches had windows of lots of different colours, so they happily begin to transform the castle into a cathedral.

Lizzy and Daniel can use a variety of resources to explore and solve problems in their environment. It is the caregiver’s role to ensure that the resources are available and accessible and that the problem solving becomes fun rather than a chore.


Scenario 3Costa, two years, is trying to fit a shape in a box. It is the wrong shape for the hole. Costa hits the box with the shape several times, then throws it across the room. Costa’s caregiver, Rima, picks it up and comes over to Costa. ‘Did you have problems fitting the shapes in?’ Costa nods. ‘How about I hand you the shapes one at a time and you try them. We can do it together’. Costa nods again and Rima sits comfortably with the pile of shapes in her lap. ‘Which one shall we try first?’, she asks.

Costa is a toddler and unlikely to have a long attention span, as we noted earlier. He is also mainly learning using trial and error rather than thinking through the task logically. However, with Rima’s help he will be able to persist longer and approach the problem logically. Next time he may move within what Vygotsky called his ‘zone of proximal development’ in this skill, and be able to do it himself. If he is still frustrated next time, Rima could talk him through it instead of handing out the pieces, thus increasing his skill level a little at a time.

What caregivers need to doCaregivers need to:

• model approaches to solving problems, as with Costa—move children beyond frustration with their current problem-solving approaches if they don’t work

• provide an environment where resources are available to problem solve• encourage children to think of different solutions and be creative in their

approaches.

They also need to challenge children with their questions and make finding the answers a shared experience. Examples of this can be seen in almost any activity. Piaget used to do an exercise with playdough to challenge the thinking of preschoolers, which you may have seen in earlier reading. He would take two pieces of playdough and roll them into two balls. He would make sure the child agreed that the two balls were exactly the same then he would roll one into a snake. He would then ask the child: ‘Do they still have the same amount of dough, or does one have more?’ When the child answered, he would then ask: ‘Why?’ Their answers teach you a lot about how they think, especially the ‘why’ bit. Simple questions about what they might think will happen, or suggestions on how they might see something differently, will all extend a child’s thinking skills.

We can draw out further ways of fostering children’s thinking skills by using a variety of situations such as those described in the previous collaborative activity. With the four year old, a simple question like: ‘What do you think they should do? Why?’ will extend the thinking skills; with the older child you could encourage


them to put themselves in the other’s situation with: ‘I wonder what it would be like to … ?’

With the eternal questions of younger children, use them best by putting them back onto the child: ‘Why do you think we need to wear shoes outside?’. With the baby it is a matter of watching her efforts to move her body, encouraging her to find ways of getting to the rattle and perhaps moving the rattle closer so that the task is more immediately achievable. Every little victory counts at this age!


Use a variety of strategies to maintain children’s interest in solving problems

Using everyday experiences and routines Everyday experiences and routines are regular providers of challenges for young children. Asking children what usually happens next is one way of focusing a child’s attention on routines. Asking children to help you set out play materials and discussing the reasons for including certain activities or objects and the placing of provisions encourages children to consider issues wider than what they want to play with.

Scenario 4Hean is involved in a simplified soccer game with some 5 year old children. One of the younger girls wants to play and the older ones complain that it will spoil their game if they have to worry about her too. Hean asks: ‘Is there any way that you can think of that Holly can play and you can still have a good game?’ One of the children responds: ‘We could play a game of kicking the ball with the younger children after our game, so they can have a turn too.’ Hean responds: ‘That’s a great idea. Perhaps Holly could go and ask who is interested while you continue your game, then we could set up a game for the younger children.’

It is just as likely that the group of children would come up with a range of unrealistic ideas in response to Hean’s question, and in that case it would be important for Hean to guide them through the pros and cons of each suggestion until they came up with a reasonable alternative to just excluding Holly. The more Hean set up a culture of group problem-solving, the more the children will respond with positive and serious suggestions. This will happen as the children begin to trust that their ideas will be respected and taken seriously by the adults.

Activity 9


Using learning centresIf you would like to recap what you know about learning centres go to Appendix 1: Learning centres.

Planning cognitive experiencesYou may already understand the planning process and know how to complete an experience plan format. For a general overview go and read Planning experiences in children’s services in the Shared Resources section.

Now you are familiar with the experience plan format, it is time to come to terms with the project approach to planning experiences. Using this approach we are observing the interests of the children and following through these interests in a collaborative approach with the children. Don’t be confused here as we are not talking about what was considered a traditional thematic approach.

Project approach to planning experiencesA project is developed in collaboration with the children on an identified topic. We establish the information and knowledge the children already have and then plan a series of learning events to extend this knowledge. Careful documentation of these learning events leads to careful recording of the children’s knowledge.

‘A project is an in-depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about. The investigation is usually undertaken by a small group of children within a class, sometimes by a whole class, and occasionally by an individual child. The key feature of a project is that it is a research effort, deliberately focused on finding answers to questions about a topic posed either by the children, the teacher or the teacher working with the children.’ (Katz, 1994 p1)

‘Projects provide the backbone of the children’s and teachers’ learning experiences. They are based on the strong conviction that learning by doing is of great importance and that to discuss in a group and to revisit ideas and experiences is the premier way of gaining better understanding and learning.’ Gandini (1997 p 7)

As said earlier, a project is not to be confused with what was traditionally thought of as a theme, which is simply a collection or resources and learning experiences around a central theme set by the teacher, eg fire officers. When embarking on a theme, everyone in the class would be immersed in the topic whether it interested them or not.

A unit of work is a series of pre-planned lessons and activities on a specific topic that the teacher considers is important to know, for example magnets. A more


recent introduction is the learning centre which is an area of the room designated for the investigation or development of certain knowledge and skills, eg ‘block area’.

To begin a project with children we would be observing for the interests of the children. Work through the following example of how a child’s interest could be developed.

Activity 10

Mind mapsNow would be the place to create an anticipatory web to explore possible learning and questions that the child might pose. This anticipatory web is simply a brainstorming on your part showing the types of questions or experiences that the child might want to explore. It is also known as a mind map.

Mind map or anticipatory web

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The next step is to plan an experience appropriate for this child. The following headings may be useful as a guide. You will find they fit in very closely with the experience plan shown above.

• Observation/rationale that made you decide that this would be appropriate to do with this child.

• Development priorities or opportunities• Materials/preparation required• How you will involve the children in your learning experience

Activity 11a


Activity 11b

Activity 11c

Activity 11d

Here is Jake’s completed experience plan

Jake’s experience plan

Learner’s name: Plan number:

Name of experience: Date/s presented:

Number of children: Name/age of children:

Reasons for your experience

Jake (5.1 years) made the statement that: ‘I saw the moon last night and it looked like a fingernail.’

I am going to explore the different phases of the moon with Jake and the other children to determine if this is an interest for the children.

Identify developmental priorities or learning opportunities To find out the correct names for the phases of the moon

To find out reasons for the moon changing shape

To compare the different phases of the moon with other shapes

To extend cognitive skills (recall memory, problem solving, research)

Describe how you will set up the learning environment for this experience Set up for group time in book area.

Have displayed the following pictures (list them).

Have displayed the following books about night, the moon, etc (list them).

Small chair at front for carer

Easel set up with butchers paper and texta

Torches (5)

Round pieces of cardboard the same size as the torch front-piece


How will you involve the child in the experience?

Here is the experience I have planned for Jake. Go through it and check that your experience has a similar amount of detail.

Introduction

Gather children using song, ‘It’s time to come and sit’. Say to the children: ‘Yesterday Jake said to me that he saw the moon last

night and it looked like a fingernail. What do you think he saw?’ Allow children time to respond. Accept responses. Ask children to explain

what they mean through questioning if needed. Ask question: ‘Does the moon always look like a fingernail?’ ‘What else does it look like?’

Main body

Say to children: ‘Well I was thinking about what Jake said and thought you might like to learn a little bit more about the moon. Would you?’

If children say yes, then: ‘Let’s first of all write down all the things we know about the moon.’

Ask them what kinds of things they would like to know. Record on butchers paper all questions. Make a planning web with the children.

Ask children where they think we could find out this information. Record answers. Look at questions that children have asked. Introduce fact if children don’t already know about how the moon goes

through certain phases. Show picture of phases of moon and introduce correct terminology (full moon, etc).

‘I thought today we could do an experiment to see if we can make the moon and show the different phases.’

Give each group of two children a torch and a piece of cardboard. Turn off the lights. Ask: ‘How can we make this look like the different phases of the moon?’

Allow children time to experiment with the torches and cardboard. After 5–10 minutes; call the children together again.

Take photos of children involved in the experiment as a tool for discussion later and also as evidence should this turn into a project.

Ask them what they found out. Discuss as a whole group. Record findings if appropriate.

Conclusion

Ask children what else they would like to know about the moon—discuss what else they need to find out and how they could find it out.

Recap some of the facts that they discovered today. Transition children to next experience.

Reflection and evaluation of the experience

Follow-up ideas


Provide challenging and engaging experiences for each child to develop their attention span and give them time to stay with the activity until they are ready to move on

Developing attention spans Our ability to stick at a task is not one we are born with, unless you count the ability to feed until full or sleep until rested. Infants and toddlers have very short attention spans, mainly related to their memory development. For infants, it is often ‘out of sight, out of mind’, which makes them easier to distract. With memory development, this becomes harder, as children remember that you put their favourite toy in the washing machine, whether you want them to or not, and later they can remember that on previous trips to the supermarket there were lollies at the checkout, so they can start asking as soon as you enter the shop.

However, children who do not develop their memories and ability to stick at activities also become harder to work with, as they constantly flit from one activity to another, not staying long enough to fully explore any. This interferes with their ability to develop skills in thinking and learning.

As a carer, there are a few strategies you can use to develop a child’s attention span. Firstly, you need to know the children you are working with—it is easier to develop skills based on activities the child enjoys rather then ones they find boring to begin with. Once you have identified a child’s interests, when they are engaged with that activity:

• join in and ask open questions and use non-verbal communication such as eye contact and smiling to encourage the child to share his or her knowledge of the activity

• ask the child to demonstrate their skills to others• suggest challenges and extensions to the activity that might engage the

child’s interests


• model and encourage involvement in activities around setting up and clearing away the activity so the child becomes able to manage the activity more independently.

For example, Toni (three years) is playing with the playdough, rolling it as she has seen the worker do previously. She often plays with playdough and uses it as a safe place to engage other children in conversation, but she drifts off after two or three minutes. The carer moves to the table and says: ‘Nice long snakes, Toni. Look, Georgia, can you roll the snakes like Toni? Show Georgia how, Toni. How about we roll them into sleeping snakes? Can you do that? … ‘

Scenario 5Toby (five years) tends to wander around from activity to activity, half starting activities and then moving on. He seems most interested in the construction activities and tends to stay a little longer at those. You see him standing by a Lego table, watching some of the older children build. He picks up some Lego and fiddles with it’. How would you respond?

Toby is indicating an interest in joining in and this can be fostered by the caregiver through actively encouraging him through words and physical help to join in with the older children. Often a lack of an ability to access a group can make children ‘wanderers’ in a room, as can just not knowing how to follow things through. You could join in with Toby and talk him through the activity as an interested adult. Involving the other children in a discussion would help Toby feel more comfortable with the group and the activity and would encourage him to persist with it.

It is important to observe and assess the attention span of individual children as there will be wide variations according to individual abilities and interests. However, it is important to see that the attention span grows as children learn new skills and respond to new challenges, particularly as children begin transitioning to school.

Providing timeChildren don’t have the same concept of time as adults and they certainly don’t have the same priorities. Personally, I enjoy a child’s sense of time and sets of priorities better than adult ones, and think they have a lot to teach us as to what is important and what is not. Consider the following situation:

Beth, four years, is building a tower of blocks. She wants to use all the blocks in the block corner and there are about one third left. Jackie the carer comes up and says: ‘It’s pack-up time now Beth. You should have started this earlier! There is no time to finish it now and we need to put the tables here so everyone can eat.’


This is an easy situation for carers to fall into, with the pressure of daily routines to get through. When routines begin to dominate interactions with children, it is time to re-think them. In this situation they are interfering with Beth’s problem solving, and it is probably not necessary. The tables could be put elsewhere, Beth could have her meal later if she likes, or she could leave the blocks and come back to it after her meal. The project could be an interesting topic of conversation over the meal in that case, so that the energy is not lost.

Shoelaces are the best example of the need to provide time. How many of you can tie your own shoelaces? Behind every successfully tied shoelace there is an adult who has really held themselves back and allowed a child to painstakingly work their way through the process. Without time, it is not possible to achieve this complex task, and it is worth reflecting on how many problem-solving activities also need time in the early stages of learning. Children might need an adult to encourage them, or to suggest or model strategies, but they don’t need adults to jump in and do it for them.

Scenario 6William and Gina are working at puzzles and are having a good time helping each other with the difficult bits. A group of boys runs through the room, knocking one of the puzzles off the table. Another group of children begins putting on a singing ‘show’, and one of the carers calls out: ‘OK, let’s all stop and have some of the muffins our group has made!’

It actually requires quite a bit of problem solving to provide a time and place for children to do their own problem solving. It is necessary to provide space away from distractions so that children can focus on what they are doing. That can be difficult when quiet spaces are not readily available at a service. However, even if only with the use of screens, spaces can be created which are seen as separate from the open area, and children can be taught to respect this. Think creatively about space and time to foster children’s thinking skills!


Introduce new ideas/activities that may build on existing knowledge, skills and interests

Providing opportunities to foster thinking skillsChildren and adults learn best when they are presented with material which is based on existing knowledge. We are wary of information, activities or objects which are outside our familiarity or that is presented in ways we don’t understand. It is important to understand how children in the early childhood years think, and how their abilities change over time, in order to provide appropriate activities.

We must also address children’s interests and questions to develop their understanding of topics.

Scenario 7Kym is playing with playdough with some five year olds. One child is making a tower but as it gets higher it droops. He asks Kym: ‘Why is it doing this? It isn’t so heavy on top, but it still bends over.’ Kym responds: ‘Playdough is not strong enough or rigid enough to stand up against gravity. Does anyone here know what gravity is?’

Kym is responding to the question simply. She introduces a new word ‘rigid’ along with the familiar one ‘strong’ because she knows that children in this age group are assimilating new words at a rapid rate. She also understands that using group knowledge is a good starting point to build on, so rather than grabbing a book or launching into an explanation, she asks what they know already as a group before further discussion.


Extending thinking skillsAs caregivers we foster thinking skills through the presentation of challenges and opportunities in the environment. We must also extend the skills we observe in the children we work with through building on what we observe. This can only be done if we take the time and use our skills to constantly observe what the children are capable of. Thinking skills change and develop rapidly so ongoing observation is essential.

Activity 12


Use questioning and non-verbal communication to develop children’s abilities to observe what is happening around them

Fostering children’s observation and reflection skillsCaregivers are important supports to children in using language and non-verbal communication to encourage them to think about what they see or do.

Consider this example: Gayle is outside with a group of preschoolers in the playground. One child says: ‘The clouds look like sheep.’ Gayle squats down to the children’s height and looks up. She places her hand on one child’s shoulder and points to one cloud, saying: ‘Oh, that one looks like a dragon!’

Sometimes children will notice things in their environment themselves and sometimes they need to be encouraged to do this. It is important that adults use discussions, comments and gestures to include the children in their observations whenever possible. Just as we model appropriate social or language skills, we should model skills in observing and enjoying the world as from this we develop our ability to reflect on or make sense of what we see.

Children’s observation skills can best be fostered through use of their questions and discoveries to focus these skills. In an earlier example, when a young child comes in with a snail, the worker could encourage the children to observe the swirls in the snail’s delicate shell, and to reproduce them in their creative work. Children can be encouraged to reflect on what a snail is, and their ideas could be developed into a simple poem with the worker’s help.

Assist children to develop their understandingsWe all spend a lot of our thinking time making sense of the world around us and understanding it. As adults, we understand many things in the world and have


perhaps made decisions that there are certain things we can live with but not understand. How computers work, why cockroaches exist or why men must always fiddle with the remote control—these are mysteries that some of us have chosen not to pursue.

However, young children are still figuring out what they need to know and will often ask questions that caregivers, despite their longer lives and formal education, cannot answer. This is one reason why working with young children is so enjoyable—they challenge the complacent view that we understand our world.

Children want to know it all, from complex physics or chemistry through to the ‘whys’ of warfare, international politics and human relationships. We don’t need to have the answers but as caregivers we need to model strategies for finding out and to do them with the child. This will encourage a life-long interest in learning new things in both you and the child. From a very young age we are all investigators—babies suck, bang and swipe at objects to find out what they do. Toddlers stick their fingers into small holes just because they can and preschoolers ask questions because they must. As children grow, they discover which questions and topics are not OK in their society, and this shapes their learning and understanding.

Some groups of parents or societies in general value academic achievement, others emphasise spiritual reflection, and others may value self-discipline. The values of families, societies and cultures will affect how children understand their world. Children carry these understandings with them, as do we all.

Difficult conceptsAnything that is outside the child’s experience is a difficult concept. When fostering thinking skills it is important that you, the caregiver, be aware of what will work and what is less likely to work with young children. These difficult concepts apply not only to preschoolers but into the transition to school years.

As children move through childhood they will become more comfortable with their knowledge of abstract and relative concepts and their vocabulary will grow to encompass new ideas and ways of phrasing things. However, even as adults we like things to have some degree of familiarity in order to accept them. This is why our friendly movie aliens look like ET with humanoid features, while the unfriendly ones have few features we can relate to (like a Dalek from Dr Who).

It is also important not to assume what knowledge is widely known. I remember doing an activity with city-born four year olds, where we squeezed oranges for juice. This turned out to be way outside their experience, as they had never seen a liquid come from anything except a bottle, carton or tap. We had to go back a few steps in order to prepare them for this unknown new concept!


Activity 13

The challenge here is to use existing incidents or interests to build on. Sometimes it is difficult to think on your feet, such as with a strong wind warning, but giving the children some knowledge about what is happening and what they might expect will allay some of their anxiety better than furiously diverting them with finger plays or songs. Children become more nervous when the adults will not give them clear answers to their questions or information about what is happening. They assume it is something you cannot protect them from.

With Christie, ‘germs’ would be a slightly alarming concept for a young child and would need to be explained concretely and simply. For example: ‘When we go to the toilet we might get dirt on our hands we don’t see. This can make us sick, so we always wash our hands.’

Scenario 81. Shannon is working with children at the craft table, making cards. One of the children says: ‘I would like some fluffy things on my card.’ Shannon says: ‘ What would make it fluffy?’ and the child says: ‘Feathers!’ Shannon replies: ‘I saw some of those yesterday’, and moves some boxes on the trolley. Two fall to the ground and the children pick them up. Shannon goes into the storage room nearby and is heard muttering: ‘It was just here … I’m sure I saw some.’

2. Hean is painting with a group of older children. They have decided to paint pictures of their houses to show each other. Hean moves around, saying: ‘That’s a very tall block of flats, Lenore. Can you all see how Lenore has made the top smaller than the bottom so it looks taller? Oh look, Charlie has two dogs in his yard. Can you see how he has made them jump up in the air? They must have a lot of energy! Kristy’s house has lots of garden. Do you enjoy your garden Kristy?’

As you can see form your reading, Shannon starts out well by putting the challenge back to the child rather than offering cotton wool or fabric without comment. The child is allowed to make their own choice as to what is ‘fluffy’ but Shannon then loses it, as her cluttered environment overwhelms her ability to find what she is looking for.

Hean, however, (and we will assume he left spaces between those comments for the children to respond), not only appreciated the children’s efforts but also encouraged the children to appreciate each other’s efforts—an important aspect of encouraging them to take on new challenges.


Identify and monitor children’s cognitive development and thinking skills

Fostering memory skillsThe development of memory is connected to Piagetian concepts of mental representations. With infants, memory is very basic, and it is often ‘out-of-sight, out-of-mind. In the second half of the first year, however, infants will clearly discriminate between the familiar and the unfamiliar, and begin to anticipate events beyond feeding. With the development of mental representations, the development of internal thought can be observed. We will look at memory also in later sections. At this stage we are only going to focus on object permanence.

The development of object permanencePiaget observed that infants appeared to immediately forget what was not in front of them at the time. Try it yourself. Wave an interesting toy in front of a young baby — up to about 6 months. They will look interested and physically respond to the toy. Then put the toy out of sight and look again at the child. Within a second or two, they will be interested in something else and will appear to have forgotten entirely about the object. Piaget called this a lack of ‘object permanence’, an important prerequisite for the development of memory skills. Piaget developed a number of experiments to test young children’s object permanence.

Between six and nine months infants begin to develop what is known as ‘person permanence’. They are able to remember when certain people leave such as the primary caregiver when they leave. This is usually when we begin to see separation anxiety. Object permanence takes a little longer. During the fourth substage, infants are able to retrieve objects that are partially hidden under a blanket. As they progress they will be able to retrieve objects totally hidden under the blanket, but have not developed complete object permanence and they make what is known by Piaget as the AB error. This error is made when the caregiver in plain view puts an object underneath a yellow towel. Then while the child is watching, the caregiver takes it from the yellow towel (A) and puts it under a blue


towel (B). Rather than looking under the blue towel (B) first, the child will go again to the yellow towel where it was first put, thus making the AB error.

By the time the child is in substage five, they will not make this error and will begin to be able to follow objects through its displacement. This experiment involves the caregiver putting an object in an ice cream container in front of the child. The ice cream container is then placed under the towel. The caregiver tips out the object from the ice cream container under the towel and bring out the container out to show the child. When asked where the object is, children in this stage should be able to locate it under the blanket.

Activity 14

ExplorationChildren explore their environment from birth, using their senses of sight, touch, hearing, taste, and the information gathered from the interaction of their bodies with their environment and in space, known as kinaesthetic learning. Children on a trampoline are learning kinaesthetically as they figure out how to balance, twist and turn their bodies for different effects.

Piaget believed that development of a child’s thinking skills occurs through the child’s explorations of their environment. The child was seen by Piaget as a ‘little scientist’ armed with their own internal views of the world which need to be tested out in real environments, just like scientists test out their hypotheses. Once ideas are tested, they can be adjusted to fit different circumstances and experiences. With young children, most of this testing is done in the physical world. The structuring of the play environment to invite exploration is therefore a key role for early childhood workers.

Vygotsky disagreed with Piaget’s emphasis on the child as a solitary explorer, but believed that children learnt within their own social and cultural context, through interactions with others. The adults’ role shifts from an emphasis on the provision of a challenging environment to active teaching of information to children through modelling, instructing, and shaping their learning (‘scaffolding’), a concept we will examine later.

Vygotsky saw exploratory behaviour as an important prelude to playing with objects, and you might recognise its characteristics in you when faced with something new. We use exploratory behaviour when we are about to drive a car we haven’t driven before, as we think about where different functions are located, and explore knobs and buttons we are unsure of.

It is important to ensure that the child has time to explore. It is important not to rush in and show the child how they ‘should’ play with any toy. Allow them time to absorb the information they need to play effectively.


Piaget and toddlersToddlers are typically aged between 18 months and 3 years. They are leaving the infancy stage and becoming very active explores of the world around them. Let’s look at what Piaget had to say. Firstly we are going to examine the last stage of the Sensorimotor period.

In substage six, Piaget saw children as initially exploring the world and gathering information through their senses. As children move into toddlerhood, this information is internalised into thoughts. These thoughts are adapted constantly by the child to include new information. There are two processes involved in this adaption of existing information, and these are:

• Assimilation, which involves gathering new information from the world and fitting it into our existing thoughts eg while watching a TV show we might see an unusual type of dog such as a Shih Tzu. While we may not have seen this type of dog before, we can easily identify its characteristics as belonging to the ‘dog’ concept, and fit it in there.

• Accommodation, which is when we need to change our existing ideas in order to fit in new information. For instance, a child might have a definition of a bird as a smaller animal with wings that fly. This will have to be adjusted quite a bit to fit in emus or cassowaries.

As children develop their concepts of things around them, they can increasingly think independently of what they are doing, and think about what they have done or would like to do. They show they can do this through the use of mental representations. Mental representations emerge in Piaget’s preoperational stage, and are seen in the young child’s use of language and mental imagery. The young child who accompanies his parents to see someone off at the airport and is later observed to wave a spoon in their air and making aircraft noises, is reflecting on the new experiences he saw today. He is doing this through mentally representing them with the spoon and noises.

Likewise, children will increasingly use words to explore things they have seen or done, asking questions of adults and peers to gather more information.

The Preoperational StageChildren aged from 2 years until they are 7 years old are considered to be in Piaget’s Preoperational Stage. During this stage children build on skills of symbolic thinking and deferred imitation. They develop the capacity to use symbols with more proficiency, complexity and flexibility. Piaget identified two substages within the preoperational stage

• Preconceptual substage: 2 and 3 year olds• Intuitive substage: 4 to 7 year olds


Over the next five years the young child’s symbolic thinking will develop in the following ways. These developments do not happen all at once. The two year old will be showing signs of these developments in his thinking processes as it becomes more flexible and faster. The child is able to think about different ideas, experiences and events in rapid succession, thinking about actions, events and objects in the past and future as well as in the present. The child will also develop general ideas or concepts about features of objects (eg concepts of colour, shape or time) and the child is able, with increasing skill, to translate thoughts into symbols (that is, language) and these thoughts can be shared with other people.

Characteristics of the preoperational child’s thinkingThe child is still an illogical thinker who cannot consistently apply the rules of logic to their experiences and thoughts and problem solving. Their thinking is egocentric; that is, they see things from their own point of view. They tend to focus on single aspect of situation or object at a time, failing to take into account other aspects or dimensions of the situation. This is called centring. They find it difficult to separate reality from fantasy.

Activity 15

Activity 16

Activity 17

Activity 18

Characteristics of the preoperational periodPiaget has identified a number of particular characteristics to describe aspects of the preoperational period. Try the following exercise to learn more about these.

Activity 19

Memory and the preschoolerMemory is our ability to retain information over time, and is a key concept in the Information Processing approach to cognitive development. As adults, we employ a range of strategies, some conscious and some not, to remember things. These


strategies have been developed throughout childhood, often with adult support, to the point where they become automatic.

Information processing approaches the mind with a model similar to a computer, with data input and output being logically tracked. Our processes and capacities change with age and experience, and an understanding of the developing processes helps workers to foster the development of effective memory strategies in children.

To reflect on what we see, past and present, we use our memories. We have explored the acquisition of memories through the Information Processing model earlier. While remembering something is so automatic a skill that we rarely think about it, it has involved us in years of learning and skill development, a process many of the children we work with will be just beginning. Recollection, and the ability to recollect, is an important skill which fosters a child’s ability to reflect on what they see and have seen around them.

Activity 20

Fostering memory skillsIt is important to be aware of a child’s skill level in this area of thinking, so that it can be extended through questioning and prompting when appropriate. For example:

Kym (3 years) is looking at the set of zoo animals in the block corner. His caregiver comes over and says ‘do you remember when we went to the zoo a few months ago?’ Kym looks hesitant. The caregiver goes on ‘look at these photos - see if they remind you about the day’. Kym looks brighter and says ‘we saw monkeys!’. The caregiver says ‘let’s see…I think there was a photo of them, let’s find it’.

Activity 21

From the information above, let us explore how we can foster memory skills at different developmental levels. Think about the range of activities in a program, and about the abilities of children at different stages. Simple activities which are repetitive and call on a child’s recent experiences are useful in developing memory, such as the game ‘When I went to the shops I bought…’. Chants themselves are useful eg ‘Farmer in the Dell’, for remembering sequences and linking things logically. For even younger children, finger plays and simple rhymes also help children anticipate an experience they remember eg ‘Round and round the garden’.

With older children, it is important to foster their ability to recall specific information for specific tasks, and it is often useful to prompt them and record their information, then help them put it in logical order to arrive at solutions to


situations eg ‘Do you remember last time we did this puzzle? You started with all the side pieces, then what?’


Appendix 1—Learning centres

Learning centres are areas of space, both indoors and outdoors with a particular collection of materials and resources designed to encourage children to explore and learn at their own pace. They are usually planned around an interest of a child or group of children or set up to challenge and stimulate the children to explore and investigate the possibilities. Learning centres provide opportunities for integrated learning across all areas of development.

Some learning centres will be set up for weeks or longer, with additions or subtractions as the children’s interest, learning and development of skills develops. Others might last only a few days. If it is not possible to leave learning centres available at all times (space restrictions), set up the learning centres in the same place every day – predictability and sureness are important for children.

Setting up areas

Reading area

Reading area

This would be a space in the environment which is comfortably furnished and inviting to both children and adults. It needs to be able to accommodate a child looking at a book alone, with a couple of other children or with an adult. This area should be situated away from high traffic areas and in a quieter space in the environment with boundaries created to give the area an ‘enclosed’ and special feel.


Furniture and accessories may include a sofa, large cushions, book stands, soft rugs, fabrics draped over to form a canopy and maybe a table where children can sit and read if they choose.

Pictures, posters and photographs can enhance the area/environment when they are associated with children’s interests.

In the book area, rather than changing all the books at once, consideration should be given to the interests of the whole group of children and develop their knowledge with the inclusion of new books.

Displaying and caring for books is an important aspect of this area. Books need to easily accessible to the children and displayed at their eye level. Display the books facing outwards and maintain an aesthetically appealing aspect, replacing the books on the shelf after use. If books are piled one on top of another, this is giving the children a message that books are not important. Talk with children about caring for books and model respect for these resources.

Writing area

Writing area

A table with a variety of pens, pencils and papers, envelopes, computer, examples of print forms, staplers, paper clips, bookmaking, hole puncher (this may be transferred to the creative area). Store these materials attractively in small boxes or small baskets on shelving close by.


Creative area

Creative area

Set up in an area with open shelves so that children can access a variety of materials easily- paste, paints, scissors, sticky tape, string or wool, collage materials (you may wish to present these in colour coordinated shades), easels, table, drying racks, examples of beautiful art work on display, noticeboards for children to display their work, pens, bookmaking, hole puncher (this may be transferred to the writing area). Again, make sure the materials are stored in attractive containers.

Nature area

Nature area

Set up in a quiet but noticeable area with shells, pieces of seaweed al placed on a tray of sand, books on shells and the beach, pictures of shells and the seaside, magnifying glasses, a poem about the beach written on a poster on the wall and materials for children to use to draw or paint the things they see.


Visual arts areas

Visual arts area

Visual arts areas are always present in preschool and long day care settings, though may be known as the craft or collage area. They provide a perfect opportunity to develop social skills. Some considerations when setting up the area include:

Craft trolleys can be positioned so that children working on different activities can share and discuss their choices, ask others to help them find some item, etc.

Craft should allow for children to make choices about whether they want to work on their own or with others on a group project.

Adults should be involved in group projects, using opportunities to encourage children to cooperate, resolve any conflicts or disagreements, discuss their work and plan together.

Working with older children allows you to further extend both children and the environment. Some adjustments to a craft area for older children include:

involving children in planning craft activities, eg group collages, posters or construction works

allowing children to bring in ideas and materials to discuss and to develop ideas around

letting children develop, write out and display their own agreed rules for activities in the visual arts area

making activities more functional, eg posters for a dance or holiday care activity.

A designated area for feltboards and pieces, magnet boards and pieces, letters and symbols, pictures and charts, puppets, book making materials.

All of these can be integrated into other learning centres. Remember, an integrated approach encompasses all areas of learning.


Clay area

A special space where the clay and tools can stay (perhaps in a small cupboard) continuously. Children can revisit the area to continue their works, with clay in accessible bins, tools to use with clay, a little water in small containers to moisten the clay, book showing pictures of made clay pieces or objects that the children are interested in, to use as provocations. A nearby display of claywork to remind children of previous experiences.

Music centre

Music area

Music centres for preschoolers can:

be set up as a permanent area with a wide range of instruments on open shelves

provide a choice of instruments for children to be able to access in small groups—ensure multiple instruments are available so different children can play the same instrument at the same time

have a variety of music for children to play along to in small groups. Provide a range of CDs for children to choose from collaboratively.

For older children:

provide blank manuscript paper so children can collaborate with others and the teacher to compose their own music

encourage children to form a band and learn songs or accompaniment to songs

include more tuneful equipment such as a keyboard or guitar.

There is potential to foster children’s social development in all activities, structured or unstructured, in the child’s day. Children’s individual abilities to use these opportunities will vary according to whether they are shy, aggressive, have friends in the activity, or just how they are feeling at the time. However, the skill of the adult in supporting their social development is a crucial part in allowing them to get the most from activities.


Science and technology area

This would be an area when children can explore the natural and physical world by observing, classifying, communicating, measuring and making predictions. It should foster a ‘hands-on’ approach rather than in producing an end product.

Science and technology involves:

discovering living things, for example, human body, animals, plants and insects.

experiences that require exploration and experimentation of forces, motion, machines, wheels, light and sound.

investigating and exploring the natural world such as: weather, soil, rocks, sun and moon.

discovering and exploring how things work such as: pulleys, gears, ramps, inclines, wheels, balance scales, nuts and bolts, machines, connectors, magnets, electrical circuits and switches, electricity, telephones, computers, digital equipment, household electrical products and so on. The list is endless.

observing and analysing experiences that involve dissolving, evaporating, changing shape/consistency, heating, mixing, freezing and absorption. Cooking experiences are an important component of this topic.

The science and technology area should be set up with equipment to facilitate children experimenting with all these concepts. Equipment need not be expensive and can include such items as: magnifying glasses, magnets, prisms, torches, kaleidoscopes, bots, screws, springs, compass, microscopes, scales, tweezers, stethoscope, bones, shells, globe of the world…

A ‘medical centre’ children dressed as medical staff, a skeleton and other medical equipment

Displays

Displays can enhance children’s learning when associated with children’s interests and emerging skills. Display children’s work and quality adult objects nearby to the learning centres.


Using learning centresLearning centres have an important role to play in developing children’s problem-solving skills. Learning centres can be set up for children of any age or ability. Even infants have commercially-made ‘learning centres’ that can be purchased for them, consisting of knobs, buttons and dials that can be manipulated in different ways to make a variety of noises. You can make similar learning centres for small children yourself with items such as bicycle bells and cotton reels on sticks—the same principle of exploration can be applied to all age groups.

A learning centre is like a study area, somewhat separate from the free-play areas in order to invite quiet reflection or discussion with others. Learning centres encourage problem solving and learning in an open-ended manner, providing a range of materials and resources for children to pursue current interests. Learning centres may from time to time focus on particular areas of group interest such as outer space or volcanoes, but at other times it will be the focus of individual or small-group research into the world around us. The focus of topics within a learning centre should be open and child-centred, not imposed by adults who think it is time to ‘do’ Spring.

Learning centres can be an area where there are a variety of tools and resources to pursue an idea, eg general information books, paper and pencils or crayons, books for collecting information, perhaps a computer. Children should feel comfortable about asking for or choosing any materials they need for their research. Caregivers should be alert to what topics are being pursued at the learning centre in order to help with resources.

Consider the following example:

David and Bronwyn are discussing what they did on the weekend. David said his Auntie gave him a kite that is great to fly. Bronwyn says she would like a kite and David suggests they make one. The caregiver says she has a book of paper-kite designs they could look at in the learning centre. They might like to try some of the designs with the paper there, but they can come and get her if they need any help.

Having an area dedicated to learning and problem solving at all ages indicates to the children the importance you put on this part of their development. Encouraging children to try things for themselves also indicates a respect for their abilities; at the same time, help should be freely available and children should feel comfortable asking for it when needed.

Dramatic play area

This learning area provides children with opportunities to roleplay and imitate the world around them.


Older infant dramatic play will focus on direct imitation with familiar items that reflect the child’s home and cultural environment.

Toddler dramatic play extends on the familiar home and cultural environment themes to include bathing dolls, washing up and dress-up clothes. Other familiar and relevant focuses such as simple shops, hairdressers and the bus or train are introduced

Pre-schooler dramatic play is more imaginative and complex involving focuses that are familiar as well as new and unfamiliar. Concepts such as school, hospitals, camping and space travel could be used to extend the children’s play.

Dramatic role play in a restaurant: children acting as waiters and diners

School-aged children will enjoy experimenting with clothes, costumes and dramatic roles. Focuses will usually reflect the children’s current interests as talent quests, singing and dancing competitions and comedy skits.

Physically active play area

This learning area provides children with opportunities to develop confidence using their existing and emerging gross motor skills. Once the key gross motor skills (walking, running, jumping, hopping etc) are evident, the child is offered opportunities to enhance their stamina, flexibility, co-ordination, spatial awareness and balance.

For infants, physically active play needs to focus on supporting emerging locomotion skills and developing muscle control and strength.

For toddlers, physically active play needs to focus on engaging toddlers’ active, exploration of their newly found mobile abilities. Provide simple activities that offer repetitive opportunities to practise emerging gross-motor skills.

For pre-schoolers, physically active play need to consist of safe activities that challenge the child’s existing skills and extend their ability to integrate a number of gross-motor skills together.


Challenging gross motor skills

For school-aged children, physically-active play should focus on developing confidence and participation in gross motor leisure and sport pursuits. Opportunities to practise specific skills related to specific games and sports should be made available.

Manipulative play learning area

Infant manipulative play focuses on supporting emerging fine motor and manipulative skills, including eye-hand coordination.

Toddler manipulative play focuses on offering opportunities for toddlers to practise existing and emerging fine motor and manipulative skills. Simple activities that focus on fine motor, manipulative skills required for self-help tasks are ideal.

Pre-schooler manipulative play focuses on offering opportunities to practise and extend the child’s existing fine motor and manipulative skills. Children in this age group need to develop a preferred hand to consolidate these skills and develop stamina and control. Using additional equipment such as scissors and drawing implements with precision is also an important emerging skill.

For school-aged children, manipulative play focuses on offering opportunities to children to extend their fine-motor and manipulative skills by applying them to specific leisure tasks and activities.

Literacy learning area

Infant and toddler literacy focuses on carer interactions and revolves around conversations, songs and fingerplays between infants and carers. The sharing of good quality picture books and poster/picture discussions where the carer takes an active role is crucial to the child’s developing understanding of language. Labelling of key objects and using key words, such as ‘toilet’, in the child’s first language is also critical. The ability to pick up a book and ‘read and look’ at it from left to right is also an important focus that is learnt spontaneously.


Pre-schooler literacy extends to include opportunities to integrate existing literary skills with new emerging skills. Pre-reading skills such an emerging understanding of the relationship between spoken and written words and their meaning is an important focus. Interest in other languages and other methods of writing also emerges. Pre-schoolers also use their manipulative and fine-motor skills to ‘write’ with writing implements.

School-aged children enjoy creating meaning using their literacy skills. Leisure pursuits that involve written self-expression are popular—eg, writing letters, making cards and sending emails.

Creative art learning area

Infant creative art learning areas should primarily focus on opportunities for exploratory play involving sensory manipulative materials.

Toddler creative art learning areas continue to focus on sensory manipulative materials and exploratory play with a gradual move toward art activities requiring the use of specific equipment—eg, the use of paint-brushes, dough rollers etc.

Pre-schooler creative art learning areas should provide opportunities for exploration and choice. Children are given opportunities to engage in self-chosen art activities that interest them and challenge their emerging creativity and imaginative skills. An emergence of goal orientated art and craft is evident.

School-aged children will enjoy opportunities to choose provisions and art activities.

Maths learning area

To extend children’s emerging cognitive skills and problem solving abilities we may introduce opportunities to learn key mathematical concepts. We can introduce opportunities to develop:

pattern making

sequencing

ordering

one-to-one correspondence

rational counting

grouping by a specified criterion.

Comparative concepts related to length, weight and height can also be introduced. You can also introduce the use of scales and rulers for weights and


measures. Monetary concepts and measurement of time are examples of other challenging additions to this area.

Science and technology learning area

Research indicates that children from as young as two years have an awareness of technology based items such as television, video recorders, cameras, mobile phones, computers, game consoles. The introduction and use of these provisions needs to be carefully considered. Many of the learning possibilities offered by these provisions are best suited, and most valuable, to older pre-schoolers and school-aged children who have had previous opportunities to participate in beneficial social free play.

There are limitless learning possibilities in this curriculum area. Any focus should come directly from the children’s interests and enquiries.

Toddlers and younger pre-schoolers will be fascinated by familiar events and discoveries such as weather patterns, bugs, gardening, sea creatures, and floating and sinking objects.

Older pre-schoolers will begin to hypothesise about their discoveries and interests. They will enjoy opportunities to test hypothesises using simple science experiments such as water evaporation or magnets. Other interests might include the life cycles of frogs and machinery and how it works.

School-aged children make gigantic leaps in this area and may develop interests in a variety of subject areas such as electricity, bodily systems, mechanics and fuel powered systems. As their awareness of their wider community increases, interests in topics such as recycling, pollution, endangered animals, nuclear power, and water conservation may develop.

While learning centres will be changing areas, there will be certain different needs for different age groups. Think of learning centres for toddlers, preschoolers and school-aged children. What basic materials would you start off with? Design a learning centre for each age group, indicating where you might place objects and labelling objects you might include.


Here are a variety of indoor and outdoor centres

Learning area Outdoor learning area

Learning area Visual arts learning area

Outdoor learning area

Learning centre

Learning area Learning area


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