Curriculum yasuka 33

Experiences

Number sense and Arithmetic

This picture shows how everything was placed on the panel with pictures which described the children activity based on their interest. The first and most important stage in this experience was children`s collaboration demonstrated understanding of mathematical concepts. For instance, the children lead the activity by choosing only spiders from large collection and demonstrated their knowledge of mathematical concept of classification. During learning process I let the children figure out what they were thinking to do with those materials, then spontaneously one of them said let count how many small spiders we have on the carpet. The other said let us count the biggest one. Then I said great job! I like the way you are taking initiative to count. The children were encouraged to count, then add more and recount. After a couple of time I asked them if three spiders hide behind a rock, and one walks away, how many are left? They laughed, and said two. Meanwhile the activity children were interesting in compared size of spiders and sorted large or small. Also they were invited to identify numbers and placed on cards to match actual number. Suddenly, one of the children subdivided a set of 9 spiders into three equal sets when they were told to share these items among three toy spiders and placed in actual card number, and I asked her how many spiders are in a card number she said three, then other child came over and looked at me and said “how many

hours left before lunch time? I said two hours exactly then I took her close to the watch pointed my finger to the numbers and explained how long it will take clockwise to get to the lunch time.

By providing a variety of materials and arranging an environment that is rich in materials and choices the children were interesting, participating, and leading the activity. However, the experience was developmentally appropriate practice for the children. As a result, the children were setting; manipulating materials were typically well organized to let them lead this experience.

This picture shows how collaboration was part of this experience because the children were sharing ideas and enrich time together. The children were checked by matching up the members of each set in one-to-one correspondence. Then they said miss nothing left over, another one said is the same. Then Leon said how many left? By this moment I helped him to count when he have done. Then I encouraged them to arrange sets of spiders in order of relative size.

In this picture, Mackenzie and Charlie are counting spiders, and placed on spider`s web.

By sharing these experience, I was able to observe children`s thinking and mind at work. The children get to practice specific mathematical tasks. The most important of all was that children get a life lesson about motivation and learning. I was showing them that we learn about numbers through play and exploration, and that mathematical thinking is part of everyday life. The children learned a lot about math concept which help them to make more sense of their physical and social world. At the same time children lead the activity to the language area by asking me how to say spider in French, so I was able to teach them how to say spider in French which is araignée, and I used this opportunity to teach them how to count numbers in French as well as how to say sizes. Also children were able to identify different colours of spiders. I find that the children can learn about math everywhere they look, inside and outside of play, mathematical literacy is essential for succeeding in a competitive word, and it also support language literacy, reasoning, and communicating. As a teacher I made this experience easy and fun for them, I knew each child learns and develops at their own pace. Some children were catching the skill quickly, while others need repeated practice. So the repetition was important, they were exposed to concepts over and over have a more concrete understanding because they've had time to dig deeper into the skill.

Creative Arts

This picture shows how I placed children`s documentation on the panel. Meanwhile this activity, I created an environment which stimulates creativity by providing enough materials for children to use. I displayed art project at children`s level. The children were interesting in painting spiders with their hands.

The environment was stimulating the creativity for the children to be involved in painting with their hands. I encouraged the children to feel free to touch paint by helping them too.

When they finished to paint I wrote down children`s name on their work and I praised the creativity and methods used during the execution of a task, as opposed only the completed project. Also children were exposed with letters of the world spiders which were placed on the table to allow their imagination to use them to write spider world by using them with paint as well.

This the display of another creative art I did with children based on their interest because this project gave opportunities for investigation in various curriculum areas.

This picture shows how children were interesting painting Styrofoam balls to build later spider in their own imagination, this activity helped children developed fine and gross motors skills.

Here Alyssa was assembling the objects to make the spider, and Aisha was concentred fixing spider legs. The children were experimenting the concrete learning by touching, smelling, seeing, hearing, and feeling what they were doing at the moment together with their peers.

Laura was using glue to stick her spider eye by copying what other children did.

This is how children build spiders from their own imagination and I helped them when they were asking for help. Also preschoolers learn best by doing, so I choose art activity that emphasizes hands on experiences to develop on children social, cognitive, emotion, and physical skills as well. The children were collaborating between them.

This is one of the examples of children creativity.

This is how the children ending with this activity in creative area.

Science and Discovery

This is how I displayed the activity on the panel. During this experience the children were investigating to found a real spider based on their interest. After researching around the school by chance we discover a real spider in his web, and we captured it and kept it in the cup.

This picture shows how the children were observing a real spider crawling into a cup.

The children were interesting in science activities which permitted them to explore on their own without making them conscious of the science method. I`m convinced that these activity was extremely valuable because the children enjoyed more structured activities that explicitly teach by introducing them to observe, predict, and check.

The children were asking question about spiders by observing it closely. Also they got turns to watch spider.

Also the children asked to observe spider out of the cup, so I took this opportunity to give them magnifying then they were able to observe a real spider crawling on the table, and the children were naturally curious to make sense of their experiences and constructing their own understanding of the world. After a couple of time I took the book I brought for them to see. Then I placed the book on the table to respond about the question which was “AS THE SPIDERS HAVE SKELETON?” through the book I was able to show them spider skeleton how it looks like, and I got this opportunity to teach them that spiders are built in a completely different ways, their skeleton are joints and are outside of their bodies, like a portable case. The case is made of curved plates and tubes, and it supports the spider`s body from outside. It known as an exoskeleton.(e. guides Pg. 14). Then children were asking to draw spider skeleton as it was seeing in the book.

Field experience

While this field experience I took small group of children in the neighbourhood to search of spiders, but the children asked to return in school so we went back. Then we restart searching spider in the hall of the school and we found many spiders web without spiders in it. By chance we went close to the window we found a real spider making his web. Then we captured this spider and took it inside of the class for the children to have the opportunity to look at the spider. The children were excited to found a real spider after spent time of looking around for it. Also I look this opportunity to asked open and ended question such as what do you see in the spiders web? The responses were different from children some of them said “I see a bee in this web” and asked me why this bee is there? I said most of spider trap small insects and other spiders in their webs and eat them, that why you can see this dead bee in this web. And I extended the knowledge by explained to them that spiders a few large species of spiders prey on small birds and lizards. One species is vegetarian, feeding on acacia trees. Some baby spiders eat plant nectar. In captivity, spiders have been known to eat egg yolk, bananas, marmalade, milk and sausages. Most spiders live on their own. A few species of spiders build webs together and live in communities. Another child asked me why we cannot found spiders in this web now? I told her that because of the weather, sometimes when it`s getting cold they dead. However, some spiders like to come in with us in our nice warm home because of the winter time. Others will leave their eggs sacs well protected to hatch out the next spring.

This picture shows Isabella pointed her finger to show other a dead bee inside of the spider`s web.

This is when I was showing the children spider`s web up to the window. I explained to them why we couldn`t found spiders there in this moment because of the weather.

After the children finished observing spider in class they decided to take it back where we found it, and I helped Charlie to let it go.

After the children let the spider go, they waved and said “Bye, bye spider”

Documentation Panel

This picture shows how I displayed the documentation panel in the field with variety of the Hundred Language of children.