April 2011
Pre school children visit the Sydney Aquarium without leaving the Valley!
How did we do this?
No quantum physics involved, just lots of imagination! Last week one of the children was remembering a much enjoyed family excursion, and kindly invited everyone at pre school to share in re living the day.
We climbed aboard the pre school bus and were driven all the way to Sydney. On the way we talked about all the things we might see. The game extended into craft time.
We created lots of paper fish, starfish, turtles, dolphins and some sharks too of course!
We glued them to a huge sheet of blue paper – that became our aquarium. After lunch we pinned our “Aquarium” to the fence, hopped on the bus for the final stage of the journey, then “arrived” in Sydney, collected our tickets and went to admire all the sea creatures.
Pretend play, also known as dramatic play is very important to children.
It involves taking on a role and using imitative behaviour. Children are developing their social, emotional, cognitive (thinking skills) and physical abilities while taking part in pretend play.
Children discover how it might feel to be someone or something else when exploring a character through play. They select information from their previous life experiences and adapt them to their games. Children learn as they observe others play, and as they grow, begin to co operate with each other. Children can explore worries or fears in a safe environment where they are in control (eg going to the doctor, sleep overs, swimming lessons….) or re live and share exciting events such as our trip to the aquarium!
The use of toys and dress ups in the games add to the imaginative process as well as developing physical skills such as dressing.
Imaginative play develops in three stages:
Stage 1: Imitative role play. This is where very young children try to act, talk and dress like people they know. They use objects as props, for example, a toy phone for talking, or a doll to be the baby. They act out events from their life experience.
Stage 2: Make Believe Play. Children are less dependant on props for their imaginative play. A block could become a telephone and a piece of string could be a fire hose. The action moves beyond their actual life experiences as children learn to use their imaginations to invent situations. At this stage children often use this type of play to help them understand feelings or deal with worries.
Stage 3: Socio Dramatic Play. This type of play emerges as children begin to seek out the company of others (sometimes at around 3-4 years of age) This type of play includes areas of the other stages of play, but is much more complex because it involves verbal interaction, co operation and planning between two or more children. The imagination has no limits. Where will we be off to next?
A bit of politics to end pre school news this month. There is a campaign to bring to the public attention that teachers in many pre schools are paid up to 20% less than teachers employed in schools. This is despite the fact that most teachers employed in both settings do the same university courses and have the same qualifications.
Repercussions for Pre schools, Long Day Care centers and other early childhood services include:
· Some early childhood teachers and directors are leaving their much loved positions due to financial issues.
· Talented graduates are not entering the early childhood field upon graduating, but seeking the higher financial rewards of primary teaching even though early childhood is their main interest. (They are trained to teach in both settings, but there is up to $14,000 difference in salary)
The Teachers are Teachers campaign is urging the state government to better fund Early Childhood services so that teachers who choose to specialize in this area can be paid the same wages as those who choose to teach older children.