The Childrens Interest in Learning More about Dinosaurs - Lab Report Example

EML302 Assessment Two Please add Number: Please add your number & EML302 – Investigation: Literacy Assignment Title: Interest-based Emergent Literacy Project Value: 60% Due Date: Friday, 31 January 2014 Word Count: 2000 -2500 words maximum, excluding the apendices.This title page/contents table does not count towards this limit. Statement of Authenticity: I declare that the work within this assignment is my own, that it has not been submitted previously and that I acknowledge the ideas of other authors within this paper. Please add your signature Contents Table Context Page Two Overview Page Three Project Pages Four - Six Evaluation Page Seven References Page Eight Appendices Pages Nine - Ten Context The children involved in this project attended pre-school at Long Day Child Care Centre known as “Little treasures” centre. A total of 14 children attended pre-school at the centre. Children involved in literacy project: Steven H. - 4.9 years old. Glenda B. - 4.2 years old Domini L. - 4.3 years old Erik A. - 4.11 years old Kate H. -3.8 years old This is my first project with a small group of children at this centre. To my knowledge the children have never participated in any kind of project at the centre. After I identified children’s interest in dinosaur, I sat with the children and explained to them what exactly a project is and how it is done. I tried to stimulate the children’s interest in learning more about dinosaurs. The project evolved over a period of time and the children became active investigators working alongside with me to explore, research and develop new understanding about why dinosaurs extinct. MIND MAP AND EVOLUTION OF PLAN The project idea came to me when Steven, one of the preschoolers brought a dinosaur booklet which he and his parents bought from a museum. During news time, Steven talked about the big creatures and said that “the dinosaurs became extinct because the sun didn’t make it any warmer”. Evan, one of the other preschoolers said; “no they died because a rock hit Australia, the world and it shook the world and the dinosaurs died”. Other children started to share their thoughts on dinosaurs and the discussion continued from dinosaurs to big oceans. The group demonstrated good ability of turn taking where each child spoke while others listened keenly without interrupting. I offered the children to do a research together to explore what had happened to dinosaurs. It is important for educators to attune to children’s thought process, positively interact to help learning (Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations, Australia,2009). They all agreed to my idea. I asked them what they would like to learn about the dinosaurs. I was surprised by the intensity of the children’s interest in dinosaurs. They wanted to know everything about the “giant lizards” from their diet, to their running and flying ability. The following day the children started to practice to articulate some of the names of their dinosaurs and they drew dinosaurs (appendix).We printed dinosaur names and children pasted them on their pictures. The same week we made some dinosaur bones of varying lengths and baked them in the oven. In the second week I hid the dinosaur bones in the sandpit and I told children that we are going to find the bones with the help of a map after which we measured and sorted them according to size. During the third week we started to print some dinosaur pictures and made our own book (appendix). In the fourth week, the children wrote all facts they had learnt about dinosaurs on a paper and pasted it in our book. In the fifth week of the project we started to write a story about dinosaurs and each child made his/her contribution. To this point, the children are continuing the project. PROJECT DESCRIPTION Identifying the Interest Children are always frank about their like and dislikes and so it was not hard to identify their interest about dinosaurs during group activities, when children brought books, dinosaur toys or booklets about dinosaurs. When Steven brought in the booklet, I saw that the others showed genuine interest on the matter and wanted to know more about them. It is important that discussion involves children talking with each other and listening and responding each other’s comments (Fellows & Oakley, 2010). One aspect that I found they were most interested in was how dinosaurs vanished from the Earth. Some children had prior knowledge about dinosaurs and they wanted to know more about them and it was this talking and responding to each other that helped them build their interest on the subject matter. It fascinated me to see how children conducted their discussions with one another and insisted on their points (appendix). I could see usage of rich vocabulary during these discussions. I selected a smaller group of children who showed more interest for further investigation about how dinosaurs lived and vanished. I also made a note for parents about our project and asked them to help their wards learn or understand the topic at home as well. Literacy opportunities and incorporation in project Children knew that dinosaurs were extinct. Steven said from the beginning, “I know the dinosaurs extinct”. But Glenda said: “no they didn’t extinct, they just died”. Then I asked them if they know the difference between the words “extinct” and “died”. I explained the difference between the two words and just after that Glenda said;”I know my pop died and they put him in a hole, and when dinosaurs died they put them in a hole, and if we dig we can find dinosaur bones”. The children were thinking and reasoning. Their use of language was extended as they indulged in discussions. The project was started with book reading where I read a book that had been borrowed from a local library. Before I read the book I talked to the children about the text, identifying and using the terms such as “letters”, “words”, “full stops”, reading from top to bottom and left to right, referring to “print” and “pictures”, referring to the title on the book, the author and the illustrator. After giving some explanation about unfamiliar words I read the book. Fellows and Oakley (2012) emphasize the importance of reading aloud to children because it provides a meaningful context for them to hear words, which is central to their vocabulary enrichment, and to their ability to learn new words and use them in their oral language. When I finished the book, Steven said: “I know the word fossil, it means skeleton”. The following day I printed out some fossil pictures and showed them to children. Kate said: “Is that a fossil?” (Kate pronounced it FOSILE) I corrected her by telling her how to say the word right. Glenda said that one day she saw a fossil of a fish on the beach”. The same day at craft time I asked the children to draw a dinosaur .Glenda said: but I don’t know how to draw dinosaurs”.I displayed a picture dinosaur book on the table and children started to draw. When they finished Erik said “I drew a lot of spikes on my dinosaur’s back”. I told him that the spikes are called “pointed plates” and that the plates helped dinosaurs to fight against their enemies. Glenda wanted to know what the word enemy meant. Kate said: “they are the baddies”. So, we typed the word and read the definition of “enemy” together. Fellows and Oakley (Fellows & Oakley ,2012) emphasize the importance of teacher’s role in guiding children by asking questions, providing demonstration and making suggestions. Fellows and Oakley (2012) say that teachers should input new vocabulary and assist children to express their growing understanding I was keeping a list of new words that the children learnt. To help the children build on their newly developing spoken language skills and phonetic awareness I asked them to play with the word “enemy” and give me words that sounded similar. They gave me “enemy-baddy-canemy-lenemy” to which I explained that “enemy” was the only word that made sense. An essential early year foundational skill is the ability to demonstrate phonetic awareness by producing rhyming words. As we continued our project we made dinosaur bones using the salt-dough recipe which we looked up in an arts and crafts book. I provided children with measuring cups and spoons to help them measure the flour and salt. Erik said: “but if we are going to measure we need a measuring tape, but we need a scale to weigh the ingredients, my mum said so”. Finding it hard to explain the difference at that moment I said I would explain it later on. I kept the flour and the salt in a container and children had to identify each just by feeling them before they measured them. Kate put her fingers in salt container and said “I think this feels like tiny rocks, I don’t think this is a flour because flour is very smooth”. Erik said: “be sensible, the salt can be smooth as well as a bit bumpy”. So I asked children to give me words that describer the flour. We ended up with the following list: smooth, soft, floury, dusty, messy, white, and soft. I told children that we could add a new word like the adjective fine to describe the flour texture. To describe the salt children made the following list: rocky, bumby, sandy, spiky. And then Steven said: we have another list of rhyming words and they all are “sensy” words. I explained to him that we should rather say that all the words make sense. Once we had the dinosaurs’ bones ready we played a little game of using a map to find the bones. After the children had dug out all the bones from the sand pit I put them on a tray and asked the children to sort them according to their sizes. Steven asked me: “we put the littlest first then middle and then the biggest” and I said “Correct,Steven”. When they finished (appendix) sorting the bones I told them how to describe the subjects from the smallest to the biggest. Multiliteracy through play and props supports learning among toddlers and preschoolers ( Fleer,2013) Then we looked at the book “Big ideas for little people” (Priddy Books, one of the books from our library) where we found different sized dinosaurs and children practiced their knowledge about adjectives. The children were also interested in knowing about the dinosaur’s diet. I asked the children to type the word DINOSAUR on the computer and as I spelt it our Erick and Kate found all the letters and typed it. From the search we selected the following sentence: Some dinosaurs were carnivores (meat-eaters) but most were herbivores (plant-eaters). The following day Kate told us: “My mum said that some animals that live in forest are carnivores, because they eat a lot of meat”. I could see that families were getting involved. Family participation is extremely crucial as common interest of both educators and educators is to help the child learn and grow (Bickley, 2008). How dinosaurs went extinct was the important question. The children had varied explanations so I felt it would be better to plan an experiment and help them test the theory, explain the result and derive conclusions. So we executed an experiment where we placed fresh plants on a tray and left in the freezer for four days. On the fifth day we observed the plants and the result amazed the children. The children keenly observed the plants under a magnifying glass, touched it tried to understand what changes had occurred. Glenda said: “because it is super-duper cold in the fridge, the plants are icy”. Steven looked at the plants and said: “If we put real dinosaurs in the fridge they will die. Even if we put people in the fridge they will die, but they can open the door and come out”. I downloaded a song about dinosaur for the children who simply loved it and wanted to learn more songs. (appendix). Arthur, McArdle & Papic (2010) are of the opinion that “that arts (music, dance, drama, visual arts and media) provide powerful ways to communicate. To help the children learn dinosaur names I offered to help them through games. This week we started to work on our book. I made children’s learning visible to the parents, by displaying children’s pictures, art and craft done by children. Observations were documented in the daily reflective journal and children’s portfolios. EYFL practice that Underpinned my Experience This project can be linked to the Early Years Learning Framework through a number of outcomes that I observed among the learners while applied several pedagogical practices like-holistic, child responsivess, learning through play and games and intentional teaching. I tried to create a learning environment where each child could learn, express and extend his/her creativity and understanding. I let the children have their own voice and gain an identity to demonstrate outcome1. The children were keen about sharing information and helped each other which showed the fulfillment of Outcome 2. I inculcated intentional teaching and aroused their interest, helped them become creative in their thoughts and actions such that a deep bond had formed between me and the group. Outcome 4 was demonstrated well by group where they learnt everything really well and were well involved in the process. It was good to see that this gave them confidence in themselves. Towards the end I had obtained outcome 5 from the group where each participant demonstrated great communication skills with each other and knowing how to respond and had became keen listeners as well .I also noticed that the group had develop good literacy, numerical and ICT skill by using the computer and understanding measurements as well. My action and Learning facilitation As a small group children collaborated, conversed and worked together. I provided opportunities for children to think about, to reflect on, to discuss and predict. I read aloud to children so they could gain more knowledge about dinosaurs and why they became extinct. Rich experiences such as this would enable them to learn reading and writing with greater ease I introduced them to new words before reading the book and gave some basic explanation about the meanings. I asked them open ended questions and listened to their answers and corrected them if they were wrong. The 5 predictors that predict the achievement of children in reading and writing skills include-oral language, phonemic awareness, alphabet awareness, concepts about print and writing with inventive spelling and at least four of these had been shown by the children I worked with thereby predicting that the group would face lesser difficulties in reading and writing (The Center,2013). EVALUATION Even though the project is still making head-way so far I can see good progress among the learners. The young inquisitive minds are so open to new things and imbibe information easily. Therefore through games and activities when they encountered new words or information they showed interest to learn and understand them. I could see them develop spoken skills easily when they were creatively represented. They had learnt to use the computer and obtained exposure to numerical skills as well. REFERENCES Australia. Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations. Council of Australian Governments (2009). Belonging, being & becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia. Canberra, A.C.T: Dept. of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for the Council of Australian Governments. Fleer, M. (2013). Play in the Early Years. Port Melbourne, A: Cambridge University Press. Arthur, L., McArdle, F., &Papic, M. (2010). Stars are made of glass: Children as capable and creativecommunicators. Research in Practice Series, 18(2). Canberra: Early Childhood Australia. Bickley, M. (2008). Building a partnership with your child care service - A factsheet for families. National Childcare Accreditation Council. Retrieved from http://va.gapitc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/partnerships-1.pdf  Fellowes, J. & Oakley, G. (2010). Language, literacy and early childhood education. Melbourne: Oxford University Press The Center (2013, January 30). 5 Predictors of Early Literacy [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqImgAd3vyg Read More