Guest Posted November 11, 2008 Posted November 11, 2008 I would like to set up some quality parent and toddler groups at the children's centres to support parents' understanding of child development, importance of play, healthy choices in food and activities and behaviour management strategies. All these need to 'happen' though modelling of expected behaviour and giving parents the opportunity to learn from the group leader and from each other. Does anyone have good ideas or lesson plan structures for these parent and child session? thanks
Guest Wolfie Posted November 11, 2008 Posted November 11, 2008 Hi Leo! I have just started work in a Centre where the Stay and Play sessions have been up and running for a while and are extremely successful and well attended. The two members of staff running them take a different area of play each week and plan a variety of activities and experiences to suit all ages and stages of development. For example, one week the theme was glueing and sticking and they provided the following: - an area where young babies could lie/sit and explore a range of large fabrics and different textures, e.g. soft, hard, shiny, crinkly, etc. - all the sorts of hings you might provide for collage activities for older children - the tuff spot was filled with non-fungicidal wall-paper paste (with glitter in) - babies could be stripped off and sat in it, older toddlers and children could also explore at leisure! - a non-sticky sticking activity!....some lengths of sticky back plastic attached to the wall and a large selction of bits and pieces for children to stick to it. Ideal for those that don't like getting messy but enjoy the "sticking" experience! -"conventional" glueing and sticking activity with glue spreaders, scissors and wide selection of collage materials. There were probably a couple more activities that I haven't remembered! As the babies and children access the activities, the staff work alongside them and also engage the parents in conversation about the learning and development opportunities afforded by the activities. They have copies of the Development Matters statements, laminated, encouraging discussion about which ones that they can observe the children are achieving as they play. And of course the emphasis is very much on the learning coming from the process rather than the end product! Does that help?
Guest Posted November 11, 2008 Posted November 11, 2008 Sounds a bit like you want to do something more along the lines of family learning. http://www.familylearning.org.uk/
Guest Posted December 2, 2008 Posted December 2, 2008 Wolfie - I love the sticking ideas! Any more fantastic ideas for us to 'borrow!!!'
Guest Posted February 12, 2009 Posted February 12, 2009 We have a group called 'camera club'. there is a worker and our advisory teacher who run the group. parents take photos and observe their children and with support from the workers, they are gaining info about their children's learning. gaining insight why children are doing what they doing. they then put photos in a portfolio (much like a learning journal). it is successful model.
Guest Wolfie Posted February 12, 2009 Posted February 12, 2009 That sounds a great idea - we're thinking of developing something similar and that's given me a good idea for a name..thanks!
Guest Posted February 16, 2009 Posted February 16, 2009 Hiya everyone, long time since I have been on here. We carry out observations with parents based on Athey's Schemas and Laevers Levels of Invovement and Wellbeing. We video children and go through these with parents. It is based on Penn Green's Parents in Children's Learning and parents really get on board with this - i think its a fantastic way of chatting to parents about their children's patterns of behaviour. It is really hard to offer quality when often parents only turn up for say between 2-4 hours per week - its very difficult to manage with staff and time but I think it invaluable but sometimes people don't always seem to see it as important.... the other thing I do is take lots of photos and use speech bubbles to say what the child is learning and display these around the room - this has quite a big impact - visual and short and sweet which often generates conversation - but this all takes time - of which I know we all have precious little of. I also laminated sheets for the table on the benefits of children painting, playing with the playdough, block play etc - parents do pick these up and look at them and then start asking questions - once these are in place then they can be reused and changed. It's hard but actually at the end of the day there is only so much time we can give and that never seems enough Nikki
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