Guest Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Hi to everyone, i'm new on here so still finding my way round all this site. I'm another very confused childminder, having read through some of topics etc. I'm a bit miffed with exactley how these learning journeys are meant to be, are they just books with endless yellow post-it notes, amongst pictures of children? Can anyone show me some examples of how thes should be set out? Any help would be great as im struggling to get my head round all these like loads of others here. Look forward to hearing from someone soon, thanks.
Cait Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Congratulations on making your first post. There have been lots of threads about this, and some great examples, particularly the one from the southampton website. If you 'search forum posts' see the link on the top right, for learning journeys you should find loads. If you have problems, come back and i'll do some links for you
wellerkaren Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 If you search the forum there are a number of topics on learning journeys I have still not worked out how to make a link. We use the learning journey to store observation for each area of learning and also add photos I hope this helps
wellerkaren Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Sorry I did not welcome you to the forum, and Cait beat me to the post with her reply
Guest Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Hi thankyou so much for your quick replys, hopefully i can finds these things on here and get these learing journeys started over the next couple of days as ive got a few rare days with no children.
Cait Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Well we used the southampton one as our basis and took it from there. If you CTRL A and CTRL C you can copy and paste it into a word document and do your editing as you like it.
aliamch Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Cait, I think you should start a separate thread just for your ICT tips, they've been a real help to me and I don't have to ask my eldest who has a tendency to do it for me or shows me so fast I'm still clueless! Karrie
Cait Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Well I'm happy to be any help I can! I also have a son who can be a bit like that as he's reading Robotic and Cybertronic Engineering at Heriot Watt in Edinburgh. But it's a wonderful feeling when I can show him something he doesn't know!!!
Guest Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 HELLO CASSIE 63 When i workerd as a childminder i made each child a folder and then added seperate sheets with - What i did on my first day at my childminders house. Parents page(parents to fill in at home,all about their childs likes,dislikes,fav foods,sleep times,fav toy etc) 6 sheets with areas of learning(physical dev,creative dev etc) Special events(for if i did a special theme day or a christmas party) Once the files are set up its really easy to use them in your normal childminding day for example,take lots of photos of the children playing /doing art and craft activities,add some of their creations to your their files and yes you do need to do some post it notes but they can be just quick observations while you are watching them play- child A really enjoyed playing with the gloop,he squeezed it through his fingers and attempted to roll it with his fingers.(creative play!!)One day i would only do 1 or 2 observations on each child,the next day i might do 2 or 3 with a couple of photos. Hope i have been of help to you
Guest Posted February 19, 2009 Posted February 19, 2009 Hi and welcome to the forum I think that everybody has a different way of approaching learning journals and you need to find a way that works for you. I was lucky enough to be part of a digital documentation project in my LA which really helped me to develop what I call my Learning Diaries - we created a booklet which has been used to help others document learning which may be helpful (hope the following link works ) http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/783...5E/0/ICTDOC.pdf My advice would be to consider who your documentation is for and how your going to use it. I've always been really interested in Reggio Emilia and love their approach to why we document - that documentation makes learning visible and that by producing high quality documentation for children we are showing how much we value and respect each childs learning journey. It takes a lot of time, yes, and a lot of printer ink but I chose to spend more time on the children's diaries and less time on planning as I think the former is more useful and helps to give you real evidence of how each child is learning and developing. I use a lined book which is filled with daily photo's and spontaneous observations of children at play (some adult led activity obs but the majority is child led play), links to areas of learning and development and EYFS commitments, stars that parents have filled in of their obs from home and reviews/summaries with parent comments. They go home fortnightly and are available for the children to look at at all times. How you set them out is entirely up to you as is how often you add photo's and obs - i know I do too much as one child who's been with me for 18mths has just started book 3, slightly over the top I know It's one area of my work that I'm really proud off - hence the long post, so finally, I would just say that as well as being beautiful evidence of a child's learning it has to be purposeful and I think what makes it purposeful - and what Ofsted like to see - is that observations are used to make an assessment of the learning that has taken place and that next steps have been planned. hope that helps and hasn't confused you more
Recommended Posts