Planning From Them-how Do You Organise It?

[Guest]

Sorry if this has been asked and answered but my head is still all over the place about this idea of planning from the children's ideas. Pretty please could you share how this works or how you plan to do this. Is it just that say you hear a boy playing and talking about dinosaurs would you do that the next week???

Q's that confuse me is..

 

If its just one childs interest do all the children have to learn about it the next week?

How long do you do it for?? One, two weeks etc and are all your areas then about that theme?

Do you write them down as maybe one week lots of children may say things..

 

and lastly (sorry )

 

What if you dont hear anything-do i just make a topic up?? I have images of me stalking kids in my class to listen to what they are saying to each other if i dont have any links of interest

 

Sorry its a long one-any replies appreciated

[Guest]

i usually plan a rough topic to go back into class with so will start this time with all about me -yawn i know! but then will switch pretty quickly to what the children fancy. once one person has mentioned something like dinosaurs if you bring this up again in a whole group situation the whole class usually then suggests and gets into it too! if they didn't i would prob plan an activity or 2 just to see if it takes their fancy.

 

However... quite often my little ones don't suggest anything! so i would plan a vague outline of a topic -castles or something that would get their interests (always good one girls love princesses and boys love knights! its stereotypical i know but they generally fall that way!)

 

and i generally make most of my areas fit the topic, however i now sometimes end with a couple of themes running!

 

sorry if i have rambled on hope it makes sense.

[Susan]

I think there are several ways of approaching this.

 

You do need at all times to have in mind the skills that you are wishing to foster and develop and then you can deliver these in a context, which could one that you have decided upon and then you can adapt the content to reflect the interest that the children show, within that.

 

OR you can observe them in play and take something that seems to an interest and develop that as your context for skill delivery.

 

OR you can ask them.

 

OR you can take a topic and ask the children what they already know and what more they would like to know.

 

 

Have fun.

[Guest]

i usually plan a rough topic to go back into class with so will start this time with all about me -yawn i know! but then will switch pretty quickly to what the children fancy. once one person has mentioned something like dinosaurs if you bring this up again in a whole group situation the whole class usually then suggests and gets into it too! if they didn't i would prob plan an activity or 2 just to see if it takes their fancy.

 

However... quite often my little ones don't suggest anything! so i would plan a vague outline of a topic -castles or something that would get their interests (always good one girls love princesses and boys love knights! its stereotypical i know but they generally fall that way!)

 

and i generally make most of my areas fit the topic, however i now sometimes end with a couple of themes running!

 

sorry if i have rambled on hope it makes sense.

 

 

Thank you Kab for taking time to reply (and to my sand question!) You havent rambled at all that makes much more sense now. Do you just decide how many days/weeks it runs for and does it make your planning harder?

[Guest]

i tend to plan a bunch of activities and just take my plan over as long as it takes. my short term plans usually last about 2 weeks.

i have in mind which statements i want to cover and will often tweak my activities to suit these.

i dont think its harder to plan but you have to be organised with annotating, evidence and observing. if i dont write things such as ideas or activities that are covered but not planned immediately i forget. so sometimes my plans look a bit empty but lots has been covered!

also i now dont have a particular time to plan it often doesnt fall in line with my ppa so its sometimes after school or a weekend. this makes it more difficult if you plan in a group- i tend just to ask my ta for any ideas and then i go write up.

[Cait]

Mine is a bit more fluid. Take today for instance, I was watching a boy roll cars down the garage ramp, and I sat with him for a while taking turns to put the cars down. Then I got a chalkboard and rested it against the garage roof to make a different ramp which we played with for a while, and other children joined in so it got a bit crowded. So boy A (instigator) and I went to find something else we could make a ramp with and we explored different slopes and angles etc looking at speeds. We got some good vocabulary out of it and most of the children joined in too. Now, if tomorrow he's interested in it again I'll offer different ideas about what we can roll down ramps and find out what rolls, and what doesn't - but I'll not forward plan for this in case something else crops up tomorrow. I'm just retrospectively noting down my observations from today.

[Guest]

do you plan lit and numeracy activities ahead of time? in what way do you check all your statements have been covered? and do you then plan activities to cover those that have not been touched upon?

i just know that some statements would never be covered if i didnt plan in activities for them?

 

also just wondering what age you have?

 

[Susan]

Cait is in pre-school so its a little different to being school based.

[Cait]

Yes, sorry. I do have 'catch up' activities that I instigate if I see that a something isn't being covered - I may introduce a different 'tack' to an extension - possibly by making the activity focus in a different direction to pick up on these.

[Guest]

oh ok thanks.