Routine And Advice

[Guest]

Hi all

Superv!isor is concerned that with all this free play that the children arent learning.

 

We have self registration while the children are coming in. Then we have sit down reg with signing good morning, answering name and then sometimes a little activity for 5 mins. (3- 4yr olds only). The under 2yrs old are in another room doing total free play. We have various activities out for children to then choose but the older boys do not get focussed on anything and tend to run around the room. For this reason our PVI teacher (advisor) told us to open outside too. Worked well as boys went straight outside. But supervisor still thinks this does not work! Outside is good but gazebo gets very slippy when wet or damp as does the climbing frame and slide so cant be used. The grass is like a mud bath and it is ruining the grass. So bikes, bats and balls, hoops, cars etc.

 

After the first 1 hour the children are all together in the 2 rooms, outside too and its free play and the snack bar opens. Then 1 and half hours later its tidy up time, followed by story singing and home. With all this free choice supervisor says that the children do not sit and learn anything.

 

Is anyone else concerned about this? I personally feel that there is too much pressure on chilldren and staff for this! Surely they are learning all the time? She says socially and emotionally they are ok but not when it comes to things like letters and sounds, maths etc. Her idea is that we should be getting the children to sit down at a particualr activity ie 8 children with 1 staff doing a letter activity or maths activity for 15 mins each day. Does anyone else do this?

 

Any advice that i may be able to offer her?

[Susan]

You must offer the children opportunities to learn things that they can learn for themselves so that can then practise and consolidate these skills in CI time so yes that could mean you need more structure.

[redjayne]

Agree with Susan - its Child Initiated play not free play - the idea is that the adults are there to get involved in the play and help to resource the childrens ideas - and occasionally guide the more 'wayward' into some focussed play( by suggesting not directing). We have one or two adult led activities available during CI as some children seem to like this semi-structure but msot of the areas are CI and self selected. As for the garden it is harder when it's wet and muddy but it does need to be available- maybe look at the resources and developing activties out there to encourage PSRN and CLL as well as physical stuff?

[Guest]

yep totally agree. We also think that giving children - esp 3 & 4 year olds the chance to learn to sit and listen when asked is a massive advantage when they go to school!

 

We tend to have have circle time, free play for an hour, then tidy up, snack, free play again then a focused activity in small key group - lasts about 20 mins, then music, story time and home! - works well for us.

x

[trekker]

Hi all

Superv!isor is concerned that with all this free play that the children arent learning....

 

...Is anyone else concerned about this? I personally feel that there is too much pressure on chilldren and staff for this! Surely they are learning all the time? She says socially and emotionally they are ok but not when it comes to things like letters and sounds, maths etc. Her idea is that we should be getting the children to sit down at a particualr activity ie 8 children with 1 staff doing a letter activity or maths activity for 15 mins each day. Does anyone else do this?

 

Hi there

 

I had similar concerns voiced by other staff in my setting last term...we have 2.5 hours of free play in a 3 hour session and I feel that children will learn just as much if not more from this flexibility - as long as the staff are supporting them and do not feel they can relax during free play...this is the challenge - its not the fault of the free play approach - its simply because staff misunderstand the adult role.

Adults actually have to work harder to ensure they support all children in all areas and can get evidence of the childrens achievements and struggles through natural opportunities rather than 'testing' them with letter / number activites.

We have one 'adult led activity' at the end of each session (circle time) that is sometimes used to eplore these aspects but the majority of our 'teaching' occurs as we join in with and play alongside children.

Thats the ideal...it doesnt always happen of course - we are still working on it but thats how I prefer to work and I will persevere.

 

I agree with redjayne - brainstorm ways of using the activites and resources to support the areas your supervisor feels is lacking....e.g. numbers on bikes, a letter hunt, hopscotch, a post office / shop role play area..etc

Table based activites just dont have the same appeal!

 

BTW We have free flow - happily we have astro turf instead of grass though so mud not too much of an issue - phew! Maybe an option to think of...

[Guest]

Your dilemma sounds very much like mine marley! I'm worried that there isn't enough structure in our sessions too. I'm happy with all the child-initiated play we have and no-one has said outright that it isn't working, but little hints have made me feel pressured to introduce more adult-led activities.

 

I had similar concerns voiced by other staff in my setting last term...we have 2.5 hours of free play in a 3 hour session and I feel that children will learn just as much if not more from this flexibility - as long as the staff are supporting them and do not feel they can relax during free play...this is the challenge - its not the fault of the free play approach - its simply because staff misunderstand the adult role.

Adults actually have to work harder to ensure they support all children in all areas and can get evidence of the childrens achievements and struggles through natural opportunities rather than 'testing' them with letter / number activites.

It's reassuring to know that this is how you run your sessions trekker. I totally agree with you about the adult role. One of my TAs tends to observe children's play rather than get involved and take their learning forward, and I have to admit that sometimes I struggle to know how to extend children's learning as much as I'd like.

 

Also agree with you about the 'testing'! A supply teacher regularly covers my class for one day per week during my non-contact time. Last week she left me a list of letters that she'd sat down with and shown each child, along with a list of which letters were recognised by which children. That's not what nursery's about, surely?

[Guest]

Thanks for that guys!

I think it was pressure from an outsider (sorry cant remember who it was!) that said to supervisor that they had more structure which has got her worried. The majority of staff are very good at playing alongside the children and trying to extend their learning. Some just go around tidying up after them Its trying to find the balance. Apparently they tried a 3 groups of 8 children doing a specific activity for 15 mins. This fitted into our focus activity also. Think it went ok. It will be me trying it tomorrow so will let you know.

[thumperrabbit]

We also struggled with this at the start of last year and we introduced an adult led time just for the 3-4 year olds.

Two year olds are free play whilst our adult led group are done in a separate room - we like it, the parents like it and the children who do it, love it

 

Also struggling with out side landlord has now said we aren't allowed on the grass as too muddy and the patio area only fits 4 trikes comfortably, so we are rotating what can go out, but it's so un-inspiring

[suebear]

Hi, we do the same as thumper rabbit. We're open for 2 1/2 hrs every morning. This is free flow throughout, including snack, apart from at 11:00am I take the older 3 yr olds off for 15mins to do a group game/activity and at 11:30 am where the whole nursery sit down for a song and story to finish the session.

 

We (staff and children) go outside armed with tea towels to dry equipment. On muddy days try putting cardboard boxes down flat on the ground and playing islands or riding the tractors along the path of the boxes. Might save the grass a bit, maybe.

[laura]

We have a very high number of boy this year so what what worked last year, lots of free play being supported by adults, has not worked as well, so we have been taking small groups to do short but sweet activities with them, and it's working really well. These can be activities based around our child led topics, games, letter and sounds etc.

[Guest]

no, no, no more structure children can learn during child intiated, you as a skilful practitioner need to know when to step in and when to hold back. Enable your environment learning happens all the time.

 

the best learning comes from when the child is free to choose

Edited November 23, 2010 by Suer

[lynned55]

With all this free choice supervisor says that the children do not sit and learn anything.

 

Does your supervisor think that children only learn if they are sitting? I completely agree with Suer, they are able to learn just as much if not more from CI play. I think as trekker has already mentioned the problem with free flow play isn't the free flow itself it's adults misunderstanding what it actually entails and that isn't children running around whilst the adults observe ,or not,(not that I am suggesting anyone here is doing that)

[Guest]

The other day we had a huge pile of cardboard boxes. We challenged the children to build the tallest tower they could.

 

Whilst doing this, we did the whole 'tallest tower' who can hear the 't' sound thing. We then counted how many bricks we could put in our towers, talked about the different shapes and colours we saw, and eventually decided to get a small stepladder so we could practise climbing, taking turns and eventually making our tall tower totter and topple.

 

You get the idea - maths, literacy, creativity, thinking skills. Not bad and pretty much totally child initiated. It sounds like you understand this anyway, but your supervisor is nervous about the approach.

[Lyanne]

We also struggled with this at the start of last year and we introduced an adult led time just for the 3-4 year olds.

Two year olds are free play whilst our adult led group are done in a separate room - we like it, the parents like it and the children who do it, love it

 

Also struggling with out side landlord has now said we aren't allowed on the grass as too muddy and the patio area only fits 4 trikes comfortably, so we are rotating what can go out, but it's so un-inspiring

 

We've a paved area the same size as our old garden and grass that was new in the summer and is now too slippery to go on - I've nearly gone over while doing checks. the joys of being on a flood plain...

 

So for now we've had to settle with using fencing to seperate the paved and grass area so we can get out. We've enough space for 5 bikes (more really, but we've taken someone on here's idea in a risk assesment for outside play and restricted it to 5 - thank you but I can't remember who it was!), the small sandpit that 6 children can stand round, large low level easel & chalks, one of our picnic tables for construction or small world play.

 

It's not ideal at all, but it will have to do till we can fundraise for something for the grass... LEA would not let us have astroturf as they wanted us to have natural materials - I'm not saying they're wrong about natual resources but to my mind astrofurf we went on all year round would have been better than grass we look at.