This booklet has been compiled to provide guidelines on provision and progression in play. Teachers can use this resource as a starting point for their planning. Also, it gives you lots of ideas for activities, resources and materiales you can use in your class.
I hope you find it as useful as I did.
“Your interactions with children affect how they feel about themselves and how they learn.”
I really liked this article about the exchanges that take place in the classroom, and how to get the most of teacher-student interactions.
Here’s a great article to help us understand how children can learn a new language through play.
Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you know about my facebook page where I share interesting articles, videos and information about teaching English, bilingualism, and education and childhood in general, in my 3 languages: English, Spanish and Lithuanian (hence the name “Trilingual treasures”).
Check it out! Please, LIKE and SHARE if you are into it! 
Here’s an article by Opal Dunn, educational consultant and author, that I find very interesting.
“Introduction
Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults. They have the ability to imitate pronunciation and work out the rules for themselves. Any idea that learning to talk in English is difficult does not occur to them unless it’s suggested by adults, who themselves probably learned English academically at a later age through grammar-based text books.
Read the notes below about young children learning English as another language. You can also download these notes as a booklet. Right-click on the link below to download the booklet to your computer. You may print this booklet.
The advantages of beginning early
Stages in picking up English
Spoken language comes naturally before reading and writing.
Silent period
When babies learn their home language, there is a ‘silent period’, when they look and listen and communicate through facial expression or gestures before they begin to speak. When young children learn English, there may be a similar ‘silent period’ when communication and understanding may take place before they actually speak any English words.
During this time parents should not force children to take part in spoken dialogue by making them repeat words. Spoken dialogues should be one-sided, the adult’s talk providing useful opportunities for the child to pick up language. Where the adult uses parentese (an adjusted form of speech) to facilitate learning, the child may use many of the same strategies they used in learning their home language.
Several months ago I posted THIS ENTRY about two sensory activities I carried out in the classroom with my 3-year-olds. Now I found this article that sums up nicely the importance that sensory play has for today’s kids.
“If you frequent kids activity blogs, you know that “sensory play” has been a hot topic for quite awhile now. There are even entire websites devoted to sensory play for your tots, and while they are super fun to read and full of creative (and sometimes elaborate) ideas, you may find yourself asking, “Is all this REALLY necessary for my child’s development?”
To answer this question, let’s first look at what we know about sensory play.
Sensory play is simply play that encourages children to use one or more of the senses. Often called “messy play,” sensory play experiences focus on stimulating children’s senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, balance, and movement.
The first three points on the list above are pretty self-explanatory. In a nutshell, sensory experiences are like food for the brain…they provide valuable input that allows the brain to build new pathways that in turn support growth in crucial areas of development.
The fourth point, however, is what sheds some light on the answer to our original question, “Is all this REALLY necessary?” You may be thinking, “My parents didn’t do sensory play with me, and I turned out ok!” The fact is, our little ones spend much less time outdoors than their parents and certainly grandparents did as children. Since the outdoors is naturally full of sensory play opportunities, this has definitely had a part in the decline of sensory play. Secondly, although children can definitely fulfill their need for sensory play indoors when given periods of unstructured playtime with stimulating materials, the truth is that indoor time is often monopolized by television, battery operated toys, or toddler/preschool programs that focus on drilling academics rather than fostering important play skills. This has resulted in a generation of children who may not even know how to play when given the opportunity…how sad is that?
So in short, the answer to your question is yes, sensory play is crucial for your child’s development. And since children today are no longer given ample opportunities for naturally occurring sensory play, it is up to us as parents to be sure their needs are met.”
I’ve just read this article about the future of education and several new tendencies that are taking place, and I found it really interesting.
Here are some excerpts:
“Around the globe, economies are shifting away from machine-focused industries and toward human-powered creative industries. Many adults are caught in the middle of this awkward shift, educated for the industrial age but trying to make a living in the information age. In an uncertain moment, they can be nervous about letting young people find their own way forward.”
“John Abbott, director of the 21st Century Learning Initiative, has thought a lot about these issues and surmises that society must decide what it wants to be: interconnected individuals responsible to a community or a world filled with “consumers,” dependent on products, services and authority figures. Shifting to an education model that produces people who thrive on interconnectivity will take a dramatic revisioning of society. But that type of shift might be just what is required to ensure that the education children receive in the future meets that dramatically different end goal.”
To read the full article. click on the image below:
