Physical activities
Whilst looking at the physical activities for children at my chosen age group I can see that it is important for children to keep stimulated. Examples of physical activities could be to walk, skip, cycle, kick, throw, hit balls, water activities, dancing and exercise.
Exercise - For physical needs I am going to carry out some exercise for my activity. This will be with the whole group as all the children will be able to participate and as a group will enjoy it more. There are many benefits of exercise. The most obvious are that it helps children to develop social skills such as sharing and taking turns. It helps children to develop physical skills such as running, eye-hand coordination and ball skills. It also helps children to get a sense of belonging as they do things with other children, either in casual or organised activities and sports.
Exercise is also a good stress reliever. If a child is having difficulty sleeping, concentrating or with friendships, exercise can relieve some of the stress. Increasing overweight and obesity is happening world wide. People who are overweight or obese are more likely to have health problems. Helping young children to develop good eating patterns and enjoyment from sport and exercise may help them avoid later health problems.
What prevents physical activity? There are many activities that can take time away from exercise. Some of these are valued activities such as playing calm games with friends, reading, making music, doing homework, but some are activities that may need to be limited. Examples of Some activities that can take over children's time could be television, videos, or computer games
Intellectual activities
When looking at the intellectual activities I can see that these activities can improve a child’s complexity and thinking in different ways. As for young children it means learning to remember new things. Intellectual activities can be used to build children’s vocabulary and language skills. Examples of intellectual activities for children could be crosswords, puzzles, jigsaws, reading books and creative writing.
Creative writing - For intellectual needs I am going to carry out some creative writing, with a small group of children about 6-7, I have chosen this amount of children as they will be able to concentrate and it willl be easy for me to help them when and if help is required. When looking at creative writing or activities involving handwriting or spelling this can support language skills and self-expression its not just about being able to understand sentences but using creativity and imagination it’s about giving words meanings. Some of benefits of language skills could be to develop confidence, enable problem solving, and enable affective communication.
Emotional activities
When looking at activities for emotional need I can see that these activities important as they there to make the children feel good about themselves. Examples of emotional activities for children could be art and crafts work, creative writing, dancing, drama, water and sand playing and making music.
There are many benefits that children at my chosen age group can gain from these activities such as it can boost their self esteem and confidence, they release dorphins (positive feelings), stress and tension and promote relaxation.
Social activities
When looking at social activities for my chosen age group I can see that these are important as again they help develop self esteem, it also helps with affective communication, it involves learning the norms and values in society. It comes in two forms; primary socialisation and secondary socialisation.
Primary socialization is the process whereby people learn the attitudes, values, and actions appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture. For example if a child sees her father expressing a prejudice comment then she may repeat this thinking it is appropriate to do so. Whereas secondary socialization refers to process of learning what is appropriate behavior as a member of a smaller group within the larger society. It is usually associated with teenagers and adults, and involves smaller changes than those occurring in primary socialization. For example entering a new environment or society such as a school etc.
Example of social activities could involve group singing, drama activities, trips and outings to various parks and maybe just play around the playground.
Drama – for social needs I am going to carry out a drama activity. This will involve the children getting g into small groups of 5’s. they will then choose a character from their chosen play and act upon it. This activity can help children to develop these skills. It is important for children to express their emotions and to learn how to deal with them in safe environment. Along with this all these activities are calming and relaxing, I feel that this is important for children’s development because in the future they will have the confidence to talk about their feelings to people they trust and be able to express their emotions when needed.
Why I rejected some of the activities
Out of the 4 examples above I have chosen to carry out an emotional activity. This will be creating a collage using colourful materials and resources. The reason why I have chosen to do this activity is that it will be a great way for the children to socialise and it will also help develop their fine motor skills.
I decided not to carry out the ‘exercise’ activity for physical needs because although it is very important for the children to keep stimulated I thought the children would enjoy doing a much more creative activity. Also the nursery did not have enough ‘space’ for the children to carry out such an activity as it was packed with a variety of other games suitable for that age.
I chose not to do the intellectual activity as I thought that the children would much rather prefer doing something that involved more creativeness. The activity that I have decided to carry out will help develop fine motor skills just as much as the creative writing activity might have done.
Drama was also a very nice way for the children to socialise however there was not enough space to do the activity and also the children seemed to prefer activities which involved the use of colour.
I used the ‘Stepping Stones’ through out the activity. These show the knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes that children need to learn during the foundation stage in order to achieve the early learning goals.
The children showed curiosity, some of the children spent a long time designing their collage. They showed independency whilst carrying out the activities, as for some of the children they felt more comfortable working on there collage on their own rather then asking for help and they seemed quite happy with this.
Ao2
Creative Art
I have chosen this particular activity as I feel that the children will be able to express their feelings about the mood they are in and what they are feeling through making the collage. It may even be a new skill for them. I will be using colourful resources in order to make the activity appeal more to the children and make it look more attractive. I will bring in some equipment that children may find interesting such as sequences, feathers, cotton wool, ribbons and other resources that will make the activity more successful. This relates to my setting as well as the age group because I have a range of ideas the children can use to create their collage.
The benefits of this activity are that the activity will help the children develop fine motor skills which will help them expand further ability to do certain things, as they will be using their hands and eye co-ordination. They will also again be able to express their emotions. It will help the children be creative and can be a social activity as they will interact with the children within the group. Making a range of equipment and material accessible for the children means that the creative expression becomes easier. It will also be a positive way for them to socialise with other children.
I showed independency in selecting and carrying out the activity with the children, I personally made the resources accessible to the children, felt confident to ask staff for help when I needed support, this for example was when I wasn’t sure where some of the recourses and material were kept therefore I asked the staff for help. I also showed a high level of involvement while doing the activities. I made sure that when the children were stuck I helped them out, gave them ideas, helped them when required and continuously praised them.
Ao3
I have chosen to carry out my activity at a nursery setting. Wallace Road Nursery School is a local authority school situated on Wallace Road Nursery in Kingsley, next to Kingsley Primary School.
The nursery consists of three areas, the Elmer Room, the Kipper Room and the outdoor zone. Each session, after saying ‘hello’ to their key worker and collecting their name badge the children are free to choose where they would like to play and they can move freely between the areas. The staff encourages the children to participate in all areas of the curriculum. A snack is served during the session. For the final thirty minutes of the session all the children come together for singing followed by a small group story time or activity such as drama or music.
Wallace Road Nursery School looks very big from outside and inside it is very creative, bright and colourful and also very nicely decorated with many displays.
The aim of the activity is to design a seasonal collage using a wide range of materials and resources. in small groups of about 6-7 children I will begin the activity by explaining what needs to be done. I have chosen a small amount of children as it will be easy for me as well as the children to communicate with each other.
After making a phone call to Wallace Road Nursery the members of staff as well as myself decided to carry out the activity in the afternoon session. This was because there would be many children along with staff around which would mean that more children would want to participate in the activity.
On the next page is a lesson plan that shows a step by step flow chart as to how I am going to do the activity. As you can see on the right hand side of the lesson plan there are in a list the resources required for the activity. Most of these will be available within the nursery such as PVA glue, scrap paper, paint and scissors, however some of the materials I will need to buy individually. These resources are necessary as they will make the children want to take part in the activity because children at my chosen age group find bright colours very attractive.
Members of Staff at Wallace Road Nursery
Head teacher Mrs Kim Baxter
Teacher Ms Clare Murray
Nursery Nurses Mrs Rachel Wills
Miss Catherine Jones
Part time nursery nurses Mrs Wendy Morris
Secretary Miss Valerie Johnson
Caretaker Mrs Diana Graham
Learning support assistants Miss Sam Frost
Mrs Alison Crawl
Lunchtime supervisor Miss Sam Frost
Below is a list of Codes of Practise for the activity that I carried out
No running: the children are not allowed to run in the classroom because there could be dangers ahead such as doors, teachers, other pupils, and furniture (such as tables and chairs). This could cause accidents.
Scissors: safety scissors must be used to ensure safety of children. Running about with scissors is certainly not allowed as this could cause injuries.
No chewing gum: the children could swallow gum which could cause them to choke, and therefore the school has a policy of no gum.
Must wear aprons: to protect clothing and because of health and hygiene.
No touching children: staff must not touch children and that’s also relevant for me as I am not qualified.
No taking children to the toilet: it is against the law to take the children to the toilet because it could be seen as sexually linked and an assault of their privacy.
Children must wash their hands after the activity: this is necessary for health and hygiene because when they go for their lunch, germs can spread and cause illness/sickness.
Confidentiality: staff will not discuss individual children with people other than the parents/guardians of that child. Equally information given by parents/guardians to nursery staff will not be passed on third parties.
One of the health and safety aspects that need to be considered for my activity is that when the children put the collage together, they will have to wear aprons in order to protect their clothing from sticky bits. Another aspect was they would also need safety scissors as they have dull blades to ensure the children do not cut their fingers. I will also need to consider that the children do not put their fingers in their mouth just in case they had glue or paint on them.
Ao4
The age group that I carried out my activity with were children aged 4-5. The activity was a success and the children responded very well. The children really enjoyed doing the activities and especially the resources that were used were found ‘very attractive’.
I think the activity did meet the benefits of the children because not only did it help to boost their confidence around others but it also enables their development skills to build up further.
They developed fine motor skills because in order to do this activity they had to use their hands and fingers and their intellectual skills also developed further as they interacted with others in the nursery.
The activity was not too long or too short. It depended more on what the children wanted. As there was more than just the one activity available in the afternoon session the children did sometimes switch to a different activity.
The children learnt how to work together in a group and developed their communication skills. It helped them to share their own ideas as thoughts as well as developing existing skills. At the end of the activity we looked at the work that had been done. This made the children emotionally happy as this made them feel more confident.
I felt that the activity went really well however I could have improved the activity by having visual stimulus, this could have not been more use of resources such as books or toys linked with the activity. This might have made the activity a little bit more interesting; however the response to the activity was really good.
My strengths I feel were communicating with the children, which I thought went really well. I really enjoyed doing this and I also thought that the children did because if a child was upset or if they needed support in anything they came did come for help. Whereas my communication skills with the teachers I felt was not so good. I was slightly nervous when I first entered the nursery. However as I had already worked at the placement before, I gradually gained that confidence whilst working with the children.
This placement did benefit me while doing my course work. Also this helped me communicate more with others. Throughout the whole experience I felt I gained more confidence so now it is much easier for me to talk with people I don’t know, next time I feel I will be much better.
The teacher’s response was very good and positive. I felt that she enjoyed me working there. She said that I was confident while doing the activity and I used my initiative when doing the activity. She said that the ability to undertake the activity was very good. She was also very pleased with my attitude and the way I respected the teachers and other adults around. She added that I was quite but very confident. She also said that I cared for the classroom equipment and I had a good level of maturity.
Bibliography
Throughout this assignment I have put numbers in brackets, next to key terms/skills or definitions. This then refers to the bibliography that is set at the back of my assignment, which shows where I got the Information. (1) Foundation stage curriculum
(2) www.wallaceroadnursery.ik.org