For Early years and education A04 I am going to plan and carry out an educational activity with a child.

by hollieddhxx (student)

Early years and education A04

A04A

For Early years and education A04 I am going to plan and carry out an educational activity with a child. In order to decide on what activity I should plan and carry out with a child I first had to select a child to participate in the activity. I had to think carefully about the child which I would select to participate in the activity as I had to consider what sort of activity I could provide the child with according to the stage of development which they are currently at.

Research

In order to appropriately plan an activity for a child I decided to research the different stages of child play to find out what types of activities would be suitable for children of different ages to participate in.

I found my research on a website which was from which is a website which contains a lot of useful information on the different stages of play for children. The website explains that “children grow and develop as they go through the different stages of play” as they are learning new skills and developing new ideas.

The website states that the first stage of play is ‘solitary play’ which is used by very young infants as a form of play. The website says that solitary play is used by very young infants as “very young infants only have the ability to attend to one object at a time as once an object it out of their sight, it is quickly forgotten”. Solitary play is where infants play by themselves and not paying attention to anyone else even if they are in a room full of people. According to the website, this is because infants are “busy exploring and discovering their new world” and they are also “fully engaged in gathering information and storing it for further use”. This play is said to be the self centered t me whilst a child is developing.

The second stage of play is ‘parallel play’ which begins to show in children usually by the time a child is 2 years of age according to the website. Parallel play is where children are playing or doing the same activity as each other but they will not directly play or associate with each other as they will play next to each other as opposed to talking and participating in the activity together. The website states that “this kind of play involves two or more children being in the same room” and they may show an interest in the same toys and may therefore “may be in the same area and play with similar toys, but they do not play together” and play alongside each other only because they are in the same area.

The third stage of play is associative play according to the website as at this point “children extend their knowledge and play experiences”. This is the stage of play which is used by three and four year old children as this is the age that they start playing together even though they are not working together or communicating with one another. Also according to the website, a leader tends to emerge when children are plating through associative play as they see themselves as being able to instruct and tell others what to do which is usually taken on by a more mature child in a group and the younger and less mature children in the group do not tend to question the mature child’s authority.

The fourth and final stage of play is ‘cooperative play’ according to the website which is usually demonstrated by children by the ages of four to five years of age. The website says that “cooperative play takes place between two or more children as they grow and develop socially and emotionally” and also that “children exchange ideas during the game or activity” which means that they are learning to communicate and develop social and communication skills which has a positive impact on a child’s social development. During cooperative play, children also learn to respect the property rights of others which is a clue that they are gaining social skills as they learn to understand that permission is needed to play with certain toys or materials and also sharing is very important whilst playing with others as it is important for a child to learn to take turns during a game or activity. The main that the website makes about cooperative play is that “communication about the play is the critical point of cooperative play”.

Following my research regarding the various different stages of play for children, I was able to make a decision on the age of the child which I wanted to plan and carry out an activity with. After much consideration I decided that I wanted the child who would participate in the activity would be between the ages of six and seven. I selected this higher age range as I believe that this is where children are at their final stages of early year’s development and they can be provided with more challenging activities to suit their abilities. This is also at the age which they play cooperatively with others which shows me that if teamwork is required at any time during the activity then they will be able to work together with me to complete it as well as being able to work independently.

As the other part of my research, I decided that it would be beneficial to know what a six to seven year old child would be learning about in their school curriculum so I decided to research this so that I would be able to try and incorporate some of the subjects the child is learning about at school into the activity to help them to learn more and therefore have a positive effect on the child’s intellectual development.

From my research I learnt that children in year 3 at school (which is the school year Francesca is in) cover Year 3 maths, Literacy and science. For this activity I am focusing on Francesca’s maths and literacy development although part of year 3 science does play a part in the activity. I got my research from the website: which is a website which briefly explains the overview of what a child learns in year 3 in maths and literacy.

The website states that in year 3 maths children “will be encouraged to work sums in their head” which develops their mental maths skills. The website also says that children also “expand on the concepts of multiplication, division and fractions that they began in year 2” which means that the children would be challenged my learning more about what they already covered very basically in the previous year but they would still be learning as they would be learning about each topic in more detail and at a slightly more challenging level. The website also says that “calculating time intervals and converting measurements” are also topics which are covered in year 3. This relates to the activity as the child will be using measurements when measuring out the ingredients.

The other thing that the website states is that in year 3, children will build on their reading skills by “reading new words on their own” which would help to “develop their love for reading”. I would be supporting the child’s literacy development during the activity by allowing them to read the activity on their own so that they can independently read to help the child improve and develop their reading skills.

Improving different aspect of Francesca’s development

Once I had selected an activity from researching, I selected a cooking activity where the child would learn to make cornflake cakes. I selected this activity as I felt that it would be beneficial to the child if they could learn a challenging physical skills from a young age so that they would have the opportunity to try something new and hopefully learn new skills and improve on certain areas in their development.

In order to ensure that I was helping to improve different aspects of Francesca’s development I have specifically organised parts of the activity in order to help her improve in her physical, intellectual, emotional and social skills and development.

In order to help to develop Francesca’s physical skills through the activity I will try to encourage her mathematical development. I will try to do this by allowing her to measure out the ingredients which will be needed. Her mathematical development will hopefully be further developed by using the weighing scales which she will use with guidance and some assistance. She will use the weighing scales to measure out the ingredients which will challenge her mathematical skills as she will have to work out when she has the right amount of ingredients which will include using her addition and subtraction skills to ensure that she does add too much or too little ingredients . I will assist Francesca with little assistance in order to make sure that she completes this task safely and accurately.

I will also try to encourage Francesca’s reading skills throughout the activity. I will try to achieve this by writing out the instructions on how to make the cornflake cakes and simplifying them slightly so that she could read and follow the instructions by herself easily with little assistance. This will hopefully benefit her reading skills because she has to pay close attention to what the recipe instructions will instruct her on what to do so she could follow them accurately so allowing her to read the instructions have a positive impact on developing her reading skills.

Also, I will try to ensure that Francesca actually enjoys the activity. If Francesca enjoys the activity them it would positively benefit her emotional development as she would feel happy about achieving and learning new skills. She could also feel proud that she will learn and try something new so she will likely to be very enthusiastic about trying more new activities if she enjoyed it.

Finally, I will try to ensure that Francesca’s social skills are developed during the activity. I will try to achieve this by taking part in the activity with her which will allow her the opportunity to be interacting with someone and therefore developing her co-operative playing skills through working with others. This will hopefully improve her social skills by spending time with people and therefore will hopefully have a positive impact on her social development.

Plan:

Aims:

For this activity, I have selected a couple of aims to ensure that the child I am completing the activity’s purpose which is aiming to achieve and learn something from doing the activity.

My first aim for the activity is to make sure that Francesca learns something from the activity. I think this is the most important aim as the purpose of the activity is to help a child to learn something and by setting this as an aim I will be ensuring that I meet the purpose of the activity. I also think that if this aim is achieved during the activity then I would have helped to develop some of Francesca’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social skills which would have a positive impact on her learning and development.

My second aim for the activity is to discover what kind of learner Francesca is. I set this as an aim as I believe that if I can find out what kind of learner she is then it will help her find out the way in which she learns best so that she can apply the type of learning style she has to her school work to help her improve and progress more effectively in her work which would benefit Francesca’s intellectual development.

My third and final aim is to help Francesca to develop some aspects of her development such as her physical, intellectual, emotional and social development. These different areas of development will be put to use during the task as Francesca’s physical development will be encouraged as she will have to physically do the activity so she will hopefully learn some physically challenging cooking skills as she will also have to physically perform physical cooking actions which would help to encourage her physical development. Francesca’s intellectual development will be encouraged as she will have to read instructions and think carefully about everything during the task. I will also aim to positively affect Francesca’s emotional development as I am aiming to allow her to enjoy the activity. This would also make Francesca happy if she is able to enjoy the activity which would further positively develop Francesca’s emotional development. Finally, Francesca’s social development would be encouraged through participating in the activity as she would be interacting with the two other people who I am planning on including in the activity. By interacting with people during the activity, Francesca’s social skills and development would be encouraged in a positive way.

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Objectives:

In order to achieve the aims which I have selected to try and achieve throughout the duration of the task, I have outlined some objectives in the table below which I will use in order to achieve my aims.

Outcomes:

As a result of the activity I hope for there to be a few outcomes.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Objectives:

Outcomes:

As a result of the activity I hope for there to be a few outcomes.

For my first outcome, I want the child to be able to learn that they can work independently whilst completing a task. I want the child to be able to learn this from doing the activity as it will give them confidence if they know that they have the ability to do things on their own which would hopefully motivate them to want to complete more tasks on their own if they know they are capable of it. This would have a positive impact on the child’s emotional development as it would give them confidence and increase their self-esteem.

For my second outcome, I want the child to learn about the importance of following instructions and the consequences of following them and not following them. I would hope that the child would learn to read and follow instructions carefully so that the cakes will turn out successfully. This would be the consequence of correctly following instructions as it would enable the activity to run smoothly and safely. On the other hand, if the child does not follow instructions carefully then the cakes will not be made correctly and the activity may pose safety hazards if safety procedures are not followed carefully. A way in which I hope the child learns the consequences of following and not following instructions would be determined by how carefully the child pays close attention to the cooking timings on the recipe card. If the timings are not followed correctly then this could result in either under or over chilling the cakes which could mean the difference between making good cakes and making bad cakes. This would have a positive impact on the child’s intellectual development as it would encourage the child to think carefully and learn to pay close attention to instructions which would also help to develop their time-management skills as they would have to think about how the cooking timings and how to keep control over them.

For my third and final outcome, I want the child to develop new cooking skills. I would like the child to develop new cooking skills because I believe it would be beneficial to their physical development as they would be learning a new physical skill and it would also allow the child to try new things and experiment in a different, but controlled environment. This would have a positive impact on the child’s physical development.

Time plan for preparation:

I have created a time plan which I have specifically designed to assist me in the preparation of this activity. I have included the key features which I am certain are vital to ensure that I include all of the necessary procedures so that the activity is well organised and runs smoothly.

Time plan for the activity:

I have created a time plan for the actual activity so I know when to do what tasks at what time throughout the duration of the activity. I am aiming to keep the total time of the activity to one hour so that the activity will not take up a large proportion of Francesca’s day as I have taken into consideration that the rest of her family may also be busy that day. I think that one hour is an appropriate amount of time to allow for the activity to take place as it will give plenty of time to complete the activity in. The times which I have inserted into the table below are just approximate times which we will be aiming to complete the activity in.

Costs involved:

There were not many costs involved in making, organising and participating in the activity. The only costs which were involved in the activity were the cost of the ingredients which were used for the cooking to make the cornflake cakes. The total cost of the ingredients which were purchased for the activity was £4.36 which included the cost of a box of cornflakes, chocolate, honey and some paper cake cases. There were no more additional costs involved in the activity apart from the cost of the ingredients, so overall the activity was fairly inexpensive to carry out.

Criteria used:

In order to judge the success of the activity, I have selected two pieces of criteria which I believe will help me to determine whether or not Francesca will have learnt anything from the activity or not.

The first piece of criteria which I have selected is to see how well the finished product Francesca will have cooked would have turned out. This will not fully determine whether or not the activity was successful or not but it will act as a contributing factor as the finished product will either show that instructions were followed carefully, or that Francesca did not learn any new skills if the product is not successfully made.

The second piece of criteria which I have selected is a selection of evaluation sheets. I will create 3 different evaluation sheets which will include a self-evaluation sheet for me to fill in, a sheet for someone observing the activity to fill in and also a simplified evaluation sheet for the child to fill in. My providing myself, the observer and the child with evaluation forms, I will be able to know how well the activity went from someone else’s perspective in order to be able to gain some feedback which will be useful in letting me know how well the activity went and also to recommend any improvements which would be useful to me as I would know what Improvements I could make if I were to redo the activity again.

A04B

Evaluation:

In order to effectively evaluate the activity, I created 3 different evaluation sheets.

The first of these sheets was a aspects of the activity; including my own personal performance, which would help me to evaluate the activity more accurately, successfully and in more detail.

The second evaluation sheet which I created was an evaluation sheet for the adult who was supervising the activity which was kind of similar to the self-evaluation sheet, apart from that it was designed to be answered from an onlooker’s perspective. I designed this sheet to give to the adult supervising the activity to see what their opinion on different aspects of the activity including the suitability, whether the activity was beneficial to the child and just the activity in general.

The third and final evaluation self-evaluation sheet which I designed in order to provide myself with sufficient feedback covering all sheet which I created was an evaluation sheet for the child to complete. This evaluation sheet was simplified in order for the child to be able to fill it in without confusion so that I could get their personal opinion on whether or not they enjoyed participating in the activity, and also whether or not it helped them to learn anything.

Self-evaluation sheet

Using the self-evaluation sheet, I asked myself various questions on how I felt that the activity went.

Firstly, I decided that it would be important to ask myself as to whether or not the activity was suitable for the child. I responded to this question by saying that “yes I do think that the activity was suitable for Francesca as it was age appropriate and also appropriate to help her learn more literacy and mathematics skills for school”. I believe that this made it an appropriate activity to choose as it was appropriate for Francesca without being too challenging for her or not enough challenging for her so I believe that it was appropriate for her age. I also believe that the activity was also appropriate for Francesca as she was developing some of the mathematic and literacy skills which she had learnt at school and was incorporating them into the activity which had a positive effect on her intellectual development.

Secondly, I asked myself whether or not the child enjoyed the activity or not. I answered saying that “I think the child did enjoy the activity as they seemed to be fully engaged in the activity right the way through it and she seemed happy to participate and said she was pleased at the outcome of the cakes”. I believe that allowing the child to enjoy the activity enabled the child to feel emotionally happy so it was a positive improvement on the child’s emotional development.

Furthermore, I had to think about whether or not there was any confusion or misunderstanding at all during the activity so I asked myself whether I thought there was any confusion or misunderstandings during the activity. I answered this question saying that “I felt that there was a little bit of confusion at times as we had to work through the activity quite quickly so she did not have much time to take in what she was doing so she just had to work through it to the best of her ability which although some mistakes were made, it did not mean that any mistakes made could not be corrected”. Knowing that there was some confusion in the activity has allowed me to know how to ensure that there would be no confusion if I were to repeat the activity again as I am now aware that the activity needs more time to be completed in which would allow Francesca to be able to gain more out of doing the activity if she had more time to make less mistakes. The fact that some mistakes were made, suggests that the timing which was allowed for the activity had a negative impact on Francesca’s intellectual development as she did not gain the full benefit from doing the activity.

Moreover, I asked myself whether or not I thought that all of the aims I pre-set for the activity were achieved. I answered this question saying that I felt that “all of my aims had been achieved”. To explain this answer I further explained that “I felt that my first aim had been met as I felt that Francesca had learnt something from the activity as she had experienced learning new cooking skills, which from speaking to her- she has never had much practice in experimenting in the kitchen before so this was evidently a new learning opportunity for her which she learnt basic cooking skills from”. The fact that she was able to learn a new skill enabled Francesca to develop physically as she was learning new physical skills which contributed positively to her physical development. I also explained that I felt that my second aim had been met as “I did find out what type of learner Francesca is”. I discovered that she is a “visual learner by observing the way she approached tasks” which means that I managed to achieve my second aim. Finally, I also answered saying I felt that I had achieved my third and final aim as “I think that I have helped to develop some aspects of Francesca’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social development. This is because I felt that I helped her to learn a new physical skill, I helped her to apply her mathematical and literacy knowledge to a real life activity. Also, because the activity was enjoyable; this allowed her to have fun and also the activity allowed her to develop some communication and social skills”. This means that Francesca would have benefitted physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially by participating in this activity which had a positive effect on all aspects of her PIES development.

Also, I asked myself whether or not I felt that I have achieved my intended outcomes during the activity. I responded to this question by saying “yes, I do think that I achieved my intended outcomes”. I explained why I said yes by saying: “I think that the activity helped to make Francesca realise slightly that she can work independently which has hopefully given her more confidence to try things in her own, although I’m not entirely convinced that she would put herself forward to try new things on her own always as she still seems to be cautious at times”. I also think that I achieved my second intended outcome as Francesca learnt to realise that “actions have consequences” and that “if mistakes were made then they would have to be sorted in order to complete the activity successfully as she soon discovered that if things were not measured out correctly then this could make bad cakes”. This shows that Francesca learnt about the importance of being careful with instructions. Finally, Francesca also improved on her cooking skills which was my third and final intended outcome, and as “she was able to improve her cooking skills”, this shows that she had developed new skills from participating in the activity so this had a positive effect on Francesca’s physical development.

Additionally, I also asked myself whether or not I felt that I communicated well with Francesca during the activity. I answered this question saying that "I felt my communication skills were good but perhaps I could have showed more confidence when communicating at times to reassure Francesca that the activity was under control at all times” and also to establish a stronger sense of comfort whilst being around each other so that neither of us would feel uncomfortable around each other during the activity.

I also asked myself how well I felt that I supported the child during the activity. I answered this question by saying that I felt that I gave an “adequate amount of support as I supported Francesca whilst she had trouble measuring the ingredients but I tried not to give too much physical support as I was trying to get her to work independently. I did give Francesca a lot of encouragement where emotional support was concerned as I hoped that this would help to motivate her to do her best” by giving her a lot of support and praise which would also give her confidence in completing the activity and would raise her self-esteem which would therefore have a positive impact on her emotional development.

In addition, I asked myself was the activity effective and successful in supporting Francesca’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social areas of development. I answered this question by saying “yes; I do think that the activity was effective and successful in supporting all of these areas of Francesca’s development”. I think that it was effective impacting her “physical development as she did have to do a lot of physical activity where the cooking was concerned such as mixing the ingredients together”. It also was effective impacting her “intellectual development which was the most successfully impacted area of development as I made the task include addition and subtraction when measuring out the ingredients and also included literacy skills as she had to read the instructions so she had to think about what she had to do and learn how to follow instructions”. Also, it was fairly effective at impacting Francesca’s “emotional development as she was able to feel motivated throughput the activity and also happy and pleased that she got to try and learn a new skills”. Finally, it was also effective at impacting Francesca’s “social development as she was able to interact and develop good communication and social skills by spending time with me during the activity”. All of these areas of development were significantly impacted in a positive way.

Finally, I asked myself how well I felt the activity went overall. I answered this saying that I felt that “the activity went fairly well as all of my aims were met which was one of the most important parts of the activity. The activity was also able to develop all aspects of Francesca’s development which included her physical, intellectual, emotional and social development which was also a very important part of the activity. Finally, the activity enabled Francesca to learn and develop new skills such as cooking, communication, time-management and problem solving skills which overall had a positive impact on her development”. I believe that this is a good summary of how the activity went overall as it shows how different areas were developed during the activity and what was actually achieved during the activity.

Evaluation sheet for adult supervising the activity

I gave the observation Evaluation sheet to the adult who was supervising the activity so that I could have feedback on the activity from someone who was observing it perspective.

Firstly, I asked the adult supervisor to comment on whether or not she felt that the activity was suitable for Francesca. The supervisor commented saying that they felt that “the activity was suitable for Francesca as the tasks within the activity did not appear to be unachievable for Francesca to complete; although I do think that they did provide a good challenge for her sometimes”. The supervisor further explained by saying that she felt that this was a good activity to “challenge Francesca’s ability where tasks in the real world are concerned as opposed to just learning in a classroom as she was able to gain some first-hand experience where learning cooking skills is concerned so that she is not only challenged by learning about cooking, but she is also challenged by having to actually do some cooking”. By this, the supervisor meant that the activity gave Francesca a good skill which was cooking which she can use a lot more when she is older and she also had the opportunity to try it out for herself as opposed to just reading and learning about it.

Secondly, I asked the adult supervisor to comment on whether or not she felt that Francesca enjoyed the activity. The supervisor commented saying that “yes, I do think that Francesca enjoyed the activity as she seemed to be engaged with what she was doing the entire way through and never appeared to be bored or uninterested in completing the activity”. By this, the supervisor meant that they thought that Francesca enjoyed the activity and would be interested to practice learning more cooking skills again which would develop Francesca’s physical cooking skills if she decides that she wants to continue developing her cooking skills.

Furthermore, I asked the supervisor; ‘do you think that there was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding throughout the duration of the activity?’ She answered saying “no, I do not think that there was a lot of confusion although there was some misunderstanding present when it came to using mathematic skills to measure out the ingredients which seemed to confuse Francesca as she later told me that she had not ever used measuring scales, but that was the only time of misunderstanding which I witnessed”. By this, the supervisor suggested that Francesca was unsure of what to do when using the measuring scales and that maybe I should have given more support to Francesca where is was needed when misunderstanding was present.

Also, I asked whether or not the supervisor thought that I had used my objectives successfully in order to achieve my aims. The supervisor responded by saying that they felt that “the objectives were achieved as they were used to achieve the aims, and as the aims were achieved, the objectives were obviously achieved”. The supervisor further explained that “each objective seemed to be achieved as the first objective was to ask the child questions to ensure that they understand what they are learning, and I think that this was achieved as Francesca did say that she learnt new cooking skills and used some maths and literacy skills so she definitely learnt something from participating in the activity”. The supervisor also explained that “the second objective was achieved as Hollie was able to take notes to find out what type of learner Francesca is and she also came to a conclusion of what type of learner Francesca is so the second objective was achieved”. Finally, the supervisor also said that “the third objective was achieved as well as Hollie let Francesca participate in the activity as much as possible in order to give Francesca the best chance of developing her PIES development”. These comments suggest that the supervisor thought that all of my objectives were achieved and provided different learning experiences for Francesca to discover and learn.

Additionally, I asked the supervisor if she thought that I communicated well or not with Francesca during the activity. The supervisor responded saying “Hollie communicated well during the activity with Francesca as most of the instructions were clear when being told to Francesca and there was a friendly atmosphere with no pressure to do everything right with helped to create a relaxed atmosphere which clearly supported communication between Hollie and Francesca”. This suggests that the supervisor thought that communication was clear and concise and that there was a comfortable atmosphere during the activity which all made for effective communication which also positively developed Francesca’s communication skills.

I also asked the supervisor how well they thought that I supported the child during the activity. The supervisor responded saying that “Hollie supported the child well at times, although I think that when it came to using the measuring scales, more support could have been provided to Francesca as she was unsure of what to do at this point in the activity. Francesca was very independent during the tasks though which was clearly encouraged by Hollie as every opportunity encouraged Francesca to work an independently”. This suggests that the supervisor thought that I could have supported Francesca more at times, although Francesca’s independence and confidence was clearly developed and made a positive contribution to her communication skills and emotional development.

In addition, I asked the supervisor whether or not she thought that I was effective and successful in supporting Francesca’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social areas of development. The supervisor responded saying “Francesca’s physical development was supported a lot during the activity as Hollie provided a lot of opportunities for Francesca to do physical activities in order to keep her motivated and interested in the activity”. The supervisor also said that “Francesca’s intellectual development was supported the most during the activity as this is the area of development which was aimed most at being developed and there was clearly support being shown by Hollie as there were learning opportunities which were provided to Francesca by applying mathematic and literacy skills to the activity”. Finally, the supervisor also said that “Francesca’s emotional and social development was supported during the activity, but not as much as the physical and intellectual aspects of development as not as many opportunities could be provided to develop these two areas of development. This is maybe something that Hollie could look to improve on next time”. These comments suggest that each aspect of Francesca’s development was supported in some way although there is room for improvement in certain areas which I can look to improve on next time.

Finally, I asked the supervisor how well they thought the activity went overall. The supervisor said that they thought that “the activity went well overall as the aims seemed to be met and Francesca seemed to enjoy the activity, she seemed to learn something from it and learnt some new skills which overall I think made the activity fairly successful”. This suggests that the supervisor thought that the activity went well as Francesca gained knowledge and experience of cooking and also developed some of her skills such as communication, problem solving and time-management skills which overall had a positive effect on all aspects of her development.

Strengths of the activity

There were many strengths which came from doing this activity which show me that the activity went well.

Firstly, strength from the activity was Francesca learnt something from the activity. Francesca learnt a new skill from the activity which was the actual cooking part of the activity as she had never tried cooking properly before. This also meant that Francesca also learnt another new skills as she learnt how to measure out ingredients using basic mathematics which she had learnt at school. This allowed me to witness Francesca developing some new skills which are likely to be useful to her as she grows up. This also had a positive effect on her intellectual development as she was using basic mathematic skills.

Secondly, the activity also succeeded in positively affecting Francesca’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social development. This was because each aspect of Francesca’s development was met, even if it was only affected by a small amount, for example; her emotional and social development, as the way I planned the activity did not provide much of an opportunity to develop these aspects of Francesca’s development much. The activity did allow for progress to made in other areas of development such as physical and intellectual as there was some mathematic and literacy skills which were developed and also some physical skills from mixing the ingredients and actually cooking. This allowed for a positive impact on all aspects of Francesca’s development.

Furthermore, successfully completing the activity allowed me to discover what type of learner Francesca is. I discovered during the activity that Francesca is a visual learner. I came to the conclusion that she is a visual learner due to a couple of reasons. For example; Francesca often referred back to the recipe card whilst doing the activity to look at the pictures which I had put on the card as they provided visual aids for her to refer back to so that she could keep on track whilst knowing what she was doing in order to successfully complete the activity. Also, although Francesca had to do a lot of physical activity during the activity she sometimes struggled during the activity when she had to learn through doing as opposed to having something to read the instructions off of. This meant that she sometimes struggled to remember what to do unless she had a visual aid to look at. This made me come to the conclusion that she was not a kinaesthetic learner or an auditory learner as she also often struggled to remember an instruction if I was giving her support on how to do it, so therefore I do not think that Francesca is an auditory learner either. By discovering what type of learner Francesca is, it has enabled me to let her parents know that she is a visual learner so that they can support her with her school work using visual aids to help her progress in her work to her full potential.

Finally, the activity showed me that all of the aims I had pre-set were achieved. I achieved the first aim as the activity was successful in helping Francesca to learn something new. In my opinion, this was the most important aim of the activity and I am pleased as I feel that I have achieved it because Francesca evidently learnt something from the activity as she said that she learnt a new skill which was cooking and she was also able to develop communication, time-management, problem solving and also independent working skills. This has a positive effect on Francesca’s physical, and intellectual skills as Francesca was physically learning from the activity and also intellectually learning as she had to problem solve at times. I achieved the second aim in the activity as I discovered what type of learner Francesca is. In my opinion this was a good achievement as by discovering that she is a visual learner it will help Francesca to be able to learn in the future in the way that she learns most effectively. Finally, I also think that I achieved my third and final aim as I think that I did help to develop some of Francesca’s PIES development. I helped to develop them most physically and intellectually as these were the two most common areas of development which could be developed, and the emotional and social areas of development were also developed slightly but not as much.

Overall, I believe that I achieved all of my aims which shows that the activity was fairly successful.

Weaknesses of the activity

As well as there being strengths to the activity, there were also a few weaknesses of the activity.

Firstly, I did not feel that the activity was as challenging as I had hoped it to be for Francesca. I had hoped to challenge all aspects of Francesca’s development which include her physical, intellectual, emotional and social development, and although I do feel that the activity helped Francesca to develop each of these areas I still feel that they could have been developed more in order to provide more opportunities to further develop each aspect of Francesca’s development. For example; I could have included more physically challenging tasks in the activity by trying a slightly more challenging recipe so that Francesca would have had to do more mixing and preparing ingredients which would have challenged her more physically. If I could have done this then this would have challenged Francesca’s physical development even further which would have had a more positive impact on her physical development.

Secondly, I also felt that the activity could have challenged Francesca’s mathematical and literacy skills more than they did. This is because the activity required her to use some of the mathematical and literacy skills she already has as opposed to learning brand new mathematical and literacy skills as mathematical skills were basic addition and subtraction which in my opinion did not challenge Francesca enough. This meant that Francesca was not able to develop her mathematical and literacy skills to the best of her ability so this weakness has a negative impact on Francesca making intellectual progress.

Finally, I did not feel that the activity was long enough which meant that we had to keep to time limits due to needing to keep the ingredients fresh and the activity fairly short so that it would not take up a great deal of Francesca’s time; which was also beneficial in a way as it allowed for Francesca to develop effective time management skills. This meant that learning different skills was made slightly more difficult as there was not enough time for Francesca to properly take in what she was learning which has a negative impact on Francesca’s learning as she was unable to take in things quickly. This also allowed room for confusion at points as we did not have time to go everything a couple of times which meant that Francesca had to learn through doing which encouraged kinaesthetic learning although it did mean that a few mistakes were made at times, but they were corrected quickly with a little guidance. From this weakness in the activity, I realised that Francesca would need more time to do the activity in order to get the full benefit of doing it otherwise she would not be learning effectively from the activity.

Evaluation sheet for the child

I gave this evaluation sheet to Francesca to complete as I felt that it was important to get the child’s perspective of the activity. I only asked Francesca three basic questions to do with the activity as I did not want to force her to put detail into it so I kept it very simple so that I could at least have some useful feedback from her.

The first question I asked Francesca was “did you enjoy the activity?” Francesca responded to this question saying “yes, because I liked making the cakes because it was fun”. This shows me that Francesca enjoyed the activity which also shows me that making cakes was a good choice of activity to do and it was fun and enjoyable for her to try. This had a positive effect on Francesca’s emotional development as by enjoying the activity she is feeling happy and proud of her achievements.

The second question I asked Francesca was “what did you learn from doing the activity?” Francesca responded saying “I learnt to cook which I haven’t done before and I learnt some maths skills by measuring things”. This shows me that Francesca learnt something from the activity as she learnt a new skill which is beneficial to her learning as she is developing new skills. This also had a positive effect on Francesca intellectual and physical development as she was physically learning through doing an activity and also learning maths skills which affects her intellectual development.

The third and final question I asked Francesca was “what was the best part of the activity?” Francesca responded to this saying “I liked mixing the ingredients together and making the cakes because I have never tried to cook before”. This shows me that Francesca enjoyed certain aspects of the activity such as trying something new and different which also had a positive effect on her development as she was able to build confidence and experiment through doing the activity.

Recommendations for improvements

Following the activity, I have recognised that I could make some improvements and recommendations which I could use for further reference if I were to organise another activity for a child again.

Firstly, if I were to repeat the same activity then I would try to provide a longer time slot for the activity to take place in. this would be an improvement as both myself and the other adult observing the activity both felt that the activity was slightly rushed at some points as there was only a short amount of time available to complete this specific activity in. This would therefore allow more time for the child to complete the activity to the best of their ability as they would have more time to read through the instructions more carefully and would actually have more time to take anything they learn from doing the activity.

Secondly, I would try to think of ways to alter the activity to make it relate even more to improving the physical, intellectual, emotional and social aspects of the child’s development. I would try to do this by including more physical tasks such as making the physical cooking challenges more physically challenging. I would also question the child a lot more throughout the activity in order to challenge them on how well they understand what they are doing during the activity. I would ask them questions on things such as how long they would think each task during the activity would take to complete and the consequences of cooking for something for too long or not for long enough. This would help them and intellectual skills. Also, I would try to make the activity more enjoyable to learn more about what they are doing during the activity which would challenge their thinking, recollection by trying to make each task during the activity more fun and interesting which would have a positive impact on the child emotionally as they would be having more fun and therefore would be enjoying the activity more. Finally, I would also try to include more people in the activity as this would give the child the opportunity to work together with others children whilst developing communication and social skills which would therefore has a positive impact on a child’s social development. If I were to completely change the activity then I would try to see if I could find a more challenging activity to do so that the child might have an even better chance of learning a new skills such as improving their hand-eye co-ordination or through an activity which could include going over vocabulary which would be more of an intellectual task to benefit their education. This would allow more learning opportunities if I was to vary the activity as well as it would give the child the chance to try new things, be more actively involved with the activity and also learn at the same time.

Also, I would consider participating in the task with a different aged child next time. I would possibly consider a child around the ages of 4-5 years of age as I believe that this is a key time for developing new skills and learning through playing. This would also be a stage where a child would be focusing on co-operative play and doing an activity which could encourage co-operative play could be beneficial to them in order to help them with their social development.

Furthermore, if I were to repeat the activity again then I would make the activity slightly more challenging for the child by asking them to draw out their own recipe so that they would have to think more about the recipe and so that they would be more involved in preparing the activity. This would challenge their intellectual development as they would need to think carefully about the instructions they would need to follow and what order the instructions would go in to successfully complete the activity. This would also give the child a sense of responsibility as they would be mostly responsible for deciding what recipe they would be cooking and also what method to use to make it. This would therefore have a positive impact on the child’s cognitive/intellectual development.

Moreover, if I were to repeat the activity again then I would aim to give the child a lot more praise. I would try to achieve this aim by praising the child a lot more for their achievements during the task, as although I did praise Francesca, I now feel that I could have praised her more which would have probably motivated her to keep doing the best that she could throughout the entire activity. To further enhance my praise, I would provide rewards for the child such as rewarding them with sweets, stickers or certificates as I would break the activity down into stages and after completing each stage I would reward the child with a prize. For example, I would make the recipe card more challenging to read by getting the child to match the instructions with pictures, and once they had completed this successfully they would be rewarded. This would encourage and motivate the child to want to complete the activity to the best of their ability.

In conclusion, the final and main improvement would be that I would consider doing the activity with more than one child if I were to repeat the activity again. I would want to complete the activity with a group of about 4 or 5 children of the same age as I feel that if they are of the same age then they are at relatively similar stages of physical, intellectual, emotional and social development so they would all also be able to have a similar understanding of the activity. I believe that allowing the child to work in a group with a few other children would allow them to be able to grasp a better understanding of the activity as they can help each other if a couple of the children understand what they have to do then they can help to instruct the other children on what to do. Children also tend to copy and imitate each other a lot as a form of learning, for example; if a child see’s another child playing with a toy in a certain way then that child would be likely to copy and imitate what the other child is doing as they are learning from watching others. This would promote good teamwork and communication skills amongst the group of children and would also improve the children’s cooperative play skills and social skills which would have a positive impact on the children’s social development.

For Early years and education A04 I am going to plan and carry out an educational activity with a child.

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