What happened?
I choose three random children who were wondering around not doing any other activity. I choose two girls and a boy, to come sit at a table, first of all their put on aprons. the table already had glue and card on it with scissors and glitter pens the children did not understand straight away what I wanted them to do I sat down and tried to explain luckily I had bring in one that I had did at home with my brother who is their age. The two girls KL and CW knew what I wanted them to try and do I even said can you do your name inside when you have finished. This time I didn’t have an early year’s practitioner with me but one of them came over to see if I was okay. The
Stephanie Jewell 3rd January 2005
boy I had asked to do a card didn’t want to he found some thing else he anted to do, so one of the early years practitioner gave me another boy DK as he needs help with his name. I gave them red card and folded it KL wanted hers folded twice so I did as it was her Christmas card. The children took their time at making the outside of the card about 20 minutes later I said “is anyone nearly finished?” they all stopped their work and said “Yes” but they was not, so I told them to carry on then a couple minutes later DK finished the front so I wrote the inside for him and asked if he can do his name e but he was very aliment that he could not do it so I wrote it on a bit of paper to copy and he tried really hard but we only got half of it done as he got a little upset because he didn’t want to do it. The two girls finished as well as are older they started to write letters inside but they didn’t make any words but I thought that was really good bas they were trying. They both wrote their names and kisses, the children letters were back to front or upside but you can tell what their name was.
Evaluation:
The activity of making cards with the children went better then I excepted as the children didn’t argue with each other and wanted to speak to me one after another instead of shouting and screaming. I thought I explained what to do well as the two girls that I choose to do this got on with the work straight away and didn’t really need my help until the end with the writing of their names. The child who didn’t want to do card making made me feel as if I was doing some thing wrong but he didn’t take in ant activities that day. The children left their cards to dry and the next day we put them into envelopes and they took them home. I would like to carry it out again if possible as I enjoyed myself as I was helping and watching them does it. If you were to carry out this activity then I would say have no more then two children at a time that way you can give them almost your full attention and this way the children tend not to want to talk over each other as there are only two of them sitting on a table.
The children did learn how to do their names correctly even though DK got upset as he didn’t want to write his even though I kept encouraging him to
Stephanie Jewell 3rd January 2005
try. I think I should have spoke more about Christmas and how a time for giving and why we give out cards to people.
I put down a mat on the table as the children was working with glue, and glitter what make a lot of mess in the hands of 3, 4 year olds. The children put on aprons to protect their clothing which was a good idea, they did make a lot of mess with the glitter pens and didn’t know when to stop putting on to the card I had to keep telling them it was enough but they some times didn’t listen. The cutting of paper made mess around the table. But all of the mess made was easily cleared up within minutes and all the children had to do is wash their hands. I didn’t realise the children would take as long as they did to make the cards and even writing their name took longer then expected, I gave myself half and hour when I should have allowed an hour to do this kind of activity. When the children sit down they took a little while to get started.
The planning I did for both the activities were helpful I did follow both the plans I think the planning is good to have but on the day it all depends on the children weather or not they want to do it or if they are going to muck about for you, the best part about the planning is to see if you can complete the learning intentions you set for the children and knowing what equipment ids needed before hand in case its any thing that they wouldn’t have usually.
