To provide age/ability appropriate activities/experiences that will encourage the development of knowledge and understanding of the world.
Curriculum plan 1-
Knowledge and understanding of the world - Harvest
Setting
The placement is set in a primary school with a two story junior school and an infant's school. Both of which have IT rooms, hall space for energetic activities, music rooms and access to equipment such as hula hoops bean bags and large play equipment. (Jungle gym, slide, tunnels etc.) The placement is a Pre-school situated on the site of the infant's school. It has access to equipment and resources used by the school as well as equipment funded by the pre-school. The School is set in a small village which has a public house, a park, a small community hall, local shops (includes post office, dentists, grocers, butchers, hardware, convenience and take away food stores.) and residence. The placement is a community pre-school so there are many different races, ages, abilities and social status. The children are aged between 2years 9months and 5years. There are only three 5 years olds as many continue into reception at the infants school. There are 15-20 children in each session at the placement. With a total of 1-5 sessions each there are 45 children currently enrolled by the pre-school. Each child is assigned to a key worker. There is a ratio of 1:5 staff to children. There are in total 7 practitioners and 2 volunteers, it is managed by a committee of parents.
Aim
To provide age/ability appropriate activities/experiences that will encourage the development of knowledge and understanding of the world.
Rationale
The curriculum plan will have fourteen activities and experiences that will be based around the theme of fruit, vegetables and the Harvest. They will be implemented over the space of 5 weeks starting in the second half of the winter term 2001.
This early years curriculum plan has been planned to further the children's knowledge in fruit, vegetables and the Harvest using creative activities to further develop their creative and cognitive skills. The experiences and activities will help the children to develop their descriptive thought. This kind of cognitive structure is present in Jean Piaget's pre-operational stage. They need to develop an internal representation of the world that allows them to describe people, events, and feelings. Children who have not passed this stage do not know that the amount, volume or length of an object does not change length when the shape of the configuration is changed. These children are then unable to move onto the concrete operational stage of Piaget's theory.
Most of the activities are adult led and will take roughly 10 minutes per child. There is 45 minutes during free-play so I can get all the children processed in 2 days. (4 free play sessions.)
These are intended to promote children's learning and development though:
- Language activities (speaking and listening)
- Mathematical activities (counting and sorting)
- Knowledge and understanding of the world (scientific aspects: how plants grow.)
- Personal, social and emotional (sharing, taking turns, discussing harvest.)
- Creative activities (using paints etc (fine motor) dance, drama and music (gross motor.))
These areas of learning are important, as all children need the basics of the foundations to learning. This is where the foundation stage helps all settings with children under the age of 5. It helps them to develop the children correctly so they have no trouble with learning difficulties when they start in key stage one.
Tassioni and Beith identify this. (1999) They say that a child needs the basic understanding and learning of simple concepts and routines is important because
"...You need a foundation onto which you can build the child's learning."
I agree with this, as it is true for everything you build. Like a house. Without the walls the roof will fall, with out the foundations to learning the child will have difficulties. All of the activities can be implemented by all of the children with in the Pre School.
All of the activities can be implemented by all of the children in the pre-school taking into account the constraints of the setting and safety and the needs of the children / parents / carers and staff.
To carry out these activities I would provide suitable resources for the effective implementation of the activities and make use of the resources already available within the setting. The activities will enable the children to gain relevant meaningful
experiences as well as increasing their skills.
Good planning in all childcare settings is needed to provide a broad and balanced and differentiated curriculum. This would not only support the children's needs and learning in an effective manor and would also ensure that all the activities, experiences and equipment are suitable and appropriate to the children's level of development and their ability. By establishing a daily or weekly routine offers different and many opportunities for E.W.Y's (Early years workers) to observe, analyse and same improvements when necessary. Good planning also counts as a form of record keeping and can be used to show parents and carers how their child is developing throughout. These records would imitate to parents/cares their child's physical, intellectual, language emotional, social, moral and spiritual needs and further development through the curriculum.
It is very important that there are equal opportunities for all children and I feel that activities should include materials that not only promote equality of opportunity for all children but also extends their understanding and influences a positive world view.
Children need to feel confident about themselves and need to ensured that they are of worth.
Maintaining a professional attitude at all times and commitment to equal opportunities will prevent children from developing negative feelings about themselves which could possibly lead to a lack of self esteem and could inhibit their development.
"Children will pick up very quickly on attitudes of staff. They will see whether a staff member is as interested in what they are doing as a parent or carer may be."
(P.Tassoni 2000 p20)
I think that attitudes are learnt and gained at a very young age. At home, from the media and from schooling influences so this is all the more reason why we as adults should try to challenge stereotypes and encourages children to experience equal opportunities through play and learning.
Learning for the children
The activities I have planned have been designed to teach the children knew things that they may not know about or know very little and also to constantly enhance on the verity of their skills. All of the activities involve hand eye co-ordination, finger movement and generally fin motor skills. The children will be developing on these skills throughout the curriculum plan activities. A lot of the activities involve creativity which, will stimulate the children and will make the tasks more existing and appealing.
The planning of some activities will enable the children to take what they have made at pre school home as a few of the activities involve producing models using junk recourses.
Another activity on the list is cooking. Carrying out this activity will enable the children in groups; make use of the kitchen area that is in the infants school. This sort of activity will develop the children's fine and gross motor skills for example when cutting up vegetables and will lead to strong hand/eye co-ordination. The children will also learn to share equipment and utensils, take turns, develop awareness of different eating patterns and cultural diversity as well as acknowledging safety rules whilst in the kitchen.
Learning for me
Listening and being able to follow various instructions develops good concentration, not only this but elements of mathematics are also developed through the experiences, they can also help children to develop reading and writing skills, gain new vocabulary, learn correct words, phrases and terms, how to ask adults questions and express their own needs. Science is also incorporated, as children need to learn and appreciate and accept the changes that occur whilst cooking. By doing this I will learn how to involve the children in every aspect of the experiment and how to organise ...
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Learning for me
Listening and being able to follow various instructions develops good concentration, not only this but elements of mathematics are also developed through the experiences, they can also help children to develop reading and writing skills, gain new vocabulary, learn correct words, phrases and terms, how to ask adults questions and express their own needs. Science is also incorporated, as children need to learn and appreciate and accept the changes that occur whilst cooking. By doing this I will learn how to involve the children in every aspect of the experiment and how to organise so that each individual child receives an opportunity to participate in each of these activities.
I will also learn not to perceive stereotypical views about gender and race and to always check that all children can take part in the activity and are not prevented by religious, cultural or medical reasons. I will make a point of encouraging the children to wash up and tidy away after themselves and also to relate to what they have achieved to the rest of the children in the pre school
Overall, by summing up and carrying out this curriculum plan I will develop the learning of the following -
• How to encourage knowledge and understanding of the world
• How to plan the correct and appropriate activities for the right age group of children
• How to work with other members of staff
• How important planning is
• How to work as an individual member of a team
• How to organise myself
• How to incorporate equal opportunities
• How to draw up good and effective curriculum plan
• How to chooses appropriate resources for each activity
• Be aware of health and safety requirements in every activity/experience
• How to utilise resources effectively in all areas of the pre school setting
• When to be involved and when to observe
• How activities and experiences can help the children's all-round development
• How to manage time effectively
I feel that all of these aspects covered are true statements and from carrying out this curriculum plan will benefit me in planning good activities that the children are going to learn from and use in future activities and experiences.
Plan of activities/experiences
. Harvest collage
This activity involves the children cutting and sticking various bits of materials onto a drawn outline of vegetables and fruits on a piece of card or paper.
2. Vegetable printing
This activity involves the children using potatoes and other vegetables to produce a print. They can create pictures using paints and coloured paper.
3. Cooking
For this activity the children will be in the kitchen chopping different fruits. They will make a fruit salad. They can taste the salad and take some home. It is important when doing anything with food that you check with parents and carers for allergies or any medical conditions.
4. Harvest basket
This activity involves the children producing a basket to take their vegetables and fruits home in. They will do, this by using card and sticking a template already designed for them to take what they have made home.
5. Painting on the easel
The children can paint different fruits and vegetables using different coloured paints/paper.
6. Guessing game
This involves the children using sensory development skills to guess what kind of fruits and vegetables are in a covered box. Without looking at what they feel in the box that they have, to name what sort of fruit or vegetable they think it could be.
7. Painting potatoes
For this activity the children are given a large raw potato each and can use this potato to create a "Mr potato head" or what ever they choose by painting onto the skin of the potato.
8. Computer game
For this activity the children can sit at the computer and play an activity from "Molly's garden time" by using the cursor they can guess what vegetables there are in the vegetable patch, they can create their own vegetables and fruits using pieces of other vegetables and fruits. They can also create harvest pictures or cards using the draw programme on the computer. The end of product of this is that they will have their created image on the computer screen, which they can print on to paper - which they can take home.
9. Planting
This activity would involve the children going into the green house (part of the school) and planting different vegetables into the ground using the correct gardening equipment. Over a period of time the children can observe what vegetables grow and what vegetables do not grow.
0. Vegetable colouring
This would involve the children colouring pictures of vegetables in different colours. Once they had finished their picture they would be encouraged to write their name on the top left hand side of the paper. They would then be able to take the picture home afterwards.
Fruit and Vegetable collage
For this activity the children use scissors and glue to cut and stick a variety of coloured materials onto drawn out lines of vegetables on card or paper. They will be looking at different colours and they will be enhancing on their recognition of colours, as they will be picking up the appropriate colour of material to stick down onto their piece of paper according to what vegetable they are recreating.
Before I carry out this activity I will make sure I had planed everything beforehand by setting up a table for a group of children laying sheets of news paper down and placing PVA glue in containers with glue spreaders in them already to use. I would roughly draw an outline of all vegetables I could think of and lay individual pieces of paper at each seating place on the table. I would provide a variety of vegetables for the children to focus whilst they are gluing and sticking bits of materials. By doing this sort of activity the children are using their manipulative skills as well as eye co-ordination.
Vegetable Printing
This activity involves the children painting on to particular vegetables and then placing the vegetables onto paper or card, which will then produce a print of that particular vegetable. The children will sit round a table, 4 at a time and will be communicating
to one another. From this activity the children will be using hand eye co ordination and
again will be visualising on certain colours that they are using. The activity also links to the topic vegetables and relates to knowledge and understanding of the world. For this activity the children will be producing a print onto paper and therefore will be matching and identifying which print goes with which vegetable. They will be using fine motor skills) as well as concentration.
Fruit salad
For this activity the children will use the kitchen facility with in the school. They will be making fruit salad. They will use fruits such as oranges, apples, grapes and pears. The children will come out 4 at a time and will wear aprons. There will be 1 adult supervising. The children will chop up fruits and place them into bowl filled with orange juice; the orange juice will prevent the apple from going brown. When the salad is complete they can taste the end product. From this activity they will see how to practice safety in the kitchen environment. They will be learning the correct names of the kitchen utensils they will be using. The children will be working together as a group and will be communicating with the member of staff supervising the activity. They will be enhancing on their variety of skills such as:
• Listening
• Concentration
• Language/pronunciation
• Fine motors skills
• Social skills
Harvest basket
This activity involves the children sitting around a table and producing a decorated box/container designed to carry a small amount of vegetables and fruits. The can also use the basket to take home, work that they have completed during the week. The boxes will already prepared and made up for the children to decorate using a verity media that involves.
• Felt-tip pens
• Colouring pencils
• Paint
• Collage
• Colouring crayons
Through out the whole activity will be using the manipulative skills, concentration skills and imaginative/cognitive skills.
Detailed Activity plan 1 -
Fruit and vegetable collage
This activity will help to develop the children creative and fine motor skills. It involves the children sticking various materials onto paper. The materials will consist of felt, crate paper, tinfoil, cotton wool, velvet, cotton etc.
Learning for the children
By participating in the activity the children will be enhancing on their social skills - although they are not working together as a group as such. They are working amongst and along side each other talking at interacting as they work.
" Children develop hand eye co ordination, as they usually concentrate carefully on what they are doing"
(Tassoni P, 2000, P9)
Communication skills will also be developed, as the children are working they will be talking to each other as well as talking to me.
All of the aspects covered are promoting the children to be whom they are constantly enhancing on their variety of skills.
The role of the adult
I feel that my own role in the activity will be effective for the children as they should know exactly what to do and will be able to get on with the task straight away once I have what they will be doing. 1 also hope from this activity the children will enjoy spending time working with me. Whilst I have been at The placement I am not necessarily working or helping the same group of children at one time.
Learning for myself
From this activity I will see how different group of children work along side each other.
I will be able to observe the ability of each child due to hand eye co-ordination, communication skills etc. I will also learn how to organise myself before hand and will learn how to talk to the children on their level. Before the activity commences 1 will prepare myself first of all by setting 4 chairs around 1 table and placing various containers of different materials on the table for the children to stick on their collages.
I will place come P.V.A glue in containers on the table with glue spreads in before the children start their work I will briefly explain what they have to do. I will use words and concepts that the children for their age will understand. I will talk to Jeannette my supervisor about the currant topic being studied. I have discovered that the topic being studied is vegetables. So my 2 detailed activities will be based on creative development and the theme will be about vegetables. I have decided to do this because the children at the placement have been studying vegetables for the past 2 weeks and this remains the currant topic for the next week. As this activity has been designed for a different age group of children (3-4 years 11 months) I will learn and acquire the skill to set activities for that particular age group. By the end I should be able to design activities for children of this age group.
Throughout the session the children were talking to each other and me as they were making their colleges. Because the children were using scissors to separate and cut bits of material after using them I encouraged the children to place them back down on the table to avoid any accidents that could of accrue.
I felt there was good interaction and communication from the from all the children as well as good standards of work achieved.
''Children ask lots of questions as much out of desire to keep you talking
as out of any real curiosity because they love conversation"
(Dr. MStoppard, 1995,p202)
Implementation
Before I carried out my activity I laid out newspaper and set 4 chairs around a child size table. I explained first of all what I wanted the children to do. Then they got to work. The children did ask a few questions throughout of which 1 explained to them the best of my ability. Throughout the session the children were talking to each other and me as they were making their colleges. I have learned that Children at this age are gaming in confidence and are able to more independent. We can encourage them to wipe up spills, pour out drinks, and tidy away. This will help pre pare them for school. Most children this age enjoy being busy and playing co operatively. Because the children were using scissors to separate and cut bits of materials after using them I encouraged the children to place them back down on the table to avoid any nasty accidents that could of accrued. I felt there was good interaction from all of the children as well as good standards of work achieved.
My planning went accordingly and I managed to spread a table with newspaper. I placed glue containers and glue spreaders the table. I was able to spread a bag of different materials and textures onto the table and placed the carrier bag that they were in out of the way. I did this in case of any remote chance of a child playing with it, they could pick it up and place it in their mouth. In some cases this can cause suffocation but I didn't think there was much chance of this happening as there were 6 adults including myself watching and supervising the children at all times. I was able to select which children I wanted involved in my activity. I selected two 3 year, 6mth olds which were girls called Leah and Sophie. I selected 2 boys who were called Ben and Sam who were both 3 years old to implement the activity. I had a note pad and pencil ready to take notes, so I didn't forget anything. As the children were doing their collages the 2 girls in the group were talking merrily to each other. One of the boys was talking to him self-giving him self-instructions as he was doing his college. The children and I chatted bout what things they like to do at home, what toys they play with and what games they play with their brothers and sisters. I replied individually to all the children, they each had a turns of telling me and each other what they were expecting to do over the weekend. From the children's facial expressions and tone of communication I could see and hear that they were looking forward to the weekend. The activity involved the children using their manipulative skills a lot, by picking up different materials and using glue to stick them down to the different shaped vegetable cut that I had produced before hand. I feel that the children could all do this. Some skills were different to others but all 4 children could easily manage doing this.
Evaluation
At the end of the activity the children had all produced a vegetable college. I feel I have achieved my aim through implementing the activity.
I think the children enjoyed the activity session with me. They were enthusiastic about what they were doing and were pleased with what they had all achieved. Leah. one of the oldest children, chose a lot of big pieces of materials and I did notice that she obviously was familiar with their colours as she knew straight way what colours all the vegetables were. Her hand eye co ordination and scissors handling was very good and she was able to place the scissors back down safely on the table when she wasn't using them. Sam who was one of the youngest children in the group chose to do a Potato. I did notice that Sam tended to get himself more in a mess with the glue and materials. His hand and finger movement was quite different to what
I had seen from other children. His fingers tended to get more in the way and therefore materials would stick to his hands that were covered in glue.
At 3 years children are starting to enjoy playing together and enjoy new challenges to rise to. Adults need to provide stimulating activities that allow children to develop fine movements e.g. painting, cooking - as well as opportunities to engage in pretend play. From witnessing this sort of behaviour from Sam, I can agree with the national study of behavouiral diffrences by Katherine E Dilason. I think Sam clearly demonstrated this through out the activity session.
The other boy in the group was called Ben. Throughout the activity seemed to be very quiet. He seemed a little unsure what he was meant to be doing but did create a collage. I regularly kept talking to all of the children, making conversation and they would do so back, but Ben would only nod his head and smile when he was spoken to. When the children did ask for help I showed them what to do a separate piece of card and then they would do it on metre own. By doing this I wasn't doing their work completely for them I was simply assisting them in what they were doing and explaining by demonstrating to them what they had to do. For improvement on my activity I probably would be more inclined to collect more of a verity of different coloured materials because a few of the others that were used were a little in appropriate and this could have been improved. I also feel that my organisation skills could have been better. I feel if I had allowed myself a little more time to prepare my
self before implementing my activity I would have been able to sot down fully with the children and spend a bit more quality time with them.
Production of my resource
For my resource I plan to make examples of the task I wish the children to complete. For this I will use A5 size coloured sugar paper. Once the resource is completed I will take it to The placement and show the children what they can create, to show the children before they produce their own. Doing this will show the children exactly what they have to do for the task ahead of them. I will point out to the children that they do not have to copy the example they can create their own designs and patterns using the collage, the example is only a basic design which they can copy if they wish.
I successfully made my example of a vegetable college cut out show the children on the day of the activity. I felt that it w/as very effective as the children didn't just know and understand what to do exactly what they were doing they could tell me straight way what the resource was. I felt I had planned both parts of my resource well and it had a good effect on the children even though my resource was recognisable as to what it was I think I could have taken just a little more care and time doing it.
Detailed activity plan 2 -
Vegetable Prints
The aim of this activity plan is for the children to produce different shaped vegetable prints on to a plain sheet of paper. They will do this by using different coloured paint.
Rationale
For the second activity that I plan to carry out at the placement I am going to allow the children to produce vegetable paints. These prints will be different shapes and by placing paint on the end of the shapes and pressing down will produce a different shaped vegetable print on a piece of paper.
Based around the theme of vegetables, the currant topic being studied at the placement approximately 4 children will partake in the activity. This activity plan is linked to creative development. The children that will be involved in the activity plan are aged between 3 and 4 years 11 months old.
This activity will take place in the same setting as before hand on a table with 4 chairs set around it. I anticipate the activity will take no longer than 1 session, which is about 1 hour to carry out. From carrying out this activity the children are going to enhance on a
variety of skills they would have all ready acquired. I am planning top carry out this activity because the topic currently being studied is fruit and vegetables. The topic has been studied for a period of two weeks, and has involved the children looking and researching out of fiction books, using different equipment and producing models of different fruits and vegetables. They have been looking at and being shown fruits and vegetables from different countries and have been have been & tasting different vegetables too. By participating in the detailed activity plan the children will be making different shaped prints onto paper. This covers art and creativity. This sort of activity is good for children this age as it stimulates creativity and imagination. It provides visual, tactile, and sensory experiences. It also a unique way of understanding and responding to the world. Children use colour, form, texture, pattern and different materials and processes to communicate what they see, feel and think.
Though art and creative activities like the one I have planned, children tend to make informed valued judgements and aesthetic and practical designers, becoming, actively involved in shaping environments as they grow older.
Through out the detailed activity plan the children will be enhancing on their social and intellectual skills, although they are not specifically working together as a group or in pairs as such they are working amongst and alongside each other talking and interacting as they work.
The children will be using their creative skills through out the activity the children will be given the opportunity to produce their own shapes onto a plain piece of paper and by using the vegetable cut outs. They will also be using communication skills.
As the children are working they will be talking to me as well talking to themselves and each other and with the people around them. I feel that all the children should be treated as equally but the individuals personal development should be taken into consideration as well. Children need to feel confident about who they are and they need to feel that they are highly valued. Maintaining a professional attitude at all times to equal opportunities will prevent children developing negative feelings about themselves which gradually lead to lack of self confidence and esteem. This can inhabit their development attitudes and feelings are learnt at a very young in the home, from the television and other media influences. This is all the more reason I feel why we as adults should challenge
stereotypes and encourage to experience equal opportunities through their learning and development. All children are entitled to a safe, caring, and pleasant environment. Like I said before I can again contribute to this by being alert and to hazards and giving thought to my practice.
Learning for the children
From this activity the children will be developing their fine motor skills, they will do this by picking up the different vegetables to place in the different coloured paint, the vegetables will then be placed on paper to make a print. They will also develop by moving other things around on the table. i.e. equipment they may need to complete the task. By doing this they will strengthen hand eye co-ordination and concentration.
Learning for me
From carrying out this activity I will be familiar with how to implement activities. I will learn and see in which way the children learn, I will then learn how each child's needs are met. I will learn the importance of successful planning that involves anti-discriminatory and anti-bias practice.
I will get a chance to see how the different groups of children react and interact with each other. I will see how the groups of children talk and work together, along side each other. I will enhance my knowledge on how to work on their level, to see how the children will react and communicate with me.
I feel that by observing the children though out the activity and by relating to theorists in books I have used I will come to understand the importance of the physical fine motor development of 3year olds. It is essential to their development, the basic skills form the foundation to learning. Tassioni and Beith identify this. (1999) They say that a child needs the basic understanding and learning of simple concepts and routines is important because "...You need a foundation onto which you can build the child's learning."
I agree with this, as it is true for everything you build. Like a house. Without the walls the roof will fall, with out the foundations to learning the child will have difficulties.
Evaluation
I feel I accomplished my aim as I successfully planned and implemented the activity. According to child development theorists children between the ages 3- 4 years can:
• Turn pages in a book one by one
• Hold crayons and draw a face that is recognisable
• Use a spoon with out spilling
• Wash and dry hands
• Put on and take off clothes.
The above is linked to children's fine motor and manipultive skills which was the development area I based my activity on.
I have been regularly attending the placement and have had the opportunity to witness the children being involved in a verity of different activities and expressing their variety of skill sand what they can do. So therefore I feel that the group of children I was working with have demonstrated all of these aspects and at different times in the past clearly. The children worked well alongside and with each other on the whole, however I did notice that the girls within the group tended to work together and communicate with each other more than the boys did.
Bearing in mind that Leah and Sophie are both the same age and Ben and Sam are the same age but younger than the two girls. I have studied this and have come to the conclusion that gender is an important factor affecting the development of young children. Boys and girls maintain different strengths and will develop differently physically, intellectually and socially. In general girls do better than boys at language based skills i.e. reading, writing and talking.
On the other hand I have come to the conclusion that the pace of development is affected by many things and gender is one of them i.e. -
boys and girls develop according to different 'time tables'.
In general boys start to talk at a later stage than girls and are more prone to language disorders. They tend to be less sociable than girls and are more interested in objects than people.
Boys tend to usually walk later than girl's do and are more likely than girls to grow sudden spurts. Boys refine jumping, running and throwing after the pre school years. Boys tend to be more aggressive, competitive and rebellious than girls are. They are also more likely to have behavioural problems. This is shown in a study by Dr M.Stoppard.
Overall evaluation
This curriculum plan was implemented over a period of 5 weeks in the winter term. My setting had the theme "festivals and harvest" so I was encouraged (by my supervisor) to plan around that theme. After I had implemented the first detailed activity plan I found the children had a wide range of vocabulary and language and communication skills. The children I worked with in both of the activities are on the pre-operational stage of Piaget's theory. Children in the pre-operational stage are characterised by what Piaget called egocentric thoughts. The world at this stage is viewed entirely from the child's own perspective. Three-year-olds will generally hide their face when they are in trouble--even though they are in plain view, three-year-olds believe that their inability to see others also results in others' inability to see them. A child in the pre-operational stage also lacks the principle of conservation.
Children who have not passed this stage do not know that the amount, volume or length of an object does not change length when the shape of the configuration is changed. If you put two identical pieces of clay in front of a child, one rolled up in the shape of a ball, the other rolled into a snake, a child at this stage may say the snake piece is bigger because it is rolled out. Piaget declared that this is not mastered until the next stage of development.
Both activities went well and I feel that the children have learned what I had planned. They learnt about the harvesting and why it is important to farm different crops, the importance of fruit and vegetables in a nutrious diet and they developed a great deal of fine motor and creative skills. They were also able to develop new social skills and listening skills, they improved language skills. They also learnt about different cultures, how they harvest their foods, and how they celebrate. They learned why health is important and how cultures live today.
Dorothy Baldwin states that:
"Children need to be aware of the health and safety issue's that involve their world, not just the situations that they may get in."
This statement is part of the "knowledge and understanding of their world" and "the world" debate. I feel that children in early years need a good knowledge and understanding of their world, they are too young to understand things they have not experienced.
Recommendations
In my next curriculum plan I will only use one small-scale subject. Fruits, vegetables and harvest has so much information to get into a small time space. It is difficult to try and include as many different activities as possible. I feel I should have chosen just one smaller subject as the activities I did had too much information crammed into a small space. I will think more carefully about the planning in my next curriculum plan.
Bibliography
P.Tassioni K.Bieth "diploma in nursery nursing" 2000 Heinemann Child Care Publications
D.Baldwin "All about health" 1991 Oxford University Press.
www.trentwood.gov.uk/childcare/library/html by various authors.
Article on the stages of Piaget's theory:
www.theories.org/physcology/piaget/stages By Rebeca Townsend
Article on Factors of development:
www.childs room.com/ukmarket/3r47fht/html by Dr. M. Stoppard
Curriculum plan 1 Emily Carr 02/112694
