Helping integrate academia and research into daily practice. It doesn’t have to be hard!

When I was asked to write this blog entry I found myself pondering my favourite aspects of early years and recent experiences for inspiration. There is so much fantastic research, educational theory, practice and pedagogy that it can feel overwhelming to just pick something to write about let alone integrate the knowledge and research in daily practice. As I considered the richness of our subject, I am reminded of why I love learning and being part of education. It’s that buzz of a lightbulb moment when an idea starts to form suddenly, linking various practices or some research, and the possible creativity available to us to explore topics with inquisitive little minds and excitement/joy that this brings.

A common challenge I encounter in centres is that it can seem difficult in child led environments to plan. Overcomplicating the process or worries about quality, time restraints are just some of the usual suspects that cause the difficulty. However, creativity in education doesn’t have to be complex, in fact we are aiming for the opposite, to allow our children to direct their own learning; in a way that piques their interests and encourages them to explore with support rather than being led. This form of practice is well grounded in Frobelian practice and supported by the research of Allison Clark. Both parties advocate that adult and child have a less hurried approach, resulting in a deeper understanding of a child’s rhythm, pace and interests. This enables children the opportunity to dive deeper into their learning and to revisit and reinvent ideas, creations, places and stories. Slowly knowledge emerges that will last a lifetime, and helps build transferable skills.

We have encountered changes to our planning processes and the TAP Team have been supporting centres with this.  Recently I have been partnered with staff in a

centre concentrating on planning, specifically taking ideas from children, developing them with children and providing opportunities that both scaffold and challenge, and also that can last a planning cycle by developing by responding to the children. As I sat with the children drawing flowers as part of the current interest, I was talking about the materials we were using and describing the flowers. I found myself thinking how can I create a further provocation to allow this learning to continue and demonstrate how easy a planning approach can be to the staff?

Following this activity, I started to think and plan provocations and possible lines of development. At this point I sorted my thinking into strands for exploration: – materials, artwork and nature. Sharing my ideas with staff to demonstrate how a simple idea could be broken down into strands to organise the initial stages of planning. I was able to show how with three simple strands we could provide an opportunity for: different learners and their interests; the child who wants to explore different art materials and discover new techniques and ways to use them to create; the child who wants to look at art work of flowers by artists in using various media and materials; the child who wants to explore real flowers, their texture, colour, the parts of the flower or indeed a collection of them all. In this manner the children have the freedom to make their own choices and come up with ideas.  We aimed to take an unhurried approach, secure in professional knowledge that this approach was supported by Frobel et al and so we should feel comfortable to allow the children opportunity to really make their own choices and delve into mastering knowledge and skills. We also decided that this approach allowed staff not to have to put out too many resources or provocations. Instead it was better to let the children develop and build their knowledge at a pace that works for their ways and rhythm of learning. It was about quality not quantity.

Our approach to start and help the children’s interests move forward, began by making a gallery of art work for children to look at. We used art from different famous artists using various media as well as micro photography of flowers, to provide stimulus for children and allow them to look closely and develop their drawing skills of the intricate details of plants and flowers. This type of activity is ideal as it provides opportunity for the practitioners to support the children’s discussion, collaboration, language development, listening, reflection – all transferable skills that can be used anywhere. The children have helped to make this gallery display, cutting out the pictures and arranging them on the wall. We are co- creators for this provocation.

For the selection of materials, We have kept it simple for the initial provocation, paper, pencils and colouring pens but I have already encouraged the team to look out other materials to use for when the children choose they want to move on, paints, collage materials, looking out cameras for them to try their own micro photography. We do not know where the learning may go but by being prepared in simplistic ways we can easily adapt and respond to the children ideas, rhythm and pace.

When I am sitting at the table with the children, I try to model, listen, observe, verbalise the thinking processes. I think for many years I have been guilty of just calling it ‘doing my thing, my craft’. However, in recent years I have come to learn that Iram Siraj-Blatchford and her colleagues have given it a much more accessible and understandable term.

To simplify this further; it’s the quality of our interactions that are far more important that the quantity or their novelty.  Malaguzzi has a wonderful analogy of how interactions are like playing pass with a ball. Sometimes it’s the child passing the ball, sometimes it’s the adult.  Practitioners and myself often question how much they should speak, when sitting doing an activity with children when its child led and I encourage them to take their cue from the children. I always say that I like to try and wait until the child engages with me first.

With the flower activity, I mentioned to the team that I sat alongside the children and begin my own drawing, I model looking intensely at images of flowers or of the artificial flowers on the table, I trace along them with my finger or pencil before mark making on my paper. Not before long the questions come ‘what are you doing?’- My invitation to engage. I share some of my ideas or thinking and ask for their opinion. We go from there, co-operating, communicating, and sharing thoughts and ideas, extending our learning together. I love that moment when I can see in a child’s face that they realise I am not an adult who is going to tell them what to do but an adult who is like them exploring and investigating, learning and that I respect their voice.  These types of signal from the children are part of having a quality interaction. Through this type of best practice, it is from these moments that we are able to collect observations and record significant learning for journals, to plan with the child where we are going next and continue our learning journey. When working with staff, I have heard on a number of occasions, is it really this simple? There is a real misnomer in early years that good practice is complex, unattainable and planning and record keeping are too complex to manage alongside educating. However, this immersive learning approach that we advocate stemming from academia and literature, which may seem alien to their daily practice, actually allows the children and practitioners to co-exist and learn from each other that quality outcomes/outputs don’t always originate from volume or pace.

Writing this blog has helped me take time to think about my own craft and interpretation of how I use professional knowledge. We all have our own ways and techniques of interpreting the research to develop our craft, but the foundations remain the same. In these moments of reflection I find happiness that without fully realising it I am both delivering and demonstrating good practice but most importantly help others simplify what they see as a complex and unattainable approach, to provide the best experience for the children in their care.

I think it’s important for not only myself but also our practitioners to find time to reflect on their work too (let’s be honest they have challenging roles at times) and so I invite you all to do that same, especially on a challenging day to reflect and notice not what could have gone better, because in education there is always something that could be better but instead to focus on the elements that are positive, that are going in the right direction and give yourself a pat on the back or notice these things in your colleagues and share this with them. Goodness knows we all need a wee boost every now and then – it’s good for our wellbeing and when our wellbeing is good, we are all better practitioners.

What is Wellness? – Global Wellness Institute

By Laura Walton

References, acknowledgements and further reading.

Malaguzzi, L (1993) History, ideas and basic principles, in C. Edwards, L, Gandini and G. Forman (eds), (2012), ‘The Hundred Languages of Children – The Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation’ Third Edition, California: Praeger

Siraj-Blatchford, I., Sylva, K., Muttock, s., Gilden,R. and Bell, D. (2002) Researching Effective Pedagogy in the early years. London: DfES

Much of the signposting for further reading and my own understanding has been built from attending Deirdre Grogan training through Strathclyde University over the past 4 years for Play Pedagogy, Exploring Art with young Children, Planning in Early Years and The power of Interaction.

Fisher, J. (2013) Starting from the child, fourth edition. London: Open University Press

Clark, A. (2023) Slow Knowledge and The Unhurried Child -Time for slow pedagogies in Early Childhood Education, Oxan: Routledge

Froebel Trust (2022) Implementing Slow Pedagogy through Froebelian Principled Practice.          Froebel Trust | Implementing slow pedagogy through Froebelian…

The August In-Service Day seems a long time ago now, however, it was the starting point for Cherry Trees ECC, where I have been supporting in my role as TAP Teacher, on their journey of developing their planning process using the cycle in Realising the Ambition.

Cherry Trees ECC is a large 52 week establishment, offering a variety of attendance patterns for children aged 2 years to five years.  We have a mixture of term time and 52 week staff, part time and full time delivering a service for a current roll of 106 children.

We started off well in August.  The 3-5 playroom is split into two zones, with the plan of staff swapping zones at the October holidays.  We needed two planning meetings every two weeks:

The planning meetings started with a conversation about our observations of children, what we’ve heard and seen them doing, where their interests and engagement has been (Finding the Threads).  Our job was then to plan where we could develop this further with motivating provocations within our learning areas.  We discussed bundles of E’s and O’s that we could develop within these provocations.  We also worked with the children to record what they already knew in a mind map (Sewing the Threads).

The team had decided not to use floor books, but instead focus on the planning process, and display the learning as it built on a learning wall in each zone.

At the next planning meeting it was time to reflect on the learning that had happened (Reflecting on the Threads).  Staff were confident talking about what they had observed and been part of.  They could see where the children had shown progression.  We have ensured that the children’s voices are represented in evaluations.

By the time the October holidays arrived the two zones decided not to swap.  Both teams felt they had more work to do in their areas and wanted to develop what they had started further.  This was a really positive example of self-evaluation, where staff were invested in progression and depth in learning.  The zones did not swap until January, when we were four planning cycles along with well developed zones of learning.  We are now focussing on the development of skills within our areas, being cognizant of progression and depth in learning.

So, what have we learned at Cherry Trees ECC?

The Positives:

• Quality planning is delivered by everyone in a setting working collaboratively with a shared understanding
• We need ring fenced time to have conversations about children and their learning to make planning happen.
• Staff are able to articulate and document children’s actions, emotions and words in the planning cycle.
• Child consultation and voice is visible in our planning.
• Children’s engagement is much improved.
• When engagement is high, behaviour improves.
• Outdoors is planned as any other area.
• We give high value the children’s work and notice when achievements and successes happen.
• Our interventions and interactions have improved, to develop challenge and enjoyment.
• We have started using digital examples through creating ‘thinglinks’ to share learning of the whole ECC with families.
• We benefit from having someone taking the lead in planning meetings, being responsible for that cycle’s documentation.
• Learning Journal observations are becoming more focussed on targets and deeper learning

The Challenges:

• We (like many others) have experienced high levels of staff absence over the winter months and combined with staff on maternity leave it has been very challenging to find time to have planning meetings whilst maintaining ratios in the playroom.  However, even without planning meetings, the staff have engaged daily in conversations about learning and development of learning.
• The learning walls display development of learning, however, the children are not always engaged with this documentation of their learning.
• It is often difficult to get photographs and documentation printed in good time.
• We are only allowed to display work on the allocated wall boards, which are all high level, above sinks and worktops.  OK for adults to look at, not so much for the children.
• Visibly sharing the learning of the ECC with families and visitors is difficult with few display areas available in central areas.

Our next steps:

• Develop more active engagement with children in the documentation of learning.  This may include the addition of a floor book.
• Creatively think of ways to share the learning with families and visitors including digital resources.
• Continue to engage in high quality conversations about learning.

We have worked hard at Cherry Trees ECC to keep the momentum going for our planning cycle, and maintain the principles of the child centred pedagogy approach in Realising the Ambition (2020).  We are still on our journey, but have made great steps forward and are keen to make it even better!

by Avril Dante

I think do believe in the power of stories. They help us to connect, feel, learn and remember. Research shows us that listening to and telling our own stories can reduces stress, boost listening skills, foster imagination, increases empathy and memory retention (Haigh & Hardy, 2011). Stories have shared important information for generations. We find it easier to remember information told in a story than in a list of facts.

Stories Help Us To Connect to Ourselves and Others.

Stories have been shown to connect and bring people together as part of a shared experience. Hasson (2016) monitored peoples brain activity while they were told a story together. While the participants showed different activity before the story began, after it started their brain activity became aligned.

Stories are a natural part of our lives. We tell stories before, during and after our experiences because they help us make sense of the world. According to Wilson only cognitive processes underlying stories and music come naturally to humans, he went on to say “We all live by narrative, every day and every minute of our lives.” so it’s no surprise that children tell stories, and that they use stories to shape their play.

Storytelling in the outdoors follows a Waldorf tradition of oral narration, building upon children’s imagination, curiosity and wonder.

Here are some ideas to help you on your outdoor storytelling journey…

Loose Parts

Provocation tables can be created in order to stimulate story telling opportunities, based upon books that may have shared together indoors or following a theme of learning

Loose parts that can be left out in the elements are preferable for outdoor story telling than things that need to be transported in and out with the children. Wood log slices, pine cones, shells and acorns are easy to source and keep outdoors. Wood log slices can stack, roll and provide a base plate for creative thinking outdoors.

Aboriginal people in Australia used journey sticks to be able to recount their journeys to their families upon their return.  They found a large walking stick, collected materials found along the way, and tied them to the stick in chronological order.  Native Americans also used this method by decorating sticks to recount their journeys and tell about their travels.

Journey sticks are particularly effective when going on a walk or exploration. Children have the opportunity to collect a variety of natural objects which they can then refer to at the end of the day to recount their earlier experiences. As children are recounting, they can be encouraged to think about the sights/sounds and senses they had during that part of the journey, eg ‘when you found the feather, do you remember what you thought it might have come from?’  or ‘ when you found the leaf, what happened to the weather?’ ‘ it started raining!’

Story Stones

Story stones are a great way to extend children’s understanding of an existing story they might have shared previously. They are also good for re-telling familiar fairy tales or to prompt children to create their own stories.

Mud Kitchen

Mud kitchens are a place where story telling can be a natural part of spontaneous play. Children can engage in a multi-sensory experience of adding things like herbs, stones and mud in order to create food and various other concoctions. In this setting, children naturally want to create their own narratives based upon their personal experiences and interests. This type of setting offers the adult excellent opportunities to observe children’s language and interpersonal skills as they weave their story telling into their imaginative play.

Den building

Providing children with a variety of loose parts such as wood stumps, tarp, material, large pegs and boxes can be enough to stimulate a world of imagination. Children are the creators of their own setting and become characters in their own story. Building children’s experiences and understanding in real life will then lay the foundations for them to be able to go on to more easily translate these moments into written narrative at a later time.

Reading Stories Outdoors

Reading to children can also be incorporated into woodland days, as a way to engage and introduce children in a theme of learning or as a calming ‘closing’ experience of a session.

by Hannah Willow

My role as a TAP teacher in East Ayrshire enables me to support establishments to embed a child centred pedagogy. ‘Realising the Ambition: Being Me’ creatively captures the cycle of a child’s learning through observation, interpretation and documentation of learning, responsive and intentional planning and facilitation.

(Realising the Ambition, 2020, p.64)

Today, I want to focus on the ‘enabling environment’, and how facilitating an effective learning space can support your observation, planning and teaching and learning cycle.

So, what is an enabling environment?

An enabling environment is often referred to as the emotional environment, indoor environment and outdoor environment.

Realising the Ambition supports this understanding further in Section 6.3 Facilitating playful learning environments.  It even explains what children need from their learning spaces as they grow and develop within their early years.

Regardless of what my focus is within an establishment I always spend time evaluating the learning environment (emotional and physical) as it truly is the third teacher. Biermeier (2015) stresses the importance of the environment within the Reggio Emilia philosophy and describes the environment as;

‘a setting designed to be not only functional but also beautiful and reflective of the child’s learning. It is the child’s relationship with parent, teacher, and environment that ignites learning.’

I have often experienced that creating a continuous provision that is flexible with open-ended resources allows for endless learning possibilities that ignites collaboration between children, fosters creativity and imagination, provokes investigation and enables children to make connections within their learning. If we can achieve this then children will have high levels of engagement and learning and teaching will naturally follow.

Throughout my career as an Early Years teacher, I have implemented a range of strategies to establish enabling environments within my settings, and I want to share some of approaches that I have used with you to support you on your learning journey.

Learning Zones

Deirdre Grogan advocates that the learning environment should provide opportunities for exploration of children’s thinking across the 4 zones;-

• The Creative Zone
• The Social Zone
• The Discovery Zone
• The Outdoor Zone

The learning environment is carefully designed, starting with observations of children to capture their voice through their actions, emotions and words. The design of the zones covers the curriculum, but remains flexible and responsive to children’s needs. Children develop skills, make connections within their learning through the interaction of real resources. The Outdoor zone allows children’s imagination to grow and develop their relationship with nature.   

Planning for Continuous Provision: Alistair Bryce-Clegg

Alistair Bryce-Clegg’s approach support’s practitioner knowledge of the continuous provision. His website abcdoes.com is full of helpful resources, blog posts and articles that help you grasp a good understanding of his pedagogical approach. He dives into the explanation of ‘continuous provision’ and explains it as far much more than just the resources we put out. Bryce-Clegg’s approach nurtures the development of key skills through the continuous provision. Bryce-Clegg (2020) states;

‘If we constantly provide the same (often basic/emergent) resources in these areas, then we encourage children to revisit basic/emergent skills. Using a system of Common Play Behaviour identification can support us in providing challenging resources to complement our open ended play spaces.’

There is so much more to his pedagogical approach, and I have often used elements of his work to help me offer a challenging learning environment for children, which focused on the development of skills across the curriculum. His resources available on his website have also supported me to document how the environment changes throughout the year and why.

Anna Ephgrave

Anna Ephgrave’s (2018) approach focuses on providing genuine choice for children through a workshop set-up. Resources are available to children for the full session, and cleverly organised and stored to allow optimum access. All areas are well stocked, tidy and clearly labelled or shadowed. Resources are carefully selected to encourage high levels of engagement and the workshop set up provides many opportunities for the hidden curriculum, for example, providing one or two spoons at the water tray to encourage children to communicate and negotiate with each other. I have often used shadowing of resources to aid tidying up and provide opportunities for matching shape.

     The Curiosity Approach

The Curiosity Approach has become very popular amongst Early Year’s Practitioners and the environment is a key ingredient to their pedagogical approach, using authentic open-ended resources. The curiosity Approach uses recycled materials that provide an inviting learning space. Not only do they consider the resources available, but lighting and soft furnishings are just as important to create a calm atmosphere within their play spaces. I have found myself using some of their quick guides to support my ideas for inspiring learning spaces, and I often enjoy looking at pictures of settings who have embarked on their accreditation journey for ideas and inspiration.

Useful tools

I have previously evaluated learning environments by just observing how children use the space and how adults respond to children’s interests and fascinations, but there are a few tools that you may find useful to evaluate your environment. The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECER’s) is an observation tool that assesses the quality of the overall learning environment and is available for different age groups. The ‘Leuven Scale’ can also be used to support your evaluation of learning spaces by observing children’s level of engagement and wellbeing across your setting. Children’s level of involvement can really help measure the success of your environment. It can also help you identify areas or resources that children do not access as much, providing you with a starting point to make improvements to your learning environment.

Final thoughts….

Considering your indoor and outdoor play spaces is an important part of child centred pedagogy. If you are reviewing your learning environment, I hope this blog gives you some insight into a range of different approaches that can support you to facilitate engaging play spaces. The TAP team is always happy to help you along your journey and we would love for you to share your journey with us!

By Mandi Hayes

References

Crichton, V, Carwood-Edwards, J, Ryan, J, McTaggart, J, Collins, J, MacConnell, MP, Wallace, L, Diamond, C, Grogan, D, Carey, J, MacAulay, L, Shaw, N, Gill, C & Johnston, K 2020, Realising the Ambition – Being Me: National Practice Guidance for Early Years in Scotland. Livingston.

Ephgrave, A. (2018) Planning in the moment with young children – a practical guide for early years practitioners and parents. Oxon: Routledge.

Biermeier, MA (2015) Inspired by reggio emilia: emergent curriculum in relationship-driven learning environments.  Available at: https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/nov2015/emergent-curriculum#:~:text=The%20third%20teacher%20is%20the,and%20environment%20that%20ignites%20learning (Accessed 5^th November 2023).

Bryce-Clegg, A (2020) Planning for continuous provision. Available at: https://abcdoes.com/abc-does-a-blog/2020/09/11/planning-for-continuous-provision/ (Accessed 5^th November 2023).

Useful Websites:- The Curiosity approach. Available at: https://www.thecuriosityapproach.com/ (Accessed 5^th November 2023).

Across East Ayrshire Early Years staff are all embarking on the Learning Journals journey where the plan is to create a more consistent and collaborative way to document and track our youngest children’s learning,

A preferred approach is to use lived story principles but what does this look like in reality?

Lived Stories

The lived story idea comes from Frobelian practice with the idea of telling life stories and using this as an approach to document children’s experiences as they play. The ‘Lived Stories’ approach involves narrative observations that are addressed directly to the child.  With the idea these observations are shared and discussed with the child.

Key findings from using this approach are that it;

• Supports practitioners to deepen their thinking and understanding,
• Provides a rich platform for knowledgeable and nurturing educators to empower children’s reflection on their learning experiences.
• Allows practitioners to become more knowledgeable about what they were doing and why.
• Supports practitioners to move beyond personal reflection and find the actual learning that is taking place.

Getting Started

Firstly ensure your Learning Journals Nursery Manager/Supervisor has ticked and enabled the correct Curricula.

• EAC Early Level Monitoring and Tracking – HWB
• EAC Early Level Monitoring and Tracking – Literacy
• EAC Early Level Monitoring and Tracking – Numeracy
• Curriculum for Excellence – Early Level (for all other curricular areas)

Some children may be using the following but if need be these will be identified.

• EAC Being Me
• EAC HWB tracker for Complex Needs
• Curriculum for Excellence – First Level

Writing Learning Journals

A journal is a story, a written account, a diary or a record of thoughts, observations and ideas.

In using our digital learning journals the first heading states – What were they doing? This is where we should be writing this written account, this observation, as a narrative to the child.

You should write to the child and praise them for their achievements. Write exactly what they were doing – their actions, the emotions they expressed and the exact words they used. Remember words refer to non-verbal as well – what are they telling us.

Example

Leia you spent about half an hour at the writing table today and you took your time to carefully choose the different coloured pencils, pens and sticky labels that you wanted to use.  You then told us you were going to write a letter to your Mum, I could see you were very excited to do this. You wrote some marks on the page which were your own ‘letters’ and you then asked me to write some words which you copied brilliantly and even wrote your name very neatly at the end – fantastic writing, well done. 

Leia you also used scissors to cut some square shapes out of paper and you said "I’m making a stamp to put on my letter".  You then drew a picture of King Charles on your stamp and proudly showed this to everyone at the table. I couldn’t believe how much it looked like him. Brilliant drawing Leia! 

What did I learn? In this section you should use statements from the Monitoring and Tracking tool for LIT/MNU and HWB and CfE I can statements for other areas.  This could potentially be developed into a story as we become more familiar with the Learning Journal format.

Monitoring and Tracking Tool can be found at https://www.shorturl.at/shortener.php

Use statements from Tracking and Monitoring Tool such as;

I can write my own name and/or other words correctly. 

I can recognise a variety of signs and labels within the environment. 

I am beginning to see the link between 2D shapes and 3D objects. 

I can create images using different materials e.g. coloured pencils.

At Step 2

Next  choose CfE outcomes and these should link to the What did I learn? statements.

Here are some outcomes linked to the example paragraph above;

• LIT 0-21a – I can copy letters and words / I know function of writing is to convey meaning
• LIT 021b – I can experiment with mark making materials / I can write my name
• MTH 0-16a – I can identify 2D shapes and create pictures using shapes. EXA 0-02a I have the freedom to discover and choose ways to create images and objects using a variety of materials.
• EXA 0-02a – I have the freedom to discover and create images and objects using  a variety of materials.

Choose maybe 2 or 3  outcomes perhaps 4 maximum to track per observation.

Each of these are then tracked using the Red (Beginning To) Amber (Making Good Progress) and Green (Achieved).   Your Learning Journals manager or supervisor can change the titles of these by going to Config / Tracking / Tracking Keywords.

Step 3 – Progression Pathways

These are if you wish to break down chosen pathways of the curriculum further however we do not need to use these at this point.

Step 4 – Preview and Publish

At this point you should check over all the details including spelling, children’s names, check you have considered the actions, emotions and words and ensure you have written a meaningful lived story to the child.

Good practice is to use the Publish Later function and select a date agreed by your line manager – this could be Friday at 3pm or another agreed day and time.  This ensures all journals are published simultaneously so all parents and carers receive updates at the same time too and this also gives time for management to review journals.

Next you should click Finish.

And so…

Hopefully this has given an insight or at least a starting point for those of you beginning the Learning Journals journey.  This is an example of how you could approach the observation process not a must do guide.  Please let us know your thoughts on this guide and also if you have some insights on improving the process we would love to hear them.

Good luck in your observational journey using lived story principles in your learning journals.

By Carol Rennie

Over the past few weeks I have been working with an establishment around transition to p1. Being in an Early Learning Setting at this time of year in the current climate (Covid) has left me feeling a bit anxious for the children around their transition to Primary 1 and I figured if I am feeling this way, then there may be children feeling the same and worse in the absence of their traditional transition experiences!! During my time here, new guidance was published around garden transition visits going ahead and encouraging these so visits have promptly been arranged for the children. The school themselves have also produced a wonderful set of weekly Sway presentations shared with parents and carers including some home activities that were encouraged to be shared. I have created a “virtual display” of just a snapshot of some of the experiences we have offered in the establishment to maximise and complement the transition experience and minimise any anxiety surrounding the change.

Line Drawings – This is Me

To complement our concise transition profiles, we wanted to really capture what the children wanted the teacher to know about them. We titled a piece of paper “This is me” and allowed children to draw a simple line drawing and scribed all of the things that they said as a child friendly introduction to their new teacher. These drawings will be passed onto the new teacher and also shared individually on each child’s profile for carers to see what is important to their children and how they view themselves through their own eyes.

Stories to support the recognition of and discussion about feelings.

We have read some books to prepare us for some of the feelings and changes. The children have really enjoyed the books and often ask for them in the book corner. Here are some Youtube readings of the books that you can re-share at home.

https://youtu.be/M-6W6yk5gb4 – The Colour Monster – a great story identifying feelings and linking to colours. We extended this by using paint colour swatches in check in with the children and creating colour pictures.

https://youtu.be/BU5RoqHEYZ4 – The Colour Monster Goes to School – The popular Colour Monster character starts school!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J5Nf-nYsms – Whiffy Wilson: The Wolf Who Wouldn’t Go to School – Another loveable character nervous to go to school.

All the Ways to be Smart by Davina Bell – YouTube – Emphasises all the different strengths people can have – not just the “academic” which could be a worry for children.

https://youtu.be/5qYPsWzwKDI – The Huge Bag of Worries – can open a dialogue and introduces a strategy for dealing with worries – maybe you could make your own worry bag at home? Similarly worry monsters can be commercially purchased.

Worries and Wonders.

After reading some of the books and identifying some of our feelings about the transition to school, we decided to collate some of our “wonders and worries” around school. These have been sent to school for the staff to answer for us to put our minds at rest. We also received some pictures from school of the environment, which we have put into a social story to be shared in the book areas over and over again, to help the children become more familiar with this environment.

What’s in the Bag?

During my time working with the children, I have found a very popular experience to be “What’s in the Bag” – essentially a “lucky dip” sparkly bag that I fill with various objects and children take turns feeling, guessing and sharing whilst singing “What’s in the Bag”. I decided to fill my sparkly bag in one session with objects relating to school and this sparked some great chat around these objects, what they were for and if they had seen them before etc. I have photographed some the objects below. Carers may wish to recreate this experience at home if they have some of these objects, or even print the pictures. Children may wish to cut and stick these pictures to make their own book about what they need at school.

By Emma Williamson

One of my all-time favourite quotes by Maya Angelou is – ‘They may not remember what you said, they may not remember what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel’

Young children are often challenged with big feelings like anger, frustration or sadness, however often lack the emotional awareness and breadth of language to articulate themselves in a given situation. As adults, we have a key role in modelling calm and considered responses in order to help children with using coping strategies. Over time, young children will grow in their emotional understanding and self-control through the consistent nurturing and supportive approach taken by the adult. 

Introducing the language of emotions

It can be a good practice to begin introducing children to the language of emotions and feelings through the medium of story telling and things like puppets. It can be helpful to discuss how various characters in books may feel. Pause to ask, “How do you think he feels right now?” Then, discuss the various feelings the character may be experiencing and the reasons why. Helpful books might include –  The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas  , In My Heart by Jo Witek or Lucy’s Blue Day by Christopher Duke

Encouraging children to talk about emotions using a colour analogy  can  help children to reflect on their emotions. The International Futures Forum ‘Kit Bag’ has some excellent resources for talking about emotions, including a colour chart to support children’s thinking and reflection. The picture below shows the contents of the Kit Bag.

A good example of using a colour analogy is encouraging children to check in daily, using the colours to describe how they are feeling that day using a ‘feelings jar’ 

Children who understand their emotions are less likely to act out by using temper tantrums, aggression, and defiance to express themselves. A child who can say, “I’m angry with you,” is less likely to hit. And a child who can say, “That hurts my feelings,” is more likely to resolve their conflict peacefully. 

It can be a good idea to allow children to observe themselves while they explore what an emotion makes them feel inside their bodies and how it changes their facial expression. 

Here the children were re-creating different emotions in front of a mirror to see how their faces looked:

Teaching Coping Strategies

It is important to help children to understand that just because they feel angry doesn’t mean they can hit someone. Instead, they need to learn emotional regulation strategies so they can resolve conflict peacefully. We can be proactive and help children learn how to deal with uncomfortable emotions. Other feelings, for which it is important we support children to process in a nurturing, caring way are things like sadness. For example when children feel sad when friends won’t play with them, take time to talk about ways they can deal with their sad feelings. Children don’t always know how to react when they feel sad, and so this can sometimes manifest in aggressive and attention-seeking behaviours. 

Something that I have seen to work well in centres is to try and create a ‘calm corner’ or quiet space where children can go in order to learn how to self-regulate and calm themselves in times of highly charged emotional states. These areas could have resources such as blankets, soft toys, soothing music, glitter jars and other mindfulness games.

Further ideas for exploring emotions:

• Use puppets to act out different situations (e.g, one puppet takes a toy from another puppet); ask the children what emotion the puppets might be feeling. After labelling the emotions, have children practice making the emotion with their own faces. Then ask what the puppet should do next to help when feeling the emotion. Have the puppet model coping with the emotion. This could lend itself well to supporting the children to make their own puppets made from odd socks or with lollypop sticks and old lids.
• Play an emotion guessing game. Take a piece of paper or small blanket and hold it in front of your face. Slowly lower it down to reveal your face showing an emotion. Children guess the emotion you are feeling, and then show everyone their face with that same emotion. Then, talk about what might make you feel this way.
• Children could create their own set of feeling stones – encourage children to choose colours that represent a feeling for them. These could be put in a mindfulness/calm corner or used as part of a circle time before children go home to talk about how they felt about their day in nursery. 
• Communicate on eye level with all children and show them how your face looks when you feel different emotions. For example, you might say, “ I’m feeling sad because my friends weren’t listening to me when it was my turn to talk, see how my mouth and eyes turn down and I got really quiet.”
• Sing when you’re happy and you know it with verses using happy, mad, sad, excited, scared etc. Include the actions you might do when you are feeling each emotion. For example, “If you’re mad and you know it, scrunch your face, give a growl, cross your arms, etc.” Have children generate different ideas. Have each child look in the mirror when they arrive. Label what emotion you think they are feeling by describing the facial features of that emotion.
• Using playdough and loose parts, have the children make different emotion faces with them.

By Hannah Polland

Documenting Learning in a Floorbook  

A blog by Avril Dante

I have been using floorbooks to document learning for a good few years and my practice has developed and changed, however, taking the children’s interests as the starting point has always been the fundamental point. I have always tried hard to document the progression in learning rather than using the floorbook as a journal – and I can’t say I’ve always been successful in that point, so when I saw a training session available for this very topic, I was on it like a seagull on chips!!!

I applied, got a place and was fortunate to attend two Zoom trainings with the inspiring and renowned Deirdre Grogan from Strathclyde University which had a focus on ‘Driving Documentation Forward’.  

Deirdre looks at documentation in three phases and we need to recognise, organise, support and document children’s learning using these three phases.

Phase 1: Finding the threads (noticing and observing)

Phase 2: Sewing the threads together (evidencing and interpreting)

Phase 3: Reflecting on the threads (analysing and reflecting)

She led us through these phases, with a clear focus the whole way through on children’s thinking and the progression and depth in their thinking. (She encouraged us to use the word THINKING for learning).

I was about to start a block of work with Hurlford and Crookedholm Early Learning and Childcare Services, so, armed and confident in my own learning and understanding, (and after a conversation with the establishment manager) I planned to put into implementation the Phases of Documentation with my brilliant bubble partner Angela and the engaging children in Bubble 2.  The Centre currently uses Planning in the Moment in Floorbooks, so this was a great opportunity to drive our documentation forward.

I kid you not, on day one the children provided me with an exciting new thread- I barely had to find it;

Phase 1: Finding the threads…Paper Aeroplanes

One child had penned a drawing, which was interesting in its own right, but she then asked Angela and I to make it into a plane.  Before we knew it we had a queue of children pushing a piece of paper in front of us.  After lots of conversation about how to fold and bring in corners to the middle and secure the integrity of the model with tape, there were planes flying everywhere – even out of the window!!!  And so our mini story began…

Phase 2:  Sewing the threads together

Bringing the floorbook to the table in this playroom guarantees an immediate rush to get it  open with most of the children really keen to be part of the chat and mark making. 

Here you can see the conversations that we had while making the planes, the questions and wonderings that the children posed and how we, as skilled practitioners, supported them to try out their thinking and talk about what had been happening.

The squiggles represent the flight paths that the planes took in the playroom. At one point, a plane flew out the open window to the outdoor area, which gave rise to more wonderings about what might be different when we take them outside…. we were progressing thinking with that question.

The children’s input is purposeful and they understand that we are telling the story of their learning.  This happens because of the meaningful involvement and ownership of the floorbook; the book includes mark making, photos, drawings, scripted conversations and annotations.

We use a photograph or two to give the children a starting point.  On this page we were recording what had happened when we took our planes to the field the day before.  The children had made some predictions but the weather had been really windy and that gave the children a chance to think about whether that was helpful to flying our wee planes or not.  They all had their own opinion about that!

Phase 3:  Reflecting on the threads – bringing the thinking to a close, tying it up

In the morning, I printed out a photograph in A4 from when we had been at the field.  I was able to ask the children open questions that encouraged them to think about their experiences the day before, and come to some conclusions about what they now know about paper aeroplanes.  These turned out to be really logical thoughts, and at the same time gave way to the understanding of variables.

Deirdre Grogan tells us that it is hard for the children to answer the question ‘how would you do things differently? especially young children, so I was delighted that they were able to recognise what made flying their planes more difficult.  It was up to Angela and I to support their thinking around what could have made the planes stronger, bearing in mind our own limited aeronautical knowledge and inability to change the weather! 

It became obvious which learning experiences and outcomes we had introduced and developed throughout this mini story, and these were easily added into the documentation.

As practitioners, we are skilled at considering PLODS (possible lines of development or next steps).  Deirdre Grogan encourages us to think of this as PROGRESSION in learning and thinking.  DEPTH will come from using this thinking in other aspects.  The children here are interested in how birds fly (or don’t fly in the case of penguins) and even since this phase of documentation, have revisited to think about different ways of flying… another thread for us now to bring together.

Our TAP teacher Carol has been working at Greenmill ECC . Today we want to celebrate the work of the whole staff team before they move into their new ECC ‘Cherrytrees’ with a blog on how they used a balance of child led and adult initiated experiences at Halloween. 

Finding a balance of scaffolding learning, stepping back and letting children take the lead and introducing provocations requires judgement, really ‘tuning in’ to children’s thinking.  Halloween provided an interesting context for staff to use as a starting point to offer a range of experiences.

Exploring and counting gruesome ingredients to make spooky potions with Karen.

Children were very good at identifying the correct number of items to make their spells. This game promoted some excellent conversations and language from some of the children.

The staff were able to use this experience to offer targeted support to encourage the development of  children’s speech and language skills.

A lot of pumpkins were brought in to investigate – this led to some designing faces and carving them on pumpkins with Lynsey.

The children had great fun using their senses to explore! “Pumpkins stink!” “Look at the seeds” “Can you eat the skin?” “I think pumpkin might be yucky to eat!”

Children designed and created their own scary pumpkins and some cut out their pumpkins and told some of their own ghoulish tales.

Children then listened to chilling ghostly tales with Donna. The real pumpkins and spooky spiders  helped make this experience even more relevant and exciting for the children.

Margaret used pumpkin and spider provocations to promote independent artistic creations. The children were very creative and enjoyed self-selecting resources.

Evelyn spoke to the children about Halloween, read them a spooky spider story…

…then they went on a ghoulish Halloween Hunt.  The children worked together to identify and count spooky items.

They also made pumpkin orange play dough with Julie, following instructions and exploring weight and estimation.

They then ‘warily’ selected some creepy loose parts to play with it.

While investigating the pumpkins the children decided to have pumpkin races which resulted in some brilliant mathematical language.

“Mine is the biggest”

“My pumpkin is the fastest”

“It rolls because it is round”.

Staff used the children’s interest to encourage their mathematical thinking and language. The evidence was used to inform tracking of children’s progress.

They ended their week with a Halloween costume party where they went ‘scooping for apples’ (keeping Covid aware) using nets and buckets.

What a great week was had by all – no tricks just treats all round!