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!