30 Designing the material to stimulate the domains of development

N. Dhanya

DESIGNING THE MATERIAL TO STIMULATE THE DOMAINS OF DEVELOPMENT

The development of preschool children is characterized by basic changes in all domains like physical, emotional, social, lingual and cognitive. Development begins from experience acquired from the child’s surroundings.

Emotional and social changes: Children become aware of their emotions and feelings, learn to cope up with them and try to delay gratification of needs. They develop self-esteem, a sense of competence and their social world widens. They preschool establish interactions with children of their own age and with adults outside their family circle. They acquire life skills and social norms and learn to solve conflicts in ways that enable social relationships and friendship.

Language development: As children are introduced to a large number of books, they develop their vocabulary and to use syntax in speech. Children understand oral language better and express themselves more fluently. They cannot hold a conversation.

Sensory-motor development: Children grow and improve their spatial orientation and independence. They become aware of how use it efficiently and derive enjoyment from doing so. Their control of the environment and their ability to use different tools and props assist them to widen their range of activities.

Cognitive abilities: They begin to use complex cognitive processes to learn and understand the world around them. Their inquisitiveness to know things heightens. They begin to solve problems and find explanations, understand and construct symbols. Their rich imagination is expressed through play. Abstract thought processes buds up.

PLANNING LEARNING AREAS FOR PRESCHOOLERS

There are various areas that need to be established in a preschool so as to promote maximum stimulation and development in a child’s life… they are areas such as:

• Dramatic play: Dramatic play allows children to construct social and emotional knowledge, role play, and understand other’s perspectives.
• Prob boxes: Prob boxes are excellent for sparking creative play and imaginations. To make a prob box, begin with an empty box or computer paper box with a lid. Cover the box with paper and label it with an appropriate title.
• Block area: For maximum use and creativity with dramatic play, the block area works well placed nearby. Like the dramatic area, blocks are extremely valuable for learning about size, quantity, space, length and shape.
• Science: Science leads to learning about the child’s physical “self” as well as environmental awareness, plants, animals and the world.
• Writing area: Pre-writing area activities serve to help children to build knowledge in all areas of language development, including speaking, writing and pre-reading skills.
• Book area: Book areas encourage children to learn all aspects of printed language, including learning about authors, illustrators or artists, and the value and joy of reading.

Some of the tasks that are added to the curriculum to help children learn practical skills include activities such as

1.  Dressing oneself

2. Learning home address and phone number

3.  Pouring liquids without spilling

4.  Carrying objects without dropping

5.  Carrying liquids without spilling

6.  Walking without knocking into furniture or people

7.  Using knives and scissors with good control

8.  Putting materials away on the selves

9.  Working carefully and neatly

10.  Dusting, polishing and washing exercises

11.  Sweeping

12.  Flower arranging

13.  Caring for plants and animals

14.  Table setting-serving yourself-table manners

15.  Folding cloth: napkins, towels and clothing

16.  Simple use of needle and thread

17.  Use of tweezers, tongs, eye-droppers, locks, scissors, knives

18.  Increasingly precise eye-hand coordination

19.  Simple cooking and food preparation

20.  Dishwashing

21.  Weaving and bead stringing

LEARNING SCIENCE

Some of the basic concepts that should be taught include:

1.Living and non-living things

2.Animals and plants

3.Observation of living things in nature

4.Puzzles representing the parts of flowers, trees, and common animals. These are first used by very young children and puzzles.

5.Introduction to ecology: habitat, food chain, camouflage, and other body adaptations of common animals

6.The names and functions of different forms of leaves, flowers, seeds, trees, plants, and animals

7.The three states of matter

8.Health and nutrition

9.Astronomy

10.Elementary physics: light, electricity, magnetic fields, gravity, mass.

Moving on to teaching and LEARNING MATHEMATICS, activities such as

1.Linear counting

2.Using beads for teaching basic mathematical operations, addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication.

3.Stamp Game, the Small and Large Bead Frames for the basic mathematical operations

4.Skip counting with the chains of the squares of the numbers zero to ten

5.Skip counting with the chains of the cubes of the numbers zero to ten

6.Sensorial exploration of plane and solid figures, children learn to recognize the names and basic shapes of plane and solid geometry

7.Congruence, similarity, equality, and equivalence

Media and Techniques of Story Telling

Stories can be told using many media and techniques. Resourceful teachers in a pre-school will be able to abstract the attention of children very quickly and will be able to able to retain long by using the media. Her gesture and action, with a bit of dramatization will be able to attract the children much better than a teacher who is inactive. She uses her facial expression and action by using appropriate sounds, music; repetition etc. children enjoy repeating the rhythmic words.

Sand Tray Techniques

A tray can be filled with sand and naturalistic situations can be created by using plants, pebbles, stones, grass etc. the cut-out characters of stories can be made to move in the sand tray by moving the stick figures. This is interesting to children.

Flannel Board

Flannel boards are used to introduce different characters and their respective characteristics. Pictures are moved on the flannel board which has a plain background so that the picture may emerge out well. The flannel board should be placed in a standing position within the visual reach of the children.

Puppets

Puppets play has both educational and therapeutic value by making children more lively and free as it a joyful activity for children. The puppets made should be light and simple so that it could also be manipulated by the children as and when the need arises.

Rollo graph of TV Model

The pictures of a story are sequence-wise fixed on long sheet of paper or cloth, then fixed on the rods which are inserted on the two ends of the four sides frame which could be rolled and unrolled as the story proceeds.

Flash Cards

Flash cards in which puppets of the story are posted on a sturdy base and placed sequence-wise before the story is narrated. On the backside of the flash card the selected part of the story is written.

Files and slides are the other story telling techniques which can be made use of.

It does not matter whether a teacher provides experiences with music that is particularly classical, modern, folk, or some other kind of music. But it is highly important that these experiences become increasingly more musical.

Story Telling

The child who is interested in exploring a dream should be encouraged to use it for creating rhythm or a musical sound, not just noise. The child who is interested in moving to music should be encouraged to listen to the time and texture of the music and to bring his movements into relationship with them. The child’s immediate interest in the music around him, should be guided into enlarging that interest in the direction of increasingly beautiful music.

Story and Song

A story can lead into a song often a teacher tells a story and then introduce the song that tells the same story in music. For instance, she may read the carrot seed. After the children are familiar with it, she may play the recorded musical version of the story as a means of helping the children learn to enjoy listening to music. They can follow alone by looking at the picture in the book as they hear the music.

Action Song

When children are happy and content, when they are engaged in satisfying activities, especially rhythmic activities, they will sing. We can encourage musical expression when we help them. Find satisfaction and see that they have plenty of opportunities for the kids of rhythmic activities that they enjoy. These activities include swinging, bouncing, pounding, running or peddling a tricycle. When children model clay, one of them may start pounding it. The child may develop a rhythmic pounding which others soon imitate. The teacher will pick up the rhythm and fit some such phrase to it as “pound the clay, pound the clay”, she may suggest another phrase in the same rhythm. Rhyming with the first phrase, then she can put the two phrases together and let the children in singing “Pound the clay, hear and play. There should be an opportunity for dancing whatever there is space and music.The teacher who likes to enrich activities with music will find many rhythmic motions which she can emphasize by composing a simple song on the spot.

Listening to Music

Important experience that the pre-primary can offer is that of listening to good music through records or music played on the piano, the violin, the flute or any other instrument. This adds to the variety of the children’s experiences with music and increases their interest.

Using Musical Instrument

The child experiments with instruments. It becomes aware of differences in sounds in relation to way in which the instruments are played. It comes to recognize sounds of various instruments. Through a variety of experiences with different instruments, the children can learn that sound is result of vibration. They can have a simple introduction to the different groups of instruments, the flutes and other wood wind instruments, the horns, drums and cymbals and other percussion instruments.

Selection of Music and Musical Instruments

For children musiccan be started from familiar note with simple humming. Rhyming patterns are more appealing to them.The musical instrument should be of child’s size, light and easy to handle and carry, locally available of pleasant tone, durable, safe and attractive.

Creative Dramatics

In creative dramatics and experience is acted out by the children, as they are guided in thinking, feeling and creating their own dialogue and action. There are no lines to be memorized, no formal audience, no customs or technical aids, creative dramatics contributes to language arts skills, as children speak, communicate and listen. Auditory discrimination may also be build. As children play out appropriate stories and values, they enjoy and learn to appreciate good literature.

Lease and Siks offer suggestions for introducing creative dramatic to young children.

They suggest that the teachers should begin with.

Dramatic Plays

Dramatic play is spontaneous and kind of free play. In dramatic play children identify themselves with persons or things around them or about which they perceived.

Waste Paper

Waste paper can be put to very entertaining and productive use in paper work. Bright colours being attractive to children, old magazine papers are best for scrawling, tearing, cutting, folding and pasting. Folding is a good activities by which very simple or highly complicated folding are possible, such as book, scarf, boat, mat, peacock, aero plane etc. toffee and butter wrappers are very good materials for making dolls, butterflies and many other decorative pieces.

Card Board

Card board covers of old exercise books, discarded cartons of tea or biscuits and used greeting cards are good materials for making labels, alphabets, numbers and picture cards. Old calendar dates are really useful for number work.

Pasting

It provides tactile experience and opportunities for manipulation and co-ordination. It offers emotional release and opportunity to acquire motor skill. Through this activity the child feels, manipulates, explore and creates new things.

Cutting and Tearing

Cutting and paper tearing build muscle control and eye hand co-ordination. The child cuts and tears the paper aimlessly exploring possibilities of material. He/she practices for skill trying to control scissors and direction of tearing. After completing his work, he names his forms. It offers opportunities to grow creativity and in awareness of form concept. Teacher should teach the child proper safety rules when they handle scissors.

Finger Printing

Finger painting helps the child to experiment with colours by using his fingers, hands and arms and mixes all colors. Teachers should provide the child with free choice of paper or oil cloth. Child should be allowed to paint whatever he likes. He develops an appreciation for form and color. Finger painting encourages creative expression through its directive contact between child and product and provides chances for self-discovery.

Using Blocks

Child plays with single blocks. He creates a building and then names it. Their flexibility and ease of handling make an excellent first medium for the child. The teacher should provide the child with ample space and materials. Pieces of wood are thrown away by carpenters can be profitably turned into beautiful building blocks, after sand-papering and painting them. Empty match boxes and cigarette cases can be put to similar use as building blocks, railway carriages, cars, buses or barges according to the child’s imagination and to suit different situations.

Other Materials for Creative Activity

Things from nature can be wisely collected the teacher to enhance the creativity of the child. Dried leaves, flowers; wasted pieces of cloth by the tailors could be collected and pasted on newspaper to create different. Dried tea waste or seed coat of pulse like black gram or green gram can be put to some use. First make designs on paper with homemade starch paste and then sprinkle dried tea waste on it and see excellent designs of birds or animals design.

A paste clay preferably colored can be easily substituted for costly colors for finger paint, coating of clay paste on waste colors is good for making designs with used match sticks, small seeds and small pebbles.

Multi-colored paper heads can be made by cutting long triangular places of colored paper from old magazines, smearing homemade starch paste splinter or knitting needle, starting with the broad end of the paper. Dry them after removing from the needle and use for beading.

Instead of throwing egg shells into the dustbin, use them to provide amusement recreation and opportunity for creativity, keep the egg shells in salt water for a little time, then wash and dry them. Stuff a little cotton wool and paint the shells. Invert them carefully on thick broom sticks fixed on a clay base or hang them from a string.

Puppets: Puppet show is one of the most important activities in a preprimary school which children thoroughly enjoy either by seeing them or by taking part in them. To make a simple puppet stage gets seven bamboo sticks. The three sticks together to use them as stands at either end and place one stick across them in horizontal position. Hang one sheet of cloth on it and behind this screen children can stand and act out the story with the help of rod puppets, paper bag puppets and glove puppets.

Doll’s House: Making doll house encourages a child’s creativity and imagination. These can be made using ice-cream cups, spoons, paper plates, clay cereals, pulses and other easily available things.

Aims and Objectives of Pre-School

Objective1- To develop in the child a good physique, adequate muscular coordination and basic motor skills.

Objective- Based Activities: activities involve the development of motor skills-climbing steps, jumping, sliding, swinging, balancing, pulling, pushing, rolling, building, hammering, kicking, sweeping, pouring water, blowing bubbles, positioning, walking straight and on wavy lines, building structures from models, buttoning and un-buttoning, tieing and untieing, by using scissors, paste, paints, clay; by building with blocks, by working with puzzles and by playing with sand.

Objective 2- To develop good health habits and to build up basic skills necessary for personal adjustment, such as dressing, toilet habits, eating, washing, cleaning, etc.

Objective-Based Activities: washing hands, cleaning teeth, combing hair and cutting nails at regular intervals. Work such as zipping and unzipping trousers, lacing and unlacing shoes.

Objective 3- To develop social attitudes and manners, to encourage healthy group participation and making the child sensitive to the rights and privileges of being a member of a social group and to encourage him to cooperate, share and take care of the property belonging to him as well as others.

Objective-Based Activities-The children acquire these habits from their parents and teachers who encourage them to develop respect for elders and other persons. They are encouraged to develop trustful attitude to other children and adults. Group songs, group games and projects may be organized.

Objective 4- To develop emotional maturity by guiding the child to express, understand, accept and control his feelings and emotions.

Objective-Based Activities- Self-control and restraint can be built by listening to stories with attention and sitting still. They may be taught to cope with fears, angry feelings and resolve guilt feelings. Let the children have some sort of fun, humour and thereby develop optimistic attitude.

Objective 5- To encourage aesthetic appreciation in the child.

Objective-Based Activities-The children may observe natural phenomena such as plants, flowers, birds and animals. The children are made to sing, dance, make rhythmic movements, listen and clap to music.

Objective 6- To stimulate in the child the beginning of intellectual curiosity concerning his immediate environment, to him understand the world in which he lives and to foster new interests, through opportunities to explore, investigate and experiment.

Objective-Based Activities-Intellectual activities include expressing creatively and constructively, learning concepts and learning fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic. Curiosity of the child can be satisfied by explaining to him the kinds of seasons and weathers that we have in country, properties of water, collection of natural things such as flowers, birds, insects and colors of rainbow, etc.

Objective 7-To encourage in the child independence and creativity by providing him with sufficient opportunities for self-expression.

Objective-Based Activities- Activities such as “Follow the Leader” etc. may be organized to develop independence and confidence. For developing creative self-expression, activities such as coloring using a flannel board to make a picture, arranging and pasting pre-cut shapes, painting with a piece of sponge, coloring in crayons, marking with collage, and free cutting pieces of waste paste with scissors.

Objective 8-To develop in the child the ability to express his thoughts and feelings in fluent, correct and clear speech.

Objective-Based Activities-Activities such as a loud reading, narration of short stories or, some other personal experiences like a visit excursion, picnic or, fieldtrip.

School Readiness Programme

Murlidharan has described the activities of a nursery school as under. The children are promoted to the K.G class after having undergone the nursery school programme, which prepares them for the school-readiness:

(a)Reading Readiness: Reading readiness programme starts with a great deal of exposure to language experience. Time is developed for free-conversation, narration of events, question-answer sessions. Picture book reading followed with discussion is almost a daily activity. Every story read and discussed is then dramatized. Play with words is a popular game in the KG. class. Stress is also laid on exercise in visual and auditory discrimination. Auditory discrimination exercises involve identifying the beginning and ending sounds of words, identifying the ‘Matras’ used. A number of opportunities are also provided to develop comprehension skills such as concept building, sequential thinking, classification and generalization.

(b) Writing Readiness: This is developed by means of a large number of activities involving paper and pencil spontaneous drawing, copying, tracing, filling and completing.

(c)Readiness to Work with Numbers: This is developed through number games such as determining why certain groups do not match and finding out how can they be made comparable.

(d) Activities for Cognitive Development: his includes creative development, motor development, personal and social development, music, dancing, painting, hand work activities vigorous and quiet games, science experiences and social study.

Those children who have undergone these experiences are found to adjust with no difficulty to the demands of Class I of a Primary School.

Let’s take a quick glance at the Categories of Equipment

Mialaret listed different categories of equipment for use at the pre-school stage.

1. Ready-Made Equipment: It may meet the requirement of children’s immediate needs and be suitable for the activities organized by the teacher. But it is seldom functional and also cannot be put to multiple uses. The qualities that are advertised for its sale are not always the ones that pre-school institutions consider important.

2.Natural equipment:This consists of objects collected and looked after by the pupils, teachers and even parents, since these have been collected from child’s environment, these are very valuable. The use of these objects accustoms the child to observe his surroundings and to take a new look at the things that are familiar to him.

3.Teacher-Made Equipment: This include equipment especially made by teachers based on their own perception and understanding of a particular learning-situation. A teacher might involve parents and at times even students, to prepare suitable equipment such as toys etc.

Types of Play Equipment

According to Susan Issacs, there are following categories of play equipment for children of 3-7 years age group-

1.Equipment for Physical Growth: Movable board, ladders, balls, etc.

2.Materials for making things: Such as beads, wooden bricks, etc.

3.Fantasy Material: For making dolls, houses, cars, trains, chairs, etc.

4.Formal Materials: Such as Montessori equipment, form boards etc.

Materials Needed

Sensory Materials

1. Sound boxes

2.Sound matching games

3.Modeling clay/dough

4.Texture cards

5.Feel box

6.Water toys, measuring cups, plastic water animals, etc.

7.Sand toys, sieve, tins, etc.

8.Plasticine

9.Musical instruments-bells, triangle, drum, records, harmonica wooden blocks, xylophone, tambourine.

10.Smell matching games.

Building Materials

1.      Blocks (Big).

2.      Toy cars

3.      Wooden hammer, nailing

4.      Wooden shapes

5.      Table blocks

6.      Interlocking construction set.

7.      Hollow blocks

8.      Screwdrivers, measuring tape, screws.

9.      Train and track set.

Art Materials

1.Crayons

2.Sketch pens

3.Markers

4.Large sheets of paper

5.Paints

6.Brushes

7.Blunt scissors

8. Easel (if possible)

9. Colored chalks, chalkboard

10.  Glue

11.  Collage materials

12.  Water colors

13.  Power colors

14.  Material for printing (bottle caps, buttons, stencil).

Active Play Material

1.Beach balls

2.Slides

3.Swings

4.Climber

5.Three wheeled vehicles/tricycles.

6.Rope

7.Plastic balls of various size

8.Rings

9.Balanced board

10.Old tyres

11.Plants

12.Bean bag

13.Push toys

14.See-saw

15.Low jungle gym

Manipulative Material

1. Puzzles

2.Board and strings

3. Sewing cards

4. Nesting toys

5. Objects for sorting

6. Board games

7.  Dominoes

8.  Magnifying glass

9.   Big needle and weaving board

10. Magnets

11.  Balance beam

Material for Dramatic Play

1.   Dolls, preferably washable

2.  Doll’s furniture

3.  Doll’s clothes

4.  Finger and hand puppets

5.  Dressing up cloths, shirt, cap, hat, trouser, skirt, etc.

6. Kitchen set

7.  Doctor set

8.  Big cardboard cartons

9.  Doll house

10.  Typewriter

11.  Postage stamps, a bag

12.  Empty containers, tins

13.  A note pad

14.  Used bus/aero plane/train tickets

Books and Music

1.      Picture story books

2.      Poems

3.      Musical instruments, such as, harmonium, casio, drums, etc

4.      Television

5.      CD player

6.      Record and cassette player, VCP, etc.

7.      Old magazines

Science Area

1.      A low table

2.      Trough

3.      A rug for exploring various science materials. Etc.

4.      Magnifying glass.

TEACHING GUIDES

They help teachers create a positive classroom community and fill every period of each day with meaningful learning experiences. The Teaching Guides are comprehensive, detailed plans that span several weeks and offer moment-by-moment guidance foe every day. They also offer teachers plenty of opportunities to incorporate their own creativity and expertise.

INTENTIONAL TEACHING CARDS

These cards describe playful and engaging activities that can be implemented throughout the day, with directions to help teachers individualize each activity to meet the needs of every learner.

Designed for ages 2-6, the experiences explained on these cards support social-emotional, physical and language development, as well as development and learning in literacy and mathematics.

One of the most important features of the Intentional Teaching Cards” is the color-coded teaching sequence. These sequences enable teachers to quickly adapt an activity to make it more or less challenging, thereby enabling every child to participate successfully. The “Including All Children” section of every card provides additional strategies such as title, what should be done, reference number, objectives, the teaching sequence, questions to guide observation etc.

Mighty Minutes

Research suggests that in many preschool classroom valuable time that could be dedicated to learning is wasted. That won’t happen with The Creative Curriculum for Preschool. Mighty Minutes are songs, chants rhymes, games, and short activities that help turn every minute of the day into a learning opportunity.

Children’s Book Collection

Reading aloud with children is the best way to inspire a love for reading and to promote language and literacy skills. Designed for use with computers and interactive whiteboard technology, eBooks build children’s confidence and excitement about reading.

Book Discussion Cards

Book Discussion Cards show teachers how to conduct multiple effective read-alouds, ensuring that children are getting the most out of these experiences. Intended as a quick reference for group read-alouds, Book Discussion Cards offer suggestions for introducing each book, emphasizing vocabulary as the story is read, commenting on characters, and asking probing questions. The cards also have specific guidance for supporting children’s social-emotional development.

A Classroom to Enhance Learning

• Use cupboards, screens, and tables to divide the classroom into children’s work areas so that it defines the activities that will take place in different parts of the room. Put labels for the areas: Library Corner, Games and Puzzles Table, Writing Table, Blocks Place, Art Studio, Housekeeping Room, and Science Space.
• Make sure that all of the children can comfortably sit on the big fug next to the Library Corner.
• Provide dress-up clothed and other props in the Blocks Place and the Housekeeping Room. These are the areas in which the children engage in dramatic play. She provides writing materials-pencils, crayons, and paper-next to the Writing Table as well as in the Art Studio, Blocks Place, and the Housekeeping Room. The children often incorporate writing into their artwork as well as their dramatic play. Encourage them to label their drawings and to write out lists and plans for their dramatic play.
• Display many examples of printed materials. Do not display excessive print or print that is not meaningful. The children are able to see labels, signs, and printed directions in the places that count.
• Alphabet displays on a nearby wall are placed at the children’s eye level as they sit at writing tables.

Here are some things you can do to help children learn about letters:

• Encourage the children to notice that letters are all around them.
• Encourage the children to play with letters.
• Give children plastic alphabet tiles and encourage them to spell their names and words they like.
• Say to the children, “See the letters on this keyboard? Press one and watch the letter come up on the screen.”
• Play games with line segments where children try to guess which letter you are writing as you draw parts of the letter one at a time.
•  Allow children to experiment with letters, using magnetic letters on the chalkboard.
• Read many kinds of books. Children need to be read different kinds of books. Storybooks can help children learn about times, cultures, and peoples other than their own; stories can help them understand how others think, act, and feel. Informational books can help children learn facts about the world around them. These books also introduce children to important concepts and vocabulary that they will need for success in school. Read books that relate to the children’s background: their experiences, cultures, languages, and interests. Read books with character and situations both similar and dissimilar to those to those in the children’s lives so they can learn about the world.
• Choose books that help you teach. Use alphabet books to help you teach the names of the letters and the sounds that each letter can represent and use counting books to teach children how to count and to recognize numbers. Use poetry or rhyming books to support your teaching of phonological awareness.use big books (oversized books that your children can easily see) to point out letters, words, and other features of print and to teach book handling. Choose stories that help children learn about social behavior, for example, books about friendship to help children learn to share and cooperate. Also choose stories that show children how the world around them works, for example, what is happening with the eggs that are hatching in your science area.
• Reread favorite books: children love to hear their favorite books over and over again. Hearing books read several times helps children understand and notice new things. For example, they may figure out what an unfamiliar word means when they have heard a story several times. They may notice repeated sound patterns. If you point out some letters and words as you read the book repeatedly, children also may pick up specific words that are easily recognized and specific letter-sound relationships.

Conclusion

Hoping that now you are well versed with the varied components of early childhood education. If a child is brought up well, then trust me, the future of the nation is secure.

Web Links:

• www.oldweb.naeyc.org
• www.sde.ct.gov
• www.cde.ca.gov