During my first week back in practicum I started in a new centre, so I needed to start a new inquiry with these children. One thing I noticed with this group of children was that they were interested in the changing seasons. We started out exploration through going on walks on the trails around the centre, during our walks we collected sticks, leaves, pinecones and rocks that we brought back to the centre with us. From there, the idea of bringing these materials into our daily activities sparked the interest of the children. Being out in nature really sparked the children’s interests and it had them thinking more about the living things around us.
This week I got some feedback from my mentor, Ashley, where she discussed how fast I have made relationships with the children and families in the centre and how she has noticed how much my confidence has gone up with having difficult discussions with parents. A bit of advice that Ashley gave me was on my circle times, she noticed that I was having difficulty keeping the children engaged during my circle times, she told me to shorten my circle times to avoid losing the children’s attention, to prepare the activities and songs that I do during my circle time, and to adapt my circle time to the needs of the children.
With our we brought the materials that we collected into the classroom to use them alongside paint and play-doh. I wanted to repurpose something around the class that we could hang back on the wall. I took a canvas that we were no longer using and put it out for the children with the materials, children glued somethings onto the canvas, some painted with the materials, some made leaf prints, and some rolled the pine cones to make patterns on the canvas. We then hung this back up in the room and we able to come back to it whenever we wanted.
The children became very interested in how the different materials had different textures and sounds. For example with the leaves, the children were crunching them up and sprinkling them over the glue and paint.