Computer gaming for young children

Lately, I came across Carol Marks' article discussing about teachers' attitudes towards gaming on computer. Personally, I consider computer and other digital devices as the learning tool rather than for entertainment. So, I usually say 'no' when my kindy children asked to play game on computer. I think most early teachers are doing the same. Similarly, Jo Colbert acknowledges the possible benefits of gaming, but she is not keen to be involved  in gaming in early childhood context. Carol Marks also noticed that ECE teachers only allow those games which they think are appropriate for learning, but not games with no obvious literacy or numeracy learning, such as car racing games.

However, learning is embedded in a social context. From Marks' observations, She discovered that children are actually learning in everyday computer gaming, as they develop leadership when sharing their knowledge and skills in gaming with the less competent peers. In addition, gaming enhances social development as the children learn to take turns and build relationships. So, have we, as early childhood teachers been taking gaming seriously?

When Anne Grey talks cybersafety, she points out that using ICT devices has become a normal part of young children's daily experiences. On the same note, gaming on computer at home has also become a common form of entertainment of young children.  Once, a child asked me to let him use the kindy laptop for gaming. I said the laptop was supposed to be for researching and 'learning' (how narrow my view of learning!) I tried to discouraged him and said I did not have games on my laptop, but he confidently instructed me to go to Safari and type in 'www.Lego.com'. How knowledgeable he is!

In early childhood centres, gaming is usually restricted to certain periods of time, or as a reward. Sometimes, a timer is used to facilitate turn-taking, in order to make sure it is fair to everyone, so everyone has a chance. When the time is up, the child has to move over... essentially the child is forced to abandon what he is working on. However, for art or other traditional 'learning activities", the teachers usually let the child continue with his project over a long period of time, even actively remind the child to revisit his work again on the next day.

Ponder this:
Do you play computer games? Do your children at home play computer games? Do you allow children in your early childhood centre play game?

Mat-times, group times, a waste of time?

In the recent newsletter of the Australian National Quality Standard Professional Learning Programme, Heather Barnes asked teachers of young children to reflect about whether group times are interesting and meaningful for children. Although group times are supposed to be the time for learning literacy, numeracy, music and movements, Heather quoted a child commenting that it was just a waste of time!

In New Zealand, we call that special time of the day as mat-time. To me, I believe in the value of having mat-times. From my teaching experience, I have not heard any teachers voicing doubts about mat-time.  Probably, due to the sociocultural framework of our Early Childhood Curriculum, Te Whaariki, we all share an understanding of the social nature of mat-times as an effective context for learning.

Of course, there are many other opportunities to promote literacy and numeracy; to learn about music and movements. However, mat-time is the only time for everyone to come together, teachers and children. And often, parents who come early to pick up also feel comfortable to join in. During the day, children have the freedom to choose what they want to explore and learn. Some may spend most of their time outside, whereas others may stay inside around areas of their interest for the whole session.  Mat-time could be one of the few occasions children see each other during the day. In Quality Teaching Early Foundations: Best Evidence Synthesis, New Zealand ECE educator, Sarah-Eve Farquhar noted that interactions with diverse peers facilitate children's cognitive and social outcomes. During mat-time, children work with, talk and listen to others, not just their own friends who they have been hanging out during their free play time. As children learn in a social context, mat-time provides opportunities for peer interaction and collaboration, which supports learning and maximises outcomes.

In addition, mat-time enhances a sense of belonging and acknowledges contribution. It is a shared experience co-constructed by everyone. In my kindy, the Muslim parents don't want her girl participate actively in any music activities. But they have no intention to take her out of the mat-time. They want her to be part of the big kindy group. I reassured her that she could just sit and watch when we were singing and dancing. She participated through watching, as part of a group, which is what she wants. It's about the sense of belonging. I don't think it is a waste of time for her to stay at mat-time.

Similarly, some boys did not want to participate in dancing, and they claimed that boys did not dance. While I pointed out that boys do dance, I let them step aside and watch. Will they be better off be excused from the mat-time? I am not sure. Some children participate actively while others passively.

Of course, as a teacher,  we need to take children's feedback about mat-time seriously. Why a child would say mat-time is a waste of time?  He was honest with his feelings but he did not communicate why he felt that way. There could be a lot of reasons. Teachers need to be better aware of children's physical and emotional well-being when organizing mat-time. Be flexible and willing to modify the mat-time activities. On a hot day, I usually advised the children to have a drink before coming to the mat. On an extremely busy day after a fire drill and firefighters' presentation, teachers need to take into account that children are too tired and unable to sit still and  would easily lost concentration. In that case, I would just have a short mat-time and incorporate more interactive components into my plan and involve children actively. I remembered a child used to say he wanted to go home rather than staying on the mat, when he spotted his mum coming through the door. I let him go ask his mum whether she wanted to join us on the mat. The child and his mum were happy to sit down with the group and we enjoyed the mat-time together.

It's about what lens we use to see the mat-time. In New Zealand, teachers tend to use a sociocultural lens, and we see the significance of social learning in a group. Alternatively, one may see the desire of individual children comes first. One may insist that children should have a choice, as mat-time activities are usually not initiated by children. However, teachers could possibly shift the balance of power to children by taking into account their interests when planning for mat-times.

As mat-time is an effective event to promote learning, I believe it is important that teachers focus on children's interests, rather than what the teacher wants to teach during mat-time. As the Australian early childhood educators say, play is learning. teachers should work harder to engage children, making mat-time fun, meaningful and relevant to children.  I will talk about some mat-time activities I have done before in another blog Children songs, rhymes and games. You are invited  to share ideas and contribute to this discussion about mat-time too.

Birthday Celebration

The first week back from the holidays had been extremely busy with several children turning five and going to school. We have a tradition of hosting a birthday mat-time to farewell the children. The families of the birthday children are invited to the mat-time too. The routine includes looking at their learning story portfolios and art folders; reading out a birthday card signed by everyone, children and teachers; blowing candles on a play dough birthday cake; and playing a party game.

The idea of reading the portfolio is to involve the child to revisit and reflect his learning journey, which hopefully helps the child to get ready for the next step of his growth and development. I love to draw the children's attention to their first photo, pointing out that they have grown up physically. As I'm a petite adult, whenever I comment that they have grown taller with long legs and long arms, the child tends to agree and proudly suggests that he is nearly as tall as I am.

When browsing their learning stories portfolio, I will let children choose a few stories of special importance to them to read out loud. It's a moment for the child to assess his learning and achievement. I feel good when the child picks out projects in which he has invested lots of time and energy.  But when the child says his favorite moment is the christmas party or the trip to the museum, I will start questioning whether the teachers have done enough to support the child's learning. I know I'm a bit silly. Who doesn't love Christmas with Santa giving out presents?

For the birthday cake and card, the teacher usually involve the birthday child in making and decorating them. It is a nice moment of one on one, and the child will also learn the little poem to be glued on the birthday card. Later during the mat-time, some confident children choose to read out (from memory sometimes) the poem, or everyone will help reading out the poem together. The birthday child and his family really enjoy the opportunity to show off their 'literacy skills'.

Since the kindy community has become diverse in ethnicity recently. We worry that families of other cultures may feel uncomfortable with the way we celebrate, so we wrote up a note to parents with children turning five, explaining what we are doing at kindy and that it is up to them whether they want to involve their child in the celebration. So far, no parents opt out. It proves that we are worrying too much. It worths the trouble though, as we respect parents as part of our programme.

Competent children - reflecting our image of the child

Everyone is busy with the preparation of the art exhibition, yet, I let children give the finishing touch to their clay sculptures, rather than doing it myself. As there has not been enough time to fire the clay work, I decided to cover them with a glaze of polymer medium, so the sculptures look better and won't break easily. Though the glazing takes time, but I respect the children as 'artists', so they are involved in every single step of the art show.  Why I take so much troubles? because I see children as competent learners.

it's amazing that the children can still remember what they had made weeks ago. One boy asked the whereabout of his lizard, when I let him glaze his dinosaur. A girl recalled that the hair of her clay dancing girl has fallen off, and she asked me whether I had figured out how to glue it back on. They invested time, thoughts and energy into their work, though it seemed they were just having fun. The children are committed artists who took ownership and responsibility seriously.

Marvin, when talking about working with children in art, advised against demonstration because children tended to think following what the teacher has done is more important than original thinking. He sees children as competent artists and are able to come up with ideas and solutions.

The same applies to behavior management. Here's my recent experience. Out of the blue, a new child cried and screamed. We have tried to comfort him and have done all sorts. But we could not figured out what's the issue, because he did not talk and just screamed. The head teacher decided to shift the balance of responsibility back to the child. She calmly told the child that we were willing to listen whenever he was ready. Then she just walked away. After a short while, the child came to me and explained that he had no friends to play with, because a particular child did not play with him. I explained that we can always have more than one friend, and pointed to the children at the playground and asked him to join in. Happily, he went to make new friends.

The head teacher trusted that the child is a competent communicator, and he is able to express his needs and wants once he has calmed down. She understood that children need time to learn to regulate their emotions, and she respected the child's need to do things at his own pace.

Ask yourself what's your image of the child? One who sees children as dependent on adults' help will intervene and 'teach'; and others who see children as competent and confident learner will observe and seize the magic moment to support and facilitate 'learning'.

Superhero Play - More thoughts about the Transformers play

I've done more thinking about my theory of 'princesses and fairies to girls is like Transformers and robots to boys'.

Girls explore the concept of good vs evil through relationships. The princess   tries to find her prince charming; to get along to her evil stepmother and ugly step sisters. Boys explore the concept of good vs evil through battles and wars. While girls narrate their fantasy stories and draw pictures, they express their vision of beauty, kindness and love . Their languages for communication include drawing, writing stories, dancing, and dramatic play. Boys learn kinesthetically and involve themselves in bold actions, physically and actively. Their values are courage, bravery, taking risks, challenging themselves. Their languages include physical body contact, dramatic play.

Just share some observations at kindergarten.

A boy invited me to play, assigning me to be the baddie, I asked what I need to do. He explained that I needed to shoot him, wielding his finger gun. Could he be exploring the feeling of fear? It is sure that he felt safe in this baddie vs the good guy game, there was no real danger. Perhaps he was trying to overcome his fear, his sense of insecurity through 'beating' with the 'baddie', who was a teacher and is supposed to be kind and caring!  I think children don't always feel safe. They are aware of dangers in this world. The child's world is not totally innocent.

Conversely, another boy claimed that he was a baddie, and I'm supposed to chase him and catch him. I had the impression that he was testing the boundaries and limits of acceptable behaviors. He normally follows routines and rules, probably dare not to break the rules, knowing that there will be consequences. So, acting out the role of baddie in his dramatic play could his way of learning about the world?

Well, I will keep my eyes and ears open and to watch and listen for more .

more insights about boys...

More on Creativity

Children's art expression reflects their artistic skill. The question is how do we, as teachers, strengthen children's artistry?

I believe that we need to know a bit about art theory/the elements of art so that we can contribute to children's artistic development. With some knowledge in relation to art, we are able to talk with a child about the color, shape, line, form, texture in their art work. With some knowledge about the principles of balance, contrast, promotion, pattern, rhythm, we are able to give advice, suggestion, additional ideas to children.

I've been busy working with children for the kindergarten art exhibition in a month's time. I consciously incorporated art elements and principles in my discussion with children when they are engaged in art. I'm pleased to assist children getting to know the elements of art and learning how to use them in their creative process.

pinching with fingers adds texture to the clay dinosaur

Meanwhile, my children are working on clay sculpture. I shared my ideas about texture. The children were aware that they could change the surface quality of their clay work to create a 'feel' or 'look' of smoothness, roughness,softness and so on. Also, we talked about various forms of clay work, such as  cylinder, sphere, and pyramid, also drawing attention to the height, width and depth.

Creativity can flourish when it is motivated. So the important event of art exhibition enables me to work closely with children with a strong focus on art. Nevertheless, there should be a balance between extending children's artistic development and letting children to explore freely. It's up to individual teacher to decided when and where to get involved or stay away.

winter celebration

This week, we celebrate winter solstice. It coincides with the Matariki, the New Year celebration of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. A parent kindly came in and helped us making pumpkin soup, a popular winter warmer. A teacher contributed the pumpkin from home. While the adults skinned and sliced the pumpkin, the children seeded and diced the pumpkin. And then, children picked some herbs from the kindy garden for making herb bread to go with the soup.

For the Maori people, Matariki is the time to express gratefulness about the land we live on. So, we thanked the Mother Earth for gifting/giving us the food; and we also said thanks to the parent helper and all children who helped cooking. Lastly, we thanked the teachers who did the dishes. With the coming together of family, children and teachers, we had a truly delicious celebration.

It's good that children learn about the local culture and seasonal celebration, especially to learn to feel grateful about the gifts from nature, which we usually take for granted.

A note about cutting pumpkin, better talk about the safety use of knives first. As pumpkin is hard to cut, children tend to try harder and might not be careful enough with the sharp blade. Softening the pumpkin in the microwave did work. Good luck!
 

Gun play

Lately, there have been some concerns about gun play at my kindy. We have a big group of boys starting kindy, and they have been dominating the playground, running with guns. In the beginning, they used their fingers as guns to shoot, and then some started to create guns using construction materials, like lego, mobile and even wood from the carpentry table. It seemed all the boys are attracted by the play, as they joined in almost instantly when 'threatened' / 'invited' at gun point. However, some got upset when the play became rough with physical contact. It did not go down well with the girls as well. From time to time, the teacher needed to intervene to clarify who wanted to be in the game and who did not.

At my kindy, the teachers agree that gun play is part of superhero play and should not be banned. It's good that we see eye to eye. We are aware that boys enjoy running in big space, outside, so they are naturally attracted to gun play. We also acknowledge that guns and weapons are a feature of some children's home experiences, such as a couple of Dads are policemen and a few families live on the farm or are frequently involved in hunting trips. Combined with information learnt from the media, our children are also acting out the good and bad theme with gun shooting.

While we acknowledge the importance of gun play in children's play repertoire, we need to make sure no one feels threatened. It's about communicating, listening and talking to each other. We encouraged the children to stand up for themselves and say 'no' to the gun player, and we remind the gun players to stop when being asked to. The learning involves social skills and will bring about the development of empathy.

Meanwhile, we are thinking about issuing gun licenses to children, which will be revoked when the child does not listen or show too much aggression. We probably will allotted an area for gun play, so who does not want to get involved could avoid the area and whoever feels too overwhelmed might exit...

I'm researching on gun play, and I have come across an interesting article by Diane Rich. You may also want to have a read...Bang, bang! Gun play and why children need it. Also, about gun license, see file:///Users/teacher/Documents/Kindy%20kids%20get%20gun%20licences%20%7C%20Stuff.co.nz.webarchive

using recycling materials for art

I am asked to look after the recycling area for the kindergarten for a month. Our kindy has a strong focus on the issues of environmental conservation and care. We have a well established resource bench keeping recycling materials for children to use as collage. The materials are carefully sorted in glass jars according to their colors, offering possibilities and inspiring creativity. Open-ended materials allow children choices and independence, which are crucial in stimulating genuine creativity. I believe in offering open-ended materials in the art area, as making something out of such materials requires and builds flexibility, and it develops the ability to focus while the product may remain unknown. Art making then produces a greater sense of competence in children.

So I have been thinking, “What can I do to further extend learning in this area?” “How can I encourage/motivate the children to go further?” “What new materials can I introduce?”
After I have done some research and observation, I am convinced that the  area is working well. What I can do to bring the learning to the next level could probably be topping up the materials and tidying up the area with the children, just that simple! 

Cathy Weisman Topal,  coauthor with Lella Gandini of Beautiful Stuff (1999), points out that children develop power when they build individual relationships with materials. When children have the chance to notice, collect, and sort materials, and when teachers respond to their ideas, the children become artists, designers, and engineers. When children are simply given materials to use without the chance to explore and understand them, the materials do not become part of the their world.

Let me also quote an example from Weisman Topal :
When a child says, “Oh, I need some of that red netting from onions,” he demonstrates that he has experience, knowledge, and a relationship with the material, a connection. It is not somebody else’s discovery; it is the child’s. Whenever a child makes the discovery, it’s exciting, it’s fun. The child is the researcher and the inventor; this builds confidence.

I am hopeful that with guidance from teachers in the exploration of materials, our kindy children are able to accomplish more. I will keep posting...

In the meantime, check out my favourite ECE New Zealand website and get inspiration from Lisa Terreni, a practising artist and an ECE lecturer.

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