Photo 2 - Our Playgroup

Hi again,

I wanted to share our playgroup photo with you all.

  

 Many of our students commence their studies in early childhood without having ever been into or seen a early childhood service.  Therefore we have a registered playgroup on campus, which we operate 5 mornings from 9.30- 11.00am and 3 afternoons from 1.00 - 2.30pm.  Unlike a early childhood service, parents/guardians must stay with the children here.  The playgroup not only gives children some time to interact with other children and make friends, but it also allows for the parents to meet and make friends.

We have a playgroup co-ordinator that oversees the running of the playgroup, but it is our students who plan experiences to offer the children, who set up, welcome children and families and supervise and maintain health and safety.    The benefit of having a playgroup on campus is to allow for our students to apply thier learning in a controlled and supervised environment, before they go out on thier experience placement into a service.   Their learning becomes hands on.   This also assists with building thier confidence and workplace skills, before going out into the workforce.   The children have access to a quiet area, some physical experiences(such as climbing equipment), art, music, role play area(dress ups).  The students are able to observe the children and learn about thier interests and then plan what they will provide in the environment.   We also use this space as a hands-on classroom when playgroup is not operating to allow the students to learn to make paints, goops, playdough, practice using props for reading stories etc.

Photo 2

The respond I´ve got from my first photo, it seems like I should focus on the forest behind our preschool. (Anders, if it is totally incorrect I will of course change photo. Just tell me).

As i wrote in the first picture I called the forest our second classroom. This is the view you meet right behind our house. Four children are on their way to pick autumn leaves from a lot of different kind of trees.

The children get to know our four seasons and we follow the changes. From winter with no leaves, a lot of snow, ice on the pods and less bird song.Then spring with all buds on the trees, the water that is melting and starts to gurgle. Later on summer with all animal activity, leaves on the trees and it´s greenness. Finally autumn when the trees start to lose their colourful leaves and it´s getting colder.

The forest gives the children big opportunities to use all their senses, practise motoric skills, science and so on.

Photo 3

Learning to interact with ICT tools.

 At the picture two children uses an iPad to view images and listen to sounds of animals. For example, they point at a cartoon frog. Then they can se different images of frogs, hear the sound of the frog, and listen to the word "Frog" being read. You can also choose to show the letters "Frog" on the screen. I sit nearby them and talks about what we see. "Oh! thats a frog! How does it sound?"  

A fun way to learn about language and to let the youngest children practise to control an ICT tool. 

Photo 2

This is the view our infant school children meets when they enter our main room. Here we have almost all indoor learning activities and playtime. But here we also eats and sleeps (after lunchtime). We've choosen to have some low furniture and other things for the children who are currently learning to walk to hold and steady themselves against. In the back you can see the shelfs where most of the toys are. The lowest shelf is in reach for the children. At the red carpet we have circletime. At the moment there are eight children in the group, ages 15-20 months.

Photo 1

Hi all,

Sorry I am a little late entering the blogging space - it is end of semester for us teachers, so its been a frantic last few weeks.  I'm sharing with you a photo of my campus. Our campus is quite large spanning over two blocks.   You can see the big green space which we use for many community events and can also bring our students out to do some of the practical skills.

I am a Workplace Trainer and Casual teacher for Early Childhood Education and Care (Children's Services) here at Southbank Insitute TAFE in Brisbane, Queensland.   My main role is as a Workplace trainer -so most of my teaching happens out in Early Education services across the Brisbane region(within a 100km radius of our campus.  These services range from outside of school hour care in a school, to long day care centres and also family day care centres(in home care).   As a workplace trainer we support the learning of students who are trainees; that recieve training in the workplace and external students(or otherwise known as self paced students).  We offer flexible night classes to suupport these students.

We also have on campus students who came into TAFE 5 days a week into full time or part time face to face classes. 

For those classes I teach on campus, we mainly use traditional spaces desk and chairs in a classroom(though quite often I will push all the tables to the side and create a circle space for the students to come together). We are lucky enough to also have a running playgroup, which is also our simulated early education setting. We have an allocated playgroup co-ordinator that oversees this space, however it is our students who run the playgroup.  It is an opportunity for them to put into practice the skills and knowledge that they are learning in thier classes. 


I am looking forward to sharing and learning new ideas from you all. :)

Photo 2

After the hallway where you hang your jacket and put your shoes away, this is the first room you enter.
It's a big room where a lot of our indoor activities take place. Circle time, book reading, construction games like lego and puzzles. A light table to explore different light and shadow phenomenon. Our latest  project is the map of the world with flags attached. We have many children who have another native language and also visit the countries in question from time to time. It's one way of strengthening these children's identity, showing differences among other things. We're getting help from the parents with different words, foods and other things that we all can learn together in a fun way.

Photo 2

When you enter the front door of our building, the first room you get to is the hall. Here is where the children keep their outerwear and shoes. The picture shows our main room, placed directly inside from the hall. In this room we do almost everything - play, eat, rest, experiment and so on...
In the "beargroup" there are 14 children (soon 15), ages 3-5, and besides this room shown above we also have a smaller room mostly used for construction, board games and jigsaw puzzles. We also share one other room with the "foxgroup", where our kitchen is situated.