Welcome!The purpose of this website is to justify play-based approaches to learning and their role in Early Childhood Education. It will provide specific examples of play-based activities and environments, as well as the corresponding learning outcomes they achieve, according to the Australian National Curriculum and the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF).This site will cover the importance of learning particular skills as young children, and how to facilitate their development through a play-based approach. This includes developing literacy and numeracy as well as fostering children's appreciation for the environment and celebrating cultural diversity.
Play-based approach is central to my beliefs of teaching and learning as I view learning through a socio-cultural and constructivist perspective. Therefore, it is important to me that learning takes place with cultural relevance and sensitivity, in a social context and through active engagement. I am also passionate about children connecting with their natural environment and understanding multicultural perspectives. For more information about my perspective on learning and play-based pedagogy please view my personal philosophy on teaching and learning. |
My name is Kate and I am currently studying Early Childhood and Primary Education at university. I am in my third year of my degree and thoroughly enjoying it. I am passionate about teaching, particularly the Early Years because I feel these years are pivotal as they influence children's entire lives and attitudes toward later learning. For further information about me view my teaching portfolio.
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The child is made of one hundred.
The child has; a hundred languages; a hundred hands; a hundred thoughts; a hundred ways of thinking; of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred; ways of listening; of marveling, of loving; a hundred joys; for singing and understanding; a hundred worlds; to discover; a hundred worlds; to invent; a hundred worlds; to dream.
The child has; a hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
but they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture separate the head from the body.
They tell the child: to think without hands
to do without head, to listen and not to speak
to understand without joy, to love and to marvel only at Easter and at Christmas.
They tell the child: to discover the world already there; and of the hundred; they steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child: that work and play; reality and fantasy; science and imagination
sky and earth; reason and dream; are things; that do not belong together.
And thus they tell the child
that the hundred is not there.
The child says:
No way. The hundred is there.
-Loris Malaguzzi (translated by Lella Gandini)
Founder of the Reggio Emilia Approach
What children can do with the assistance of others might be in some sense even more indicative of their mental development than what they can do alone - Lev Vygotsky