Tag: preschool circle time

A Visit to Resource Rescue: Exploring Sustainability and Loose Parts Theory

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

My early childhood education students and I are at the Resource Rescue, and it’s a mixed bag! Some feel like kids on Christmas morning, stuffing their bags with all sorts of materials, while others are a bit puzzled and unsure why we’re here. But slowly, they’re starting to get into it. This visit is a great way to show an important part of modern education: the value of recycling centres. These places not only help with sustainability but also boost creativity and learning using open-ended materials.

Where it all started: Remida Centres in Reggio Emilia

Remida Centres are part of the Reggio Emilia educational approach in Italy, which focuses on promoting creativity and sustainability in education. These centres are named after the mythological figure King Midas and serve as a hub for repurposing industrial waste into educational materials. Here’s what you need to know about them:

  1. Origin and Purpose: Remida Centres were founded in the 1990s as part of the Reggio Emilia philosophy of education, which emphasises creativity, collaboration, and the environment. They aim to transform discarded materials from factories into resources for creative education.
  2. Materials: These centres collect a wide range of materials such as textiles, plastics, metals, wood, and other industrial offcuts. These materials are cleaned, sorted, and made available for teachers, artists, and community members to use in educational and artistic projects.
  3. Educational Role: Remida Centres serve as a bridge between industry and education, fostering a culture of sustainability and creativity. They offer workshops, training sessions, and collaborative projects to inspire innovative thinking and environmental responsibility among children and educators.
  4. Community Engagement: These centres are open to the public, encouraging community members to engage in creative reuse. They also organise exhibitions and events to showcase the potential of repurposed materials.
  5. Why Educators Should Visit: Visiting Remida Centres provides educators with access to a wealth of materials that can inspire innovative teaching methods and creative projects. The centres offer resources for hands-on learning experiences and promote sustainable practices. Educators can also participate in professional development workshops that focus on integrating creative reuse into their curriculum, enhancing their teaching strategies and supporting environmental education.

You can find more information on their website: ReMida.

Reverse Art Truck Inc. in Melbourne, Australia

Reverse Art Truck Inc. (formerly Reverse Garbage Truck Inc.) is a Melbourne-based not-for-profit organisation that has been operational for over 30 years, promoting creative reuse and sustainability. Here’s a detailed overview:

  1. Mission: The organisation’s mission is to promote creative reuse within the community by repurposing industrial offcuts, rejects, and seconds that would otherwise end up in landfills. These materials are made available to educators, artists, makers, crafters, and hobbyists of all ages.
  2. Support and Operations: Reverse Art Truck has enjoyed long-term support from the Maroondah and Casey City Councils and various industries that donate their offcuts. The organisation redistributes these materials to the community, contributing to environmental sustainability.
  3. Community Impact: The organisation has become popular in the community, providing affordable resource materials to thousands of individuals. It aims to educate the public about the benefits of creative reuse, resource conservation, and waste reduction.
  4. Materials and Programs: Similar to Remida Centres, Reverse Art Truck collects a variety of materials such as fabric, wood, metal, plastic, and other industrial offcuts. These materials are available for purchase at affordable prices.
  5. Membership Prices: Reverse Art Truck offers membership options that provide discounts on materials. Membership fees are structured to be affordable, encouraging broad community participation. For detailed pricing, visit their membership page.
  6. Why Educators Should Visit: Reverse Art Truck is a treasure trove for educators looking to incorporate sustainability into their teaching. The diverse range of materials available can support various curriculum areas, from art and design to science and technology. By using these repurposed materials, educators can teach students about the importance of recycling and creative reuse, fostering an appreciation for environmental stewardship. Additionally, the centre offers workshops and educational resources that can help educators develop engaging and sustainable teaching practices.

You can find more information on their website: Reverse Art Truck.

Resource Rescue in Australia (Storykate personal favourite)

Resource Rescue is another organisation in Australia focused on creative reuse and sustainability.

  1. Mission: Resource Rescue aims to save useful materials from landfills by collecting industrial offcuts and surplus materials. These materials are repurposed for use in schools, early learning centres, and by artists and community groups.
  2. Materials and Services: The organisation collects a wide range of materials, including paper, fabric, plastic, wood, and other industrial by-products. These materials are then made available for purchase at affordable prices.
  3. Educational Programs: Resource Rescue offers educational programs and workshops to teach the community about the importance of resource conservation and creative reuse. These programs are designed to inspire innovative thinking and sustainable practices.
  4. Community Engagement: By providing affordable materials and educational opportunities, Resource Rescue plays a significant role in promoting sustainability and creativity within the community. The organisation works closely with schools, community groups, and artists to support various creative projects.
  5. Why Educators Should Visit: Educators visiting Resource Rescue can access a wide variety of affordable materials that can enhance their classroom activities and projects. These materials support hands-on, experiential learning and encourage students to think creatively about resource use. Additionally, Resource Rescue’s educational programs can help educators integrate sustainability concepts into their teaching, providing valuable lessons on environmental responsibility and innovation.

Have a look at their website: Resource Rescue.

What are Loose Parts?

Loose Parts is the name given to loose, tactile materials and everyday objects collected and subverted to serve collectively as a play resource.

Loose Parts are moveable pieces, generally of a disposable nature, that enable players to create and recreate their environments, totems, and locus of play.

loose parts in action

Play that emerges through engagement with these types of unspecified objects is free of expectation and provides opportunities to create play, rather than simply conduct play. In contemporary Australia, humans engage less and less with these types of ambiguous artefacts, and experience reduced exposure to truly self-directed experiences with objects that don’t carry an implied use.

Loose parts have been found to improve the play culture and reduce incidents of antisocial behaviour. They do this by encouraging cross-age interaction, the variation of gross motor movement and reducing sedentary behaviour, and by increasing the variety of play, including dramatic play and self-directed STEM play. Loose Parts increase opportunities for valuable interpersonal and social skills by introducing opportunities for independent negotiation, compromise, resilience, and collaboration… and they’re also a great deal of fun.

Typical Loose Parts Checklist:

  • Netting
  • Cloth
  • Curved wood
  • Small pallets
  • Plastic pallets
  • Traffic cones
  • Core flute sheets
  • Rope and webbing strap
  • Tyres of all types
  • Foam shapes
  • Synthetic grass
  • Sails
  • Barrels of different sizes
  • Large plastic and cardboard tubes
  • Carry-on suitcases
  • Bread crates
  • Milk crates
  • Cushions
  • 15lt water bottles
  • Big bags

Linking to Sustainability and Loose Parts Theory

These organisations align perfectly with the principles of sustainability and the loose parts theory in early childhood education. Loose parts theory is the key component of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), which advocates for the use of open-ended materials that children can move, manipulate, and explore.

By using repurposed materials from these centres, educators can create rich, stimulating environments that promote creativity, problem-solving, and environmental awareness.

The EYLF highlights the importance of sustainability, stating that educators should embed sustainable practices into their curriculum to help children understand and appreciate the natural world. By incorporating materials from Remida Centres, Reverse Art Truck, and Resource Rescue, educators can model sustainable practices and teach children about the value of reusing resources.

Additionally, you can watch my video about Affordance Theory by Gibson on YouTube to learn more about how environments and materials afford various possibilities for action: Affordance Theory by Gibson.

DYI Felt Board

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

Today, we’re diving into the wonderful world of felt boards and exploring how they can transform storytelling for young children. Felt boards are engaging, versatile tools that can spark creativity, boost learning, and make storytelling come alive!

Making your felt board

Making a felt board is a breeze. You’ll need some felt or flannel fabric, a picture frame, and some staples or glue. Simply cut the felt to fit the frame size, secure it in place, and voila – your felt board is ready for storytelling. I buy felt in Spotlight, but you can also get some cheaper offcuts in the opportunity shops – as second-hand stores are called in Australia.

For an extra touch, use markers, stickers, or construction paper to create fun felt cutouts of various shapes and characters. You can also download cool stories on Etsy.

Tales with Felt

Now comes the magic part: using your felt board to weave captivating stories. Here’s how:

  • Introduce your felt characters and set the scene by placing them on the board.
  • As your story unfolds, move the felt cutouts around to illustrate the action. This visual element keeps young minds engaged and following along.
  • Felt boards are fantastic for incorporating songs and fingerplays into your storytelling sessions.

Storytime Example: Five Little Speckled Frogs

Let’s use the classic song “Five Little Speckled Frogs” to illustrate the storytelling magic of felt boards. Here are the felt cutouts you’ll need:

  • A tree
  • Leaves
  • Bushes
  • Rocks
  • Mushrooms
  • Five frogs (of course!)

Sing the first verse and place all five frogs on the felt board. As you sing about the frogs jumping in the pool, one by one, remove the corresponding frog cutouts. When all the frogs have made their splash, sing the final verse.

The Power of Felt Board Storytelling

Felt boards are important tools of early childhood education for a reason.

  • They grab children’s attention and keep them actively involved in the story.
  • Felt boards can be used to teach children about counting, colours, shapes, and letters in a fun and interactive way.
  • They foster storytelling and language development, allowing children to explore their creativity and express themselves.
  • Felt boards are portable and easy to make, perfect for teachers, parents, and caregivers to use at home, in classrooms, or anywhere! I always have a felt board when I teach the class.

Happy crafting and storytelling,

Kodaly method for early childhood educators: a brief introduction

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment

Exploring Kodaly 

Have you ever thought about adding music to your early childhood education and care program more systematically and effectively? Listen up! I will tell you about KODALY METHOD.

Zoltan Kodaly

Choksy, Abramsom, Gillespie, Woods and York (2001) believe that there is a need for a method in the teaching of music. Moreover, the teacher with clear musical foals and an understanding of the underlying principles of each approach is more likely to choose best suited one (p.1).   Choksy et al. (2001, p.2) identify four characteristics of a teaching method or approach. Firstly, it has an identifiable underlying philosophy or a set of principles. Secondly, pedagogy is a unique and well-defined practice. Thirdly, goals and objectives and, finally, integrity, or, in other words, the raison d’etre must not be commercial.  As the differences between approaches to teaching music for my target age group (0-5) are vast, it was not easy to choose one approach. After extensive reading, I have decided to explore the approach of prominent Hungarian musicologist and theorist Zoltan Kodaly (1882-1967).  Kodaly combined well-known teaching techniques (hand-singing, use of rhythm syllables, solfa) with quality folk and art music in a child-centred curriculum where children sequentially developed their skills through discovery (Forrai, 1998; Tacka and Houlahan, 2008; Choksy, 1999).  Researchers describe the Kodaly method as highly sequential, child developmental, based on active music-making, with the ultimate goal of producing universal music literacy, lifelong skills, excellent music ears, and the fullest development of musicianship inherent in all people (Choksy et al, 2001). 

Kodaly believed that music education to be most effective should start at a very young age (Forrai, 1998).  Adopted by Forrai to the kindergarten context, the Kodaly Method of music teaching proved to be effective both in  Hungary and around the world. 

The idea of singing as the basis of learning resonated with me. Likewise, I shared the appreciation of folk songs as a child’s musical mother tongue (Choksy et al., 2001). Kodaly advocated presenting musical skills and concepts from simple to complex, known to unknown (Mason, 2012), taking into consideration the child’s age and stage of development. 

From Kodaly’s perspective, high-quality art music is nourishment, a comforting elixir. It multiplies all that is beautiful in life (Houlahan & Tacka, 2008, p. 19).  For that reason, I started to build up a classical music library that included lively, calming, mysterious compositions. 

My list included:

  • “Anitra’s Dance”
  • “Morning” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt by Grieg
  • “Peter and the Wolf” by Prokofiev
  • “Carnival of Animals” by Saint Saens;
  • “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Rimsky-Korsakov;
  • Gymnopedie No. 3 by Erik Satie;
  • “Swan lake” and “Nutcracker” by Tchaikovsky;
  • “Devil’s Dance” by Stravinsky, to name a few. 

Every day I introduced a piece of music to the children and encouraged them to listen to it during quiet rest time. Sometimes I asked them to reflect on how the music makes them feel, or which kind of music they like best. I also encouraged children to quietly move, walk, slide and dance to the music. 

Implications

The sociocultural approach (Vygotsky, 1978) emphasises the interactive nature of learning. More knowledgeable others play a significant role in children’s development and learning. DeVries discusses intergenerational music engagement as a great example of creating a “community of learners” (Wenger, 2004). Older people have “funds of knowledge” (Gonzalez, Moll, Amati, 2005) and desire to share their experiences and interact with others. 

So such collaboration in musicking is a positive experience for both age groups. I can see the benefits of utilising the musical experience of older people in school and preschool settings. 

I would start with getting to know the families attending the centre and the music experiences they are already involved in. If found, interested volunteers will be invited to participate in classroom experiences of music making, e.g. introducing the musical instrument they can play during circle time. Like reading helpers at Prep, older people can be involved in formal and informal music sessions. That’s when musically educated older adults can participate and get involved. 

7 easy to play circle time games

~ Storykate ~ Leave a comment
Sleeping lions is just one of the games you can play with children during group time or free play on a rainy day.

Here are 7 more ideas 👉

Simon Says – this classic game involves one player being “Simon” and giving commands such as “Simon says touch your nose” while the other players follow the instructions. If Simon says something without starting with “Simon says,” then players shouldn’t follow the command. Another version of this game I like is Yogi Says, which invites children to come up with ONE yoga pose for other children to follow. For example, Yogi says, touch your toes; Yogi says – do a tree pose etc.

Red Light, Green Light – this game involves one player being the “traffic light” and facing away from the other players. When the traffic light says “green light,” the players move toward the traffic light. When the traffic light says “red light,” the players must freeze. The first player to reach the traffic light wins.

Duck, Duck, Goose – this game involves children sitting in a circle while one child walks around tapping each player’s head, saying “duck, duck, duck,” and then finally saying “goose.” The child who was tapped as the “goose” must stand up and chase the “tapper” around the circle.

Animal Walks – have the children imitate different animal walks, such as a bear, elephant, or crab. The children can walk around the room or follow a designated path. I use special “move like animal” cards for that.

Freeze Dance – play music and have the kids dance until the music stops, at which point they must freeze. Repeat until everyone has had a chance to dance.

“The Floor is Lava” is a popular game that can be played indoors or outdoors. The objective of the game is to get from one end of the play area to the other without touching the “lava” (the floor).

Here’s how to play:

Choose a play area: This can be a room in your house, a section of your backyard, or any other designated space.

Declare the floor as lava: All players must agree that the floor is now “lava” and that they cannot touch it.

Create obstacles: Players must use furniture, cushions, or other objects to create a path or obstacle course that they can use to get from one end of the play area to the other without touching the floor.

Start playing: Players must use the obstacles to get from one end of the play area to the other without touching the floor. If a player touches the floor, they are out of the game. The last player remaining is the winner.

“Fruit Salad” is a fun and active game that can be played with children of all ages. Here’s how to play:

Choose your fruits: Before playing, decide on a list of fruits that you want to use. This can include real fruits or fruits made out of paper, foam, or fabric.

Create a basket: This can be a real basket or a designated area on the floor where the fruits will be placed.

Start the game: One player is chosen to be “it” and starts the game by calling out the name of a fruit. All other players must then run to the basket and try to find the matching fruit.

Collect the fruit: The first player to find the matching fruit must pick it up and return to the starting point. They then place the fruit in a separate area, such as a basket or a designated spot on the floor.

Repeat: The player who collected the fruit becomes “it” and starts the game by calling out the name of a different fruit. The game continues until all of the fruits have been collected.

What are your favourite games to play during circle time or outdoor play with children?