All My Children

When setting targets it is important that they are as specific as possible. Playing ‘nicely’ is far too vague to be measurable. Sharing a toy for a set period of time (anything from one minute at a time up to, say, ten minutes) will be far more useful as evidence of a child’s progress. Simple notes will need to be kept of progress and will provide evidence of what parts of the programme have been least and most successful. Every child is an individual but following a core set of activities during the programme will make it easier to deliver similar interventions to others in the future.

Once the parent interview, staff briefing and target setting have been done the programme itself can be started. All early years settings are different but a sample plan is outlined below. Continue Reading »

This sets out in brief format some ideas you might like to think about when planning a challenging play and learning environment. The way in which you organise this is key to children’s learning and development. Some questions you may ask are as follows.

How can I:

• support and extend learning though planning play activities?
• help children to be spontaneous?
• extend children’s language and communication through play?
• help children make sense of the world around them?
• make children aware of the risks and challenges that (especially the outside) world presents?
• make sure that children experience things in a safe situation?

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