Celebrating Science Week 2019

It's British Science Week 2019 and a great reminder that science in the early years is one of the best ways to help children find answers to their many 'why' and 'how' questions. 

In order to support children's curiosity and inquisitive minds, we, the adults must develop our own understanding of science and how things work.

Science and technology is an area that needs to be nurtured in our early years and foundation classrooms. Teachers often report that boys become more engaged when they are presented with challenging experiences, such as 'creating something that moves'. In order to do this the children must explore movement, and what makes things move.

Many teachers on my training programmes report that they don't know enough about movement and in particular, axles.  

If this is the case, don't avoid this type of investigation with the children. Invite someone who knows about axles to come and talk to the children. Then you can engage the children in the frenzy of axle making, which will support a much higher level of investigative play.

You will find that boys and girls will become fully consumed in such tasks and that both are more likely to engage in related literacy tasks as a result of their engagement in this stimulating play and investigation.

In my 'World Around Us Through Play' workshops, I address the following issues:

- Overview of how to plan for Learning Through Play - from a curriculum perspective rather than from a play area or theme
- Planning to support the developmental stages and interests of children as opposed to planning for a series of activities linked to a topic
- Examination of the 4 strands within the World Around Us curriculum
- Consideration of how to develop and extend learning intentions from the World Around Us curriculum through play
- Making explicit links to literacy - demonstrating how to extend thinking, learning, talking, listening and writing
- Practical workshop using low cost or no cost recycled materials
- Evalutation of learning