Liverpool City Region and beyond Early Years Stronger Practice Hub
Exploring Understanding the world
By Michelle Bennett. (Childminder)
My Name is Michelle Bennett and I am an OFSTED Registered, outstanding childminder which I have undertaken for eleven years. I am based in the Morecambe area of Lancashire and one of the Lancashire leads for childminders in my area. I am the childminding representative for the Morecambe Bay curriculum and have worked previously in numerous Nurseries and as a teaching assistant in a local primary school.
I am very passionate about the work we all do, as we are, in my opinion, very lucky to support education. We develop the young people that come to us, with their learning and understanding of the world that we live in.
I believe that our actions will enable and encourage their knowledge for learning of the prime areas and specific area of learning:
Communication and language, Physical development,
Personal, social and emotional development Literacy, Mathematics,
Understanding the world and Expressive arts and design
I am passionate about the freedom of childminding, and creating awe and wonder every day. For me play is so important in so many ways as this supports children to learn and develop and as a childminder I can plan for the children’s interests as individuals.
In this blog I will share with you how the children gained knowledge of the circus theme and scarecrows and increased their vocabulary from a visit to a local village.
What did our children find on the visit to a local themed experience?
Our visit was to the annual Wray scarecrow display. This is the oldest running scarecrow display in the UK, since 1992 and is run by a committee of local people from the village of Wray, Lancashire. The display of scarecrows has a different theme each year, and most of the local community of Wray will make a scarecrow for this event.
The children that come to me, on the week leading up to the visit did talk about the theme and what they knew about scarecrows and the theme. This year the theme was circus. We had numerous conversations between myself and the children, as well as conversations between child to child, and the topic of the conversations they were having was about what type of activities / acts that you would see in a circus? The vocabulary included: strong man, jugglers, tightrope walkers, acrobats, clowns. Where do the circus people live? What nationality or country do the circus people come from? What is a circus tent made from? How are the scarecrows at Wray made? Who makes them? Why do they make them? Who chooses the theme and what scarecrow they would make if they lived in Wray?
The day of the visit to Wray….
We were armed with cameras for the children to take photos of what they wanted to.
As we were going around Wray there was lots of conversations of what the children could see, what they like and why they liked the scarecrows and displays.
We spoke about favourite colours, the different sizes of scarecrows, the role of the scarecrow made and what their role is in a circus theme.
The children spoke with local people and asked why they had made their scarecrow and what was the reason for the ones they made.
Two of the children that were present had come the last three years with me, and they could remember the last year’s theme (which was magic) and spoke about that, with the current children. They spoke about the previous children that had come on the previous visits and what they liked and where they were now.
While we were having our lunch, the children had conversations between themselves, about which scarecrows were their favourite and why they were.
When we return back home, this continued the theme and children decided to demonstrate Circus skills, drawings, role play games and ask numerous questions.
The following week after the visit….
The week after we had visited Wray, the children were keen to make some scarecrows, so we made smaller ones and a big one, using sticks and decorated them using the fantastic box of crafts I won after attending the recent Stronger Practice Hub conference, which all the children loved using these crafts. The scarecrows where then placed around the garden and the children made their own pretend village scarecrow display. The children began role playing at being the local people of their pretend village.
We also dressed up as scarecrows with a circus theme with items we purchased from local charity shops. When we purchased these items of clothing from the charity shops, we talked about what charity shops do, the reason behind the purpose of the shop. Why local people donate and buy from them, and about sustainability and my children have really been understanding all about recycling.
What does the evidence say for Understanding the world?
Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.
Taken from:
The https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/early-years/evidence-store
references Communication and Language which became part of our focus within the visit as the children spoke to each other, with myself and grew in their understanding of new vocabulary connected with the circus. This resulted in the children knowing more and remembering more through their visit from last year and this year.
Exploring the DfE module 4 on supporting language development in the early years enabled me to appreciate even more the importance of a language rich approach where interactions are promoted. I consider the circus theme visit supported both the children in their learning and development which in turn supported my continuous professional development (CPD) in researching the theme and the learning opportunities for the children in communication and language, physical development and Understanding the world.
The children and I are looking forward to our next visit out to extend learning further within Understanding the world and the other Early Years Foundation Stage areas of learning.
References:
https://www.evertonnurseryschoolandfamilycentre.org/strongerpracticehub
https://www.strongerpracticehubs.org.uk/hubs/nw/liverpool-city-region-and-beyond-eysph
https://wrayscarecrows.wordpress.com/
https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/early-years/evidence-store
https://birthto5matters.org.uk/
https://www.ncfe.org.uk/media/xbcbjrfj/early-years-sustainability-resource.pdf
https://child-development-training.education.gov.uk/about/module-4
https://child-development-training.education.gov.uk/about/module-5
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