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Emergent literacy in making play dough

(Learning outcome 3.1 Offer a careful interpretation & analysis of children's early literacy/numeracy skills and interests)

For my month long placement, I had the opportunity to work at a community children’s centre.  On this particular day the group I was observing were asked to sit in a circle while they listened to their educator. The children were between the ages 3-5.  That morning they would be making play dough, the educator held a piece of laminated paper.

 “Can anyone tell me what this is?” she asked. 

“It’s a recipe!” the children answered

“And what does a recipe do?”

“It tells us how to make something.”

“How?”

“You read the recipe and it tells us what to do.”

The students were fully engaged and eagerly participated in making the play dough. Referring to their recipe they took turns to add the ingredients and then mixed them together to make the dough. The children all agreed that the play dough would be colored yellow.

Most of the children in this group exhibited signs of emergent literacy. They showed understanding of key literacy and numeracy concepts and processes by identifying the function of a recipe as a means of instruction on how to make play dough. They used measuring cups and spoons to measure the exact amount of ingredients needed. They were able to identify a recipe and know its function.

This clip show how the little girls' emergent reading is taking shape. She reads (pretends to) though the book "Cat the cat Who is that".  Most of the text are rhyming words and she looks to the illustrations to help her identify the words.  There are instances where she has memorised the text and she finished the sentences when she asks for help.

Yellow and blue make green

Learning outcome 1.1 Clearly describes how the concepts are connected to & supported by social relationships & contexts    

Learning outcome 1.2 Explains how young children’s literacy & numeracy learning can be socially conveyed through their behaviour, feelings or approach  

While observing Tommy (4year old) at the play dough table I noted that he was mixing the two available colours together. I asked him what he was doing and he informed me that he was going to making green play dough by mixing the yellow and blue play dough together. He had been at the paint station the previous day and had played with different colour paints. From this experience Tommy was able to conclude that when he mixes different colours he would come up with another colours. He also knew that depending on how much blue or yellow were used different shades of green would result. Light green, dark green and lime colours were observed when different amounts of yellow and blue play dough were combined.  

Sand tray name writing

Learning outcome 3.1 Offers a careful interpretation & analysis of children’s early literacy/numeracy skills & interests  

Expected learning outcomes

·Children are effective communicators·  Identity.  Help children to become familiar with their names

Context for the session

·    During group time the other week. Children practices writing their names

·   Children showed varied range of fine motor skills and ability in writing their names and familiarity with letters

Session focus

·      Materials

o   Shallow trays

o   Thick pencils

o   Sand

o   Laminated cards with children’s name

·      Space and pre-session organization

o   Sift sand from sand pit

o   Clear table to place sand trays and name cards

Teach and Learning Strategies

·      Remind children how the practiced writing their names the other week.

·      Have children look thru the laminated name cards for their names.

·     Show children how to use the sand trays to practice writing their names by coping from their name cards.

Reflection and evaluation   

·      The children were familiar with the materials so it did not take long to show them what to do with the sand trays and pencils.

·      Several children played with the name cards and hid them in the sand.

·      After several attempts the children reverted back to scooping and pouring the sand, as they would in the sand pit.

·      Others just looked for their names but made little attempt to write in the sand.

·      So the children did end up doing some writing, reading, hunting, digging and scooping.

·      More than a little sand ended up on the floor and tabletop.

·      The next day the sand boxes were taken out again and the children did some more writing, reading, hunting, digging and scooping.