It’s exciting to reflect on the year gone by not only to support forward thinking for the new year, but also to appreciate precious moments and memories. My Top Nine Photos on Instagram of 2017. Handle: meljmaxwell Spatial Reasoning Provocation A clear plastic table cloth with Sharpie paint pen shapes drawn on it invites children… Read More Best Nine Photos of 2017 on Instagram
Christmas is over and the decorations are put away, but what are you going to do with your Christmas tree? Why toss it when you can recycle it? Perhaps you could cut up some tree cookies and tree blocks and offer them to children to play and learn with. Insurgent Curriculum posted this awesome pic on their… Read More Snowmen Made from Recycled Christmas Trees
At the beginning of every year my teaching partner and I incorporate lots of name recognition, construction, and writing provocations to engage children. Here are some of our favourites so far this year. This invitation to play begs for children to think about constructing names, patterning, and measurement. Some children have added dice and used their… Read More 6 Playful Name Provocations
Since the screen-obsessed child began to dominate much of western culture many parents have been struggling with how to foster the creative play they once experienced as children in the forest playing with sticks. In Kindergarten classrooms across Ontario, Canada, educators have begun connecting children with nature by bringing natural materials into the classroom for… Read More Hey Educator, What’s This Loose Parts Play You Keep Talking About? A Parent’s Guide to the Benefits of Loose Parts Play
Our youngest learners have spent many hours playing with this woodland forest small world play sensory tray. What’s more than natural materials and loose parts for open-ended play lies an opportunity to think more deeply about literacy and numeracy. Naturally, adults would see this provocation as an invitation for children to share stories with lots of oral language… Read More Woodland Forest Small World Play (Math and Literacy embedded in Play)
It’s not just another classroom with neutral colours, stones, and baskets. We live in Muskoka and our environment as the third teacher reflects our culture of living and how we encourage children to care for our forests. We spend lots of time exploring forests using a forest-school type approach: playing with bugs, building dens, and inquiring about… Read More A Reggio-Inspired Classroom Design – Kinderland Tour Part 2
This playful open-ended provocation has various natural loose parts and colourful Easter items that begs to be played with. These intentional materials were chosen to encourage math play, specifically numeracy and measurement. We like putting dots on some of our loose parts as well as numerals as it encourages subtilizing, but what’s more, even if a… Read More Easter Math Play
We love having one table designated for loose parts play. It’s an opportunity for our learners to create, collaborate, and design. The children were really enjoying reading Eric Carle books and using them as inspiration to create with loose parts. The gems were sorted by colour so the children would be intentional about their selection. The process… Read More Loose Parts Art Inspired by Illustrators
Welcome to Shapeland! Kinderland has been excited to build Shapeland using 3D shapes with blocks, tree blocks, rocks, and cut up pool noodles with long tooth pics and skewers. Our early learners began exploring shapes through play and then their own inquiries. They added materials as they wanted to use them. This constructivist approach enabled our… Read More Pool Noodle Shapeland
Our early learners showed interest in bird’s nests. The children had been building birds nests in the sand outside and we thought we’d bring that interest indoors for them to explore further. So, the DECE (Designated Early Childhood Educator) in our team collected materials from our room to create this lovely provocation. The children loved it.… Read More Bird’s Nests Provocation
inspired by play 