ms_admin_nz, Author at Modern Teaching Blog NZ

03/05/201907/08/2020

How To Incorporate Natural Resources Into The Classroom – Part Two

Natural Resources World With Figurines Pine Cones And Furniture

There are so many ways nature can be brought into the classroom as part of children’s learning, and I shared lots of ideas in Part One of How to incorporate Natural Resources Into The Classroom Many of you really enjoyed the simple and effective ways I have managed to bring bits of nature into my classroom, which inspired me to share more of these ideas. Read on to find out how I incorporate more natural resources in the classroom.

Nature patterns

Can you create a pattern? One of my favourite times to incorporate natural items is during maths. Natural items extend themselves beautifully to teaching mathematical concepts, especially through hands-on learning. Whenever I am teaching my students about repeating patterns, I love presenting them with natural items for them to explore patterning with. In this activity, students were free to use natural materials to create and label their own patterns.

Featured Product:
Flower Sorting Tray

Can you make a leaf letter?

Leaves are just one of the most amazing natural resources to use in teaching and learning because they’re free, readily available and there are a plethora of ways they can be used! A few years ago, I had this learning space set up in my kindergarten classroom as an opportunity for literacy development. We read the book ‘We’re going on a leaf hunt’ and went on our own leaf hunt in the playground to collect the leaves we needed for this learning space. When children engaged with this stimulus, they created letters using the leaves and developed letter recognition skills and their understanding of letter formation.

Featured Products:
Nesting Wooden Trays – Set of 3
Three Way Mirror

Using flowers

Is it just me or does anyone else get really excited when they’re given flowers? And not just because flowers are amazing and incredibly thoughtful, but also because they can be used for activities once you’ve finished enjoying them! One of my favourite ways to use flowers in the classroom is for ‘potion-making’. Simply provide an ‘invitation to create’ for your students with flowers, water, leaves, glitter, bowls, wooden spoons and jars and watch them create and explore. Other activities you can do with flowers include nature-cutting, colour matching, threading and flower pressing.

Featured Product:
Flower Sorting Tray

Counting with twigs

As I mentioned before, I love using natural resources during maths lessons, particularly when we are engaging in hands-on rotations. Counting using one to one correspondence, recognising numerals, and matching collections to numerals are all crucial mathematical skills that are taught in the early years. Students developed all of these skills as they engaged with this activity where they had to select and recognise a number and then make a matching collection to represent that number using twigs. The addition of the tongs enabled students to develop they’re fine motor skills also.

Featured Products:
Tweezers
Natural Wooden Bowls
Hessian Sheets Natural
Matching Wooden Number Discs

Transient art with nature

Have you heard of the term ‘transient art’? Basically, it’s just a fancy term for moveable art – art that is not ‘fixed’. Transient art is continuously evolving and the focus is on the process, not the final product. When children engage in transient art experiences, they are able to manipulate, explore and experiment with materials and let their creativity and imaginations run wild.

Natural resources are perfect for transient artworks because of their open-ended nature. Items that I like using in transient art include leaves, pebbles, gemstones, small pinecones, circle branch cuts, rocks, small twigs, gum nuts and flowers. In this particular transient art experience, my students created artworks inside a frame using nothing but sticks, rocks and leaves. I was amazed at their creativity!

Natural Tree Blocks

These Natural Tree Blocks are my absolute favourite construction resource that encourages children to design, create and build. The blocks are absolutely stunning and are perfect if you’re looking for a straightforward way to integrate more natural items into your classroom.

We use these blocks a lot for both construction activities and in small world set-ups. We have even used them for building on our light-box panel! My students and I particularly enjoy using these blocks in small world play set-ups because their natural look makes the play space more realistic, especially once you add a couple of mossy stones, branch cuts and rocks!

Featured Products:

Wooden Tree Blocks
Bendable Wooden Family
Natural Wooden Living Room
Natural Wood Kitchen
Natural Wood Bedroom
Explore and Discover Light Panel
Wooden Fairytale Figures
Mossy stones – Set of 8
Active World Tray

Leaf crowns

Have you ever used contact paper to create crowns before? If you haven’t, I highly recommend it! It was an activity I learnt at university and I have used it many times in my teaching career because it’s such an easy (and mess-free!) way to make crowns. We made these ‘leaf crowns’ when I taught kindergarten several years ago. Simply stick your leaves and any other collage items you want to the contact paper, fold together, place around your head and voila! Your crown is ready to go!

Creating small worlds

One of the most common ways I incorporate natural items into my classroom is through small world set-ups. Whether it be presenting resources as an ‘invitation to create’ or setting up a small world play tray, I always include natural resources to make it ‘life-like’.

Can you imagine a jungle without trees, leaves and rocks? …Exactly! So by adding these natural pieces, the play space ‘comes to life’ and children are able to use these items in their play. My favourite natural resources to use in small worlds are; rocks, twigs, leaves, branch cut circles for stepping stones, sticks and pine cones. It is always interesting to see how children use these items creatively during their play.

Featured Products:
Flower Sorting Tray
Wooden Australian Trees
Bendable Wooden Family
Natural Wooden Living Room
Natural Wood Kitchen
Natural Wood Bedroom
Natural Wood Tunnel
Natural Wood Slices – Set of 3

Counting with Bud Cones

How sweet are these mini Bud Cones? I fell in love with them the first time I saw them and have been using them in my classroom ever since. A few years ago, I set up this really simple numeracy activity using these bud cones to encourage children to develop their one to one correspondence, counting skills and numeral recognition. In this activity, children were encouraged to make a matching collection using Bud Cones to represent each number. The addition of tweezers enabled children to develop their fine motor skills also.

MTA has lots of different types of sorting trays that could also be used…

Featured Products:
Nesting Wooden Trays – Set of 3
Tweezers
Active World Tray

What is your favourite natural resource to use in the classroom? We’d love to hear from you!

ABOUT HEIDI:
Heidi Overbye from Learning Through Play is a Brisbane based, Early Years Teacher who currently teaches Prep, the first year of formal schooling in Queensland. Heidi is an advocate for play-based, hands-on learning experiences and creating stimulating and creative learning spaces. Heidi shares what happens in her classroom daily on her Instagram page, Learning Through Play. See @learning.through.play for a huge range of activities, play spaces and lesson ideas.

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26/04/2019

Changing Role Of Digital Technology In The Classroom

After teaching in the classroom for the past seven years, I have been fortunate and excited to have moved into the role of Leader of Curriculum & Innovation at my school. This means I no longer have my own class, and allows me the opportunity to work closely with all teachers across our school to unpack the curriculum to design, plan and implement innovative and creative learning opportunities for our students. As teachers, we need to ensure we are designing learning experiences for our students that cover a range of topics and skills to support them for their future. This is what I love.

In this post I will share ways to integrate a variety of digital technologies across the curriculum to support you in designing engaging and meaningful learning experiences. A focus of these lesson ideas is to develop students’ communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaborative skills.

Design and Technologies, in which students use design thinking and technologies to generate and produce designed solutions for authentic needs and opportunities.

Digital Technologies, in which students use computational thinking and information systems to define, design and implement digital solutions.

Junior Primary Ideas (Foundation – Year 2) :

Some of my favourite digital technologies to integrate in the Junior Primary classroom include, BeeBots, Dot & Dash and Cubetto. Each of these robots is very user-friendly, allowing younger learners the opportunity to be introduced to sequencing code while developing their confidence.

BeeBots are small robots that can move forwards and backwards in 15cm increments and turn 90 degrees left and right. They have the ability to remember up to 40 sequences of code.

Dot and Dash are two individual robots that connect via Bluetooth to mobile devices. With a variety of Apps to control these robots, they have ability to manoeuvre around the floor in all directions, sense objects, flash LED lights and record and play back audio.

Cubetto is a wooden cube robot that moves in 15cm increments. Physical blocks are used to sequence code to manoeuvre Cubetto around a grid.

Literacy – Using story books as provocations, have students demonstrate their comprehension of the text by creating particular scenes of the story by coding any of the above robots to move around that scene.

Mathematics – Using the above technologies students develop their understanding of directional language, location and mapping skills.

I have written these other blog posts that explain lesson ideas for the Junior Primary classroom in further detail. Click the following links for more details lesson ideas.

Middle Primary Ideas (Year 3 & 4):
As students’ understanding of Digital Technologies and computational thinking develops, we need to design their learning experiences accordingly. My favourite resources for these classes are Bloxels Builder and Sphero.

Bloxels Builder is a fantastic platform that allows students to be the creators of their own games. Using the free Bloxels Builder app or the physical gameboard, students use their creativity to design a character and game.

Spheros can roll at a speed of up to 7km/h in any direction, spin, flip and change colour. Using the Sphero EDU App students can accurately direct the movement of the Sphero using block code.

Bloxels
Literacy – Students create a game that represents a virtual story.

Mathematics – Using the 13 x 13 grid, students’ creations will demonstrate their understanding of multiplication, fractions, and area/perimeter.

Sphero
Mathematics – Students can create shapes, navigate mazes and obstacles and play games that require them to demonstrate their understanding of angles, length, time, speed.

Upper Primary Ideas (Year 5 & 6):
Upper Primary years students have the ability to apply their learnt skills and knowledge of digital technologies to create solutions to problems. My favourite resources for Upper Primary years are the Micro:bit and SamLabs.

The Micro:bit is a small microcontroller with LED lights, sensors, accelerometer and compass.

SamLabs are wireless blocks and accessories that connect together including motors, sliders, buttons, lights and sensors.

Lesson idea – Using the United Nations Sustainable Goals as a guide, I select two or three goals that link to our unit of inquiry. Students are asked to focus on one of these goals and to create a solution to this problem using either the Micro:bit or SamLabs technologies.

I explore this in more detail (with student examples) in my MTA Blog: Integrating Sam Labs in the Classroom

Whether it be the digital technologies I have highlighted, or any other, technology in our classrooms they should not be seen as something separate, but rather something that is integrated purposefully into student learning experiences. These technologies provide hands-on learning opportunities that allow for students to develop critical thinking, creativity and problem solving.

Featured Products:

Dash & Dot Educational Robots Pack

BeeBots

Cubetto

Bloxels

Sam Labs Classroom Kit

Micro:bit Starter Kit

Sphero SPRK+

Sphero Bolt

How are you using Digital Technologies across the curriculum? We would love to hear from you!

About the Author

Eleni Kyritsis is an award winning teacher from Melbourne. She is the Leader of Curriculum and Innovation at Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar. Eleni facilitates professional learning workshops around the world that focus on unleashing creativity and curiosity in classrooms. You can contact her at elenikyritis.com and @misskyritsis

12/04/2019

How To Incorporate Natural Resources Into The Classroom

Alphabet Wooden Discs Zoom With Teachables Markers And Leaf Border On Grass

For children to gain an appreciation of the natural world, they must engage with nature regularly. Spending time in the outdoors has so many benefits for children and they should be given the opportunity for outdoor learning everyday. Engaging with nature doesn’t always have to be strictly reserved for when children are outside. Continue reading “How To Incorporate Natural Resources Into The Classroom”

29/03/2019

Dash And Dot In The Classroom

Dash Story Telling Ipad Activity On Floor With Child

Dash and Dot robots are a fantastic resource to introduce students to the fundamentals of coding. These interactive robots have the ability to manoeuvre around the floor in all directions, sense objects, flash LED lights and record and playback audio. This functionality allows Dash and Dot to avoid obstacles, sing, dance and respond to voice commands.

Connecting via bluetooth to a mobile device, there are a variety of apps that integrate with Dash and Dot. Each of these apps not only develops students’ programming skills but also key 21st century skills such as creativity, problem solving and critical thinking.

Wonder Workshop, the creators of Dash and Dot, have developed their own range of apps that support and guide students’ learning.

Go App

The Go app allows students to manually control Dash and Dot, similarly to a remote control. This is a great introduction to the robot which allows students to become familiar with its manoeuvrability. Within the Go app, students can control the speed and light display and change the direction that Dash is facing. Sounds can be added, and up to ten voice recordings can be stored for playback.

Wonder App

The Wonder app provides students with a range of challenges that develop their ability to program Dash and Dot. Students can travel through a variety of levelled quests, including the African Grasslands, Arctic Wilderness and Outer Space. Once students complete these challenges, they can begin creating their own worlds.

Blockly App

The Blockly app provides students with challenges to develop their understanding of block coding. They are introduced to conditional statements, loops and sensors. Students can program Dash and Dot to manoeuvre by responding to button inputs and voice commands.

Path App

The Path app, as it suggests, allows students to program Dash to follow a set path. Students can complete a range of set challenges and then create their own.

Six Ways to Implement Dash and Dot in the Classroom

- Location and coordinates
- Measurement
- Number facts game
- Storytelling
- Sounds/ letter recognition
- Excursion reflection

Location and Coordinates

Dash can be used in Mathematics to support students’ learning about location and coordinates.

- Teachers create a coordinate grid on the floor using masking tape or chalk.
- Students program Dash to move to specific locations on the grid.
- Students can program Dash to speak the coordinate when it arrives there.

Measurement

Students need to provide Dash with specific distances to move forwards, backwards, left, or right to manoeuvre him around the floor.

- Students draw a maze on butchers paper.
- Alternatively, students can use on-hand materials in the classroom such as blocks, straws, string, books etc to create a maze.
- Students program Dash by calculating the distance and angle of each of Dash’s movements to avoid obstacles and successfully complete the maze.

Number Facts Game

- Students create a grid on the floor with numbers in each square that represent the answers to number facts.
- Using Dash and Dot, students program Dot to say different number facts.
- When Dot says a number fact, students program Dash to move to the correct answer on the grid.

Alternative number facts game:

- Have two students or groups working on the grid at the same time.
- Groups take it in turns rolling two ten-sided dice. (You can always add or remove dice depending on student abilities.)
- Students add the numbers together then program Dash to move to the correct answer.
- Once they get to the correct number they place a kinder square over it to claim it.
- The group with the most coloured squares wins. If the answer is already covered, the group misses their turn.

Storytelling:

- Students recreate stories they have read by programming Dash to move through the story.
- At each major point in the story, students can record their own voice to give important information.
- Example: The Three Little Pigs. Dash plays the character of the Wolf. Students create the scene and program Dash to move around making huffing and puffing noises before he blows the house down. Dot can be used as one of the Three Little Pigs stuck in a house, who can also retell parts of the story.

Sound and Letter Recognition:

- Students or teachers write letters or sounds on kinder squares.
- Students then scatter the kinder squares around the floor.
- The teacher says a letter or sound.
- Students program Dash to move to the letter or sound that they hear.

Extension activity:

- The teacher says a word, for example, ‘mat’.
- Students program Dash to manoeuvre to all three letters.

Excursion Reflection

- Example: As part of a unit of inquiry, Year 1 students explored their local shopping strip.
- On returning to school, the students recreated the shopping strip out of cardboard boxes.
- The students program Dash using directional movement to measure distances to manoeuvre around the shopping strip.

Featured Product: Dash & Dot Educational Robots Pack

How are you using Dash & Dot in Your classroom? We would love to hear from you!

About the Author

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25/03/2019

Increasing Risk Taking In The Classroom

No doubt we have all experienced the anticipation; waiting patiently, tapping a red pen, possibly even nervously biting our nails, eager to tick or cross our answers to that test. Whether it’s the weekly trivia quiz or a Year 5 spelling exam, all of us have experienced the desire to find out whether or not our responses were accurate.

Continue reading “Increasing Risk Taking In The Classroom”

15/03/2019

Incorporating A Digital Reading Program Into My Primary Classroom

Gary is a year 3 teacher who works in a large public school in Sydney which has over 1000 students. He has been teaching for 20 years and has used Wushka successfully with years 3, 4 and 5 over the past two years. Gary currently uses Wushka in a co-teaching learning space with 60 students. Hear from Gary below as to his experiences with Wushka.

We’ve been using Wushka at our school for two years now and it has reaped very positive results for our students. It has increased student engagement with reading and teachers have noticed a transfer of this engagement into the classroom. Students love the accessibility of it and the freedom to choose from a variety of texts at their own level.

As a teacher, I’m able to control the levels of reader available to each student. The texts are organised into coloured reading ‘boxes’ and I can assign these to particular students or to different reading groups. The texts are organised from levels 1 to 31+ in line with familiar reading levels which is great for both beginner and experienced readers.

Each text comes with comprehension questions, lesson plans and other resources. These are very helpful in organising lessons for guided reading. I particularly like the discussion cards that engage students in a deeper analysis of the texts they have read. These are great for independent activities in the classroom.

In a school with over 1000 students, levelled readers are in high demand. Wushka has allowed school-wide access to over 600 readers, saving us a lot of expense that would have been spent in replacing or adding new readers to our collection. It gives us access to a range of texts that we would never otherwise have been able to afford.

We use Wushka for our home reading program and guided reading, and we also incorporate the texts into our Project Based Learning and STEM learning. We love the filter function, which allows us to search for texts by topic, comprehension strategy, genre or text type. It’s easy to find texts on a particular subject for students at all reading levels and texts can be displayed on the interactive whiteboard for whole-class, modelled reading sessions.

One of the functions that has really helped in our school community, which is almost 100% EALD (English as an Additional Language or Dialect), is the read aloud function. This lets students hear the books being read to them which might otherwise be impossible due to English not being the first language of parents in the home. The value of this function in improving reading fluency is immeasurable.

The other great advantage of Wushka is the opportunity for teachers to access data around their students’ reading. Teachers can see how often students are reading, how long they are reading for and whether they are understanding the texts they are reading by looking at quiz results.

As a school of the future we love the flexibility of the Wushka reading program and with technology becoming a greater part of school learning environments we find that it meets our needs extremely well. We no longer have to carry bundles of readers across a very large school site.

The training and support offered by the Wushka team has been extremely helpful. As part of our Wushka subscription, we have held several workshops in upskilling our teachers in the various aspects of the program. I would highly recommend Wushka because of its cost effectiveness, versatility and ease of use.

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22/02/2019

What Does STEM Mean In Early Childhood?

Beads On Maze Multicoloured Beads On Wire In Styrofoam

The term ‘STEM’ is often a grey area for educators and parents alike. What exactly is it? How do I incorporate it into my curriculum planning or home? What resources do I need to help me do this?

Well, STEM refers to the integrative exploration of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The focus on STEM in early childhood has grown dramatically over the years with the rise of technology and an increased understanding of the importance of these areas for life and careers of the future (think problem solvers, explorers, creative thinkers. Think building resilience in kids to create resilient adults).

So how do you incorporate STEM into your little one’s world? You may be surprised to realise that you are probably already doing this every day. Have you ever cooked with your child at home or with children in the classroom?

Think about all of the STEM moments that were happening:

Adding a cup of flour / oil / water = Maths (capacity and volume)
Adding an ingredient one by one, such as three eggs = Maths (numbers, counting and one-to-one correspondence)
How are we going to get the eggs out of their shell? = Engineering
Mixing different ingredients and observing the outcome = Science
Using senses to see, touch, smell, taste and hear = Science
Was the recipe from a book or was it from an online source? = Technology
Placing the mixture in the oven and watching it rise = Science
How many cupcakes did we make? = Maths

Think about when your little one has a bath. Are there toys that sink and float? What about a cup that they fill up and pour out. These are all STEM moments.

Do you go on nature walks and explore? Play with loose parts and make patterns or create structures? Do you value box construction play? Do you have blocks in your classroom or home? STEM moments! Have you seen children looking for butterflies? Counting petals on a flower? Building a cubby house? STEM moments!

Do you have toys with magnets? Have you ever built a marble run? Do your children build with Lego? STEM moments! Have you ever tried oobleck / playdough / kinetic sand? Do you have a tinker table in your classroom or home? Compost bin or worm farm? Light table? Torch?

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STEM! STEM! STEM!

Often, without us even realising, the intertwined relationship of these disciplines is occurring and children are learning and developing through play. Have you ever observed a child building a block tower? They will often count the number of blocks used and measure the height of the tower against themselves: “The tower is taller than me!” That’s engineering, maths and science entwined right there.

Whilst STEM is occurring naturally within a quality early childhood classroom setting through open-ended play opportunities and resources, STEM based activities may be intentionally planned at times too. For example, after reading The Three Little Pigs story, children might be encouraged to try and build a house of their own design from sensory materials such as recyclables / loose parts / blocks that can withstand the force of the wolf’s huff and puff (aka a fan). Beebots are often a part of schools’ curriculum planning and this may take on not only a coding role but also additional STEM elements.

Recently, we adopted silkworms into our home as ‘simple pets’ (full disclosure – 100 silkworms who are extremely hungry and need to be fed mulberry leaves constantly are not as ‘simple’ as I had anticipated). The language and learning around this was phenomenal and probably the reason you will find silkworms in a lot of Kindergarten classes around August and September every year.

Not only was it a great science-based project but we also spent time looking online and in books for information on how to care for them. We counted how many we had and added numbers as new silkworms were cocooning each day, we spoke about how we could help them find a space to cocoon (as they need to spin off something, usually a corner – our solution was to cut cardboard tubes into small cylinders and place around the box for the silkworms to cocoon inside) and so much more.

During the early years, children spend much of their time playing, however in an early learning environment the planning, scaffolding and intentional teaching that occurs is shaping those little minds and they are actually LEARNING THROUGH PLAY.

The blocks aren’t out only for fun. The opportunities for STEM learning while playing with blocks are endless. Not only are the children developing mathematical skills through engineering with 3D shapes, developing an understanding of quantity, number sense, spatial awareness and geometry, block play also develops science skills through the properties of materials, stability and balance.

Playing with loose parts offers children the opportunity to explore different materials, build and construct, use their imagination, count and make patterns, test density and stability and so much more.

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STEM in early childhood is occurring every day through observation, exploration, investigation, experimentation and most importantly – PLAY. “Play is not a break from learning. It is endless, delightful, deep, engaging, practical learning. It’s the doorway into the child’s heart!” ~ Vince Gowmon

How do you Incorporate STEM into your classroom ? We’d love to hear from you!

About Brea

Brea Brand is an experienced teacher who is currently completing her Master of Education in Early Childhood. She has extensive experience working with young children, from working in schools, childcare centres, as a nanny and tutor as well as with her own three young children. Brea is passionate about learning through play and the social and emotional development of young children. Follow @wonder.and.awe for play and learning inspiration for both school and home.

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12/02/2019

Sensory Play For Children…. Why Is It Important?

Sensory Integration With Shells Toddler Arms Resting In Frame

Children gain information from the world around them from the moment they are born. They use innate reflexes to respond to external stimuli such as the sucking reflex to feed. As they grow and develop, babies and children continue to process and respond to their environment using their senses. Often we see very young babies using their hands and mouths to explore the texture of objects that they come into contact with. It is often underestimated how valuable these early interactions can be for children. As they touch and explore sensory objects, these young children are learning about texture, shape and the physical properties of these objects. They begin to distinguish one object from another as they develop their earliest skills in classification and differentiation. This begins to make us realise that children’s earliest interactions with the resources we offer are creating the foundations for future learning.

Early Years

What is happening for a baby is much more complex than what we perceive. When a toy is held in front of a baby they are using their senses to try and determine not only where that item is in space, but also where it is in relation to their body. They develop the understanding that they have arms and legs to reach for and grab items that can then be placed in their mouths to determine if they are hard, soft, smooth or rough. They use repeated cause and effect as they practise and develop the ability to see, interpret information and then respond appropriately. As they practise these skills, their attempts at grabbing and holding objects become increasingly successful.

Sensory Integration

As children grow, these interactions begin to become more complex. The addition of language enables children to expand their vocabulary and develop the ability to describe what they see, feel, touch, hear and taste. Words such as cold, fluffy, smooth, soft, rough and hard all enable children to further differentiate between objects and materials. They begin to develop greater sensory integration, meaning they are able to understand and respond appropriately to sensory input. This is a tricky skill that becomes increasingly developed as children grow. The more exposure children have to sensory experiences early on, the more developed their sensory integration will be.

Sensory Experiences

Did you know that sensory experiences are calming for children? If you speak to psychologists, occupational therapists, play therapists and the like, you will discover the amazing impact that sensory experiences can have for children with additional needs. However, in saying that, all children benefit from the same experiences and this can play a large impact on the development of self- regulation, an increasingly common challenge in early childhood today. Through engaging in sensory experiences, children are gaining an adequate amount of sensory input in order to obtain an optimum sensory, or regulated state. This state means that we do not become either over or under-stimulated by sensory input, feeling calm and ready to respond effectively to the world around us. In order to understand this further, let’s have a look at what exactly are the sensory systems.

Sensory Systems

Did you know that there are actually seven sensory systems? We all know the usual five senses of hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch, however there are an additional two senses that can affect the way in which we respond to our environment, the vestibular and proprioceptive senses. The below table gives us a brief description of these seven senses.

VISUAL	Our visual system helps us to see what we need to see and filter out what we don’t need to focus on. This system is often used for tasks such as finding items in a busy room, attending to school or work tasks, reading books and matching or sorting items in our daily lives.
TACTILE	These sensory receptors are located in our skin and mouth and tell us when we’ve touched something and what it is that we’ve touched as we discriminate between its size, texture, shape and temperature. This sense also helps us to respond to light touch (which can often be alerting, or alarming for some, such as a spider crawling on our arm) and deep touch (which can often be calming such as deep pressure or massage).
AUDITORY	This is not only being able to hear, but to hear accurately as we determine which sounds are important and those that should be tuned out. The auditory system is a survival system, and when auditory processing is disordered, it can make people feel disorientated, disorganised and overwhelmed.
GUSTATORY	This sense provides information about the different tastes of foods and sends these messages to the brain. For example, biting into a peach which we did not predict to be sour can be recognised by the brain and signal to us that it is not ready to eat.
OLFACTORY	This is our sense of smell and this also influences taste. This sense is affiliated with the part of the brain responsible for emotional memories.
VESTIBULAR	This is our sense of balance and motion and is located in the inner ear. This sense is activated through the movement of our head, and is also being increasingly activated by the downward force of gravity to give us a sense of where we are in space. It provides information about speed and direction of movement. Vestibular input can produce a variety of responses such as calming, organising, alerting or disorganising depending on the type of movement and sensitivity of the individual.
PROPRIOCEPTIVE	This is our sense of body awareness. It lets us know where a certain body part is and how it is moving. This system helps us understand how much force we are using and whether we need to use less or more force in order to successfully complete a task. It is activated any time we push or pull on objects as well as any time the joints are compressed together or stretched apart (such as jumping up and down or hanging on the monkey bars). Proprioceptive input tends to have a calming and organising effect on the body, particularly when feeling overstimulated or overwhelmed.

Sensory Materials

Children learn about themselves and their world by engaging closely with materials. The more interaction a resource can offer, the more possibilities for learning. While many children have different learning styles and respond differently to a range of learning environments, we know that most children not only gravitate towards, but also highly benefit from, sensory experiences. Hands-on learning is becoming increasingly spoken about not just in early childhood, but also throughout children’s schooling years. This is due to the fact that children can become better able to retain and understand concepts when they can use hands-on learning and investigation. They can use their own cognitive processes to experiment with and make sense of the information they are receiving. We know that the more senses a child can use, the greater chance they have of being able to interpret, make sense of and retain information. Not only can children see what is happening but they can physically feel and touch the process as it occurs. They begin to realise that what they do and how they manipulate objects can have an impact on their world. Below are some wonderful examples of sensory experiences that provide learning opportunities for children.

Mirrors

These mirrored discs for example, can offer a child the ability to explore shape, identify cool and smooth textures, use trial and error to experiment with the movement and stacking of the shapes, and also observe their own reflection as part of their journey into self identity. The wonderful shape and properties of these discs mean that children can explore light and reflection as they angle, rotate and manoeuvre them.

Sand & Water Play

Mud, sand and water play, aside from being amazing natural and easily resourced materials, offer countless opportunities for learning. Children can use their senses to touch, mould, manipulate and experiment with this resource.

Numeracy Skills

When filling and emptying containers, they build upon mathematical concepts of full and empty, while also learning about size, shape and the properties of each of these materials. This is not to mention the language and social skills that can be obtained when engaging in these experiences with their peers.

Clay & Dough

Clay, playdough and other types of dough are very popular among children and offer a medium for creative expression. Children can manipulate and explore their malleable properties as they create shapes, objects and representations. They can often be used and reused as children can use trial and error, while also developing persistence to achieve the desired outcome. Younger children enjoy the calming sensation, while also building upon and developing their fine motor skills. Older children apply cognitive thinking as they create a shape and consider transferring thoughts and ideas into three-dimensional creations. They contemplate how long, how many sides, whether rounded or straight and then further consider characteristics and attributes when creating real-life objects such as animals or people.

Natural Elements

Natural elements are one of the greatest opportunities for children to develop their sensory dispositions. Not only are these resources sustainable, they also offer such a wonderful range of possibilities. Creating natural sensory trays for children of all ages invites them to build connections to nature and allows us to bring the outdoors inside. Children can notice and become familiar with the differences between a dry and fresh leaf and what this indicates in the natural world. They can explore the supple properties of a flower, from the petals to the stem and see for themselves the characteristics which may have been explored in books or through discussions.

Learning Opportunities

There are many other resources that offer amazing sensory play for children as the list is endless. Offering children opportunities to engage with sensory materials on a regular basis allows children not only to develop self-regulation, but also develop greater sensory integration. In a world where we need to recognise the role of hands-on learning as a key component in education, it is now more than ever that we need to understand why sensory play is important for children.

What sensory materials do you offer your children to provoke wonder, ignite curiosity and stimulate the senses? We’d love to hear from you!

About Mel

Mel Ishkhanian has over 15 years experience in the early childhood industry and is currently employed at Explore & Develop Narraweena. She has a bachelor degree in Early Childhood education and engages in frequent professional development in order to keep up to date with current theory and research within the industry. As Educational Leader of the service she applies current research into practice and strives to connect the service to both the local and wider communities. With a passion for treating children as capable and confident beings, she applies theories of play, the 8 ways of Learning Pedagogy and is also influenced by the Reggio Emilia principles. Check out regular social posts by Mel @explore&developnarraweena.

25/01/2019

Positive Ways To Manage Playground Politics

As teachers, we play many roles. Educator, counsellor, first aider and, occasionally, referee when children come into conflict with one another.

Playground politics can be tricky.

There are always at least two sides to every story and it can be hard to work out what went wrong and how to help children fix it.

It can get even more complicated when parents and carers get involved as well. Continue reading “Positive Ways To Manage Playground Politics”

16/01/201915/04/2024

Starting A Worm Farm

Kids Adding Vegetable Scraps To Worm Farm

A worm farm is a great way to recycle organic waste that would ordinarily end up as landfill. This organic waste would include food ‘waste’ (such as food scraps and from school canteens or childcare centre kitchens, lunch box leftovers etc.) and garden waste (such as leaf debris, weeds, plant trimmings etc.) Continue reading “Starting A Worm Farm”