Month: November 2013

Transitioning is a big, big process for children, families and educators. Next year, the South Australian government will begin single school intakes each year for all government schools. This has had a huge impact on Flinders, where we have traditionally transitioned children to different buildings in groups each term as children left for school. Next year this won’t be the case, and instead we will be having one very large transition across buildings at the end of January when the school terms starts. We have spent the last twelve months planning for this significant change, thinking about how to make it smooth, informed and positive for everyone involved. The biggest thing we have worked on, and will be continuing to work on over the coming two months before the big move, is getting all the relevant information out there. We have found over time that the more knowledge families have about the environment and educators they will be moving to, the more empowered they are about the process. And the more empowered families are, the more empowered children are. So for this reason we have developed a two pronged approach, balancing visits for children with visits for families. Each building has been (or will be) holding information sessions for families, where they can come and meet the educators, get a feel for the environment, and hear about the programs. This is a time for educators to pass on what to expect and be excited about, and for families to askRead more

This is the final in our series of posts regarding children’s mark making, although certainly not the last time mark making will be discussed! It is important at this stage to look at what the Early Years Learning Framework says about making making, especially in regards to literacy development. The EYLF Outcome 5 (Children are effective communicators) deals specifically with communication. Whilst literacy is implicit throughout the EYLF Outcomes, principles and practices, Outcome 5 is really a celebration of literacy in all it’s many forms in early childhood. When most people think of literacy they tend to think of reading and writing, however this definition is too limiting for early childhood, where there are so many ways to express ideas and make meaning. The field of early childhood education and associated research areas are currently seeking a re-definition of literacy in early childhood in order to more truly reflect the nature of children’s communication techniques. This is not to say that reading and writing are no longer relevant, they are and always will be, but more a response to the rote, teaching to the test techniques that have developed over the recent decades. In early childhood, literacy is more than copying letters. It is making meaning through making marks, it is dramatic play, it is telling stories, it is reading books. Literacy in early childhood is the exploration and increased use of language, be it written, spoken, drawn or enacted. The most obvious of these new examples of literacy inRead more

The last couple of posts have talked about the typical progressions in children’s mark making. We discussed firstly the power of children recognising that they can make a mark, and then children’s progression into circles, lines and ‘seeing something’ in the drawing. The third major stage of children’s mark making is representation, where children begin to draw things that are recognisable to both themselves and others. These representations take on a range of different subjects and may be drawn from life, memory, imagination or experience, or some combination of these. The important thing is that children are drawing with the intent of drawing some thing, something that is recognisable to them and to others. Children will often begin exploring representational drawing by drawing people or faces. This may be because circles resemble faces (developmental theory), or it may be because children want to draw what is most important to them, the people around them (social constructionist theory). Whatever the motivation, children often begin experimenting with the face, the body, the limbs. Typically it starts with a disembodied face, then perhaps arms and legs may be attached to this face. Next children seem to realise that arms aren’t actually directly attached to faces, but to the body, and a second circle or line may appear to represent the body. The important thing to realise in these early stages is that children do not think arms and legs are attached to heads, but that they are breaking the body down into the mostRead more