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For placement this unit I was placed at a childcare located in Point Cook called World of Learning. When first arriving to the centre I had to walk through the Point Cook shopping centre and use a lift to take up to the first level where the centre was located. When walking into the centre I was greeted by a lady at the door who was going to be showing me around the place, I could already hear children laughing, crying and singing which gave me some excitement to get into the room and start playing with the children. I walked into the first room which was called the ‘tadpole’ room which was the room I was going to be working in, I could smell food being cooked in the kitchen and I could see big smiles on the children’s faces when they were greeted to me.

I sat down on the floor and started to look around and view the room, it was interesting to see the different spaces the teachers had created in the room. For example there was a corner filled with pillows and pictures of milk bottles where the children could go and lay down when consuming their milk. There were couches located at the back of the room with a shelf full of books where the teachers can read books to the children. There were a variety of other spaces filled with different toys and playground equipment for the children to climb on. Half of the room was filled with beds for the children, where they could go to sleep during the day. The front half of the room was the kitchen and dinning area where the highchairs and tables were for the children when the time came for lunch or a snack.

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How do children learn through sensory activities?

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On the 27th of August, a group of 3 students from ages 1-2 years surrounded the wooden table in the centre of the room. The room leader of the room Natasha filled a plastic cup with child friendly paint in the colour brown, the reason for using brown was because the students were creating their own bear prints for the room.

The purpose of this activity was to get the students to start becoming familiar with paint. Using a brush the children were able to use the paint to colour in the outlined be a print. We has situations where some of the students tried to place the paint in their mouths or onto their bodies. We had to place their hand back onto the page to reassure them that the paint was used on the page.

Student A was sitting at the table ready to start painting, we gave the student a brush which had already been dipped into the paint. At the start the child started to put the end of the brush close to their mouth, we as teachers had to move their hand with the brush away from their mouth and place it onto the paper to demonstrate how the paint transferred onto the paper.

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On the 27th of August, a group of 4 students from ages 1-2 years surrounded a plastic container in the centre of the room. In the plastic container was a small amount of dirt from the outdoor area that Natasha had placed inside.

The purpose of this activity was to see how the children interacted with the material. Each child had the assumption that the dirt was in fact food. When a child would try to place the dirt in their mouth we as teachers would have to move the child's hand away from their mouth and relocate it to the container. This showed the children that dirt isn't food, it is in fact something we can touch and feel. It gets the children thinking about where is came from and what it's used for.

Student B was sitting around the plastic container with the dirt, when first placing their hand into the container to feel for the dirt they seemed confused about the texture of the dirt and how it was wet. Student C did not enjoy the texture of the dirt and decided to walk off while student B was still interacting with the dirt and squeezing it through their hands.

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As an area in the 0-2 year old room was a texture board. This was a board that sat in the right back hand corner of the room. This board consisted of different earthy materials such as water, leaves, bark, paper and cotton buds. Each material was covered with plastic contact which meant the children could touch and feel on top of the plastic.

The purpose of getting the children to interact around the board is to get them to start becoming familiar with earthy materials, things they will come into contact with on the outside of the room. The importance of getting the children familiar with materials from the outdoors is so they are aware of what's outside and how to interact with the materials.

Below I have added an image of the board itself, as you can see it is a board that is on ground level. This means the children can walk over the board as well as using their hands, to feel the texture of each material under the plastic sheets.

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This is a piece of work from ordinary moment 1, student A created this piece of work. It was interesting to see how the child used the paint on the paw print. The understanding of using the paint on the paper was the main focus of the activity which seemed to be understood by student A by noticing the amount of paint on the page.

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I have used a photo of magnets as an artefact, I choose this because it was a material we used in the room to start getting the children familiar with sensory and focusing on how something feels, which relates back to my ordinary moments where the children experienced sensory activities.

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It was surprising to see how the children interacted with the different materials in the room. When the children were faced with paint some tried to place the brush into their mouths while others used it on the paper. This reflects on a child's own personal learning experiences, what they experience outside of the room before coming in. A child may experience paint in a home environment with their family which would give them the knowledge and start to get them understanding what paint is used for. In comparison, when some children used the dirt some tried to place it in their mouth, while others enjoyed the texture of it in their hands. The texture board was a little different because the materials were covered with a plastic contact so the children could use the hands to feel the surface of each material. 'We seek children's verbal responses more than physical reactions, which limits the possibility of engaging and understanding children' (Fincham 2015), at this age it is important to notice that the children aren't actively speaking so any verbal responses are really important to show that the child is learning through the activities presented. 'Children are competent learners from birth because they have the desire and the ability to search for the meaning of life and their own sense of self, as soon as they are born' (Rinaldi 2011)

Using the different materials with the children made me curious as to other materials that could be used in the room to get children becoming familiar with the outdoors. Things such as sand, water, leaves etc can be used with the children in a variety of different ways to start getting them familiar with how to interact with these materials when they leave the room, for example digging in the sand using a shovel rather than trying to eat the sand. 'Children demonstrate that they have a voice, that they know how to listen, and that they want others to listen to them' (Reggio 2011) this is really important when getting students to look at materials in the room, when we as teachings are working to get the children to understand different materials eye contact is important because it demonstrates that they are wanting to listen and wanting to understand.

Within the activities in the room the children were learning a variety of skills that could be used outside of the classroom. All the different spaces in the room serves different purpose from one another to help each child learn physically and visually. For example there was a space in the room that included rubber dice that had a different number on each side using multiple ways to help the children. For number one they wrote 'one' , '1' and drew one solid circle underneath. This then reoccured for each number, used to start getting the children familiar with some numbers. Another example used in the same space was a box filled with shapes, on the lid of the box were cut out outlines of each shape where the children could place the correct shape into the corresponding hole. This starts to teach the children different shapes and starts getting them to recognise shapes outside of the room.

Whilst being in the 0-2 year old room I started to think about the ages I would be interested in teaching in the future. As much as I enjoyed being in a. childcare I have always shown interest in kindergarten or primary school teaching, being in the childcare and having that experience for the past few weeks also helped influence and further my thinking on kinder teaching and the difference in teachings within each room. I can now see from being in a childcare the way the room works and the different routines each child has.

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Fincham, E. N. (2015). Words and Bodies: Reimagining Narrative Date in a Toddler Classroom. In W. Parnell & J. M. Iorio (Eds.), Disrupting Early Childhood Education Research: Imagining New Possibilities. Taylor and Francis. Retrieved from <http://wallaby.vu.edu.au:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=ir00502a&AN=VURR.29894>

Edwards, C. P., & Rinaldi, C. (2009). The diary at the infant-toddler center to record stories of children. The diary of Laura: perspectives on a Reggio Emilia diary (pp. 21–56). St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press.

ISBN: 9781933653525

Rinaldi. (2011). Chapter 13: The Pedagogy of Listening: The Listening Perspective from Reggio Emilia. In The Hundred Languages of Children the Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation (pp. 233–247). ABC-CLIO. Retrieved from http://wallaby.vu.edu.au:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat06414a&AN=vic.b2310960&site=eds-live